Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Pet Diet Real Food for Cats: 50 Vet-Approved Recipes to Please the Feline Gastronome Veterinarians Guide to Natural Remedies for Dogs : Safe and Effective Alternative Treatments and Healing Techniques from the Nations Top Holistic Veterinarians The Consumer's Guide to Cat Food; What's in Cat Food, Why It's There, and How to Choose the Best Food for Your Cat Fat Cat, Finicky Cat: A Pet Owner's Guide to Cat Food and Feline Nutrition

Talk:Torture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

As a starting point for better defining torture, here is what the UN Convention Against Torture says: (taken from http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html )

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

I would suggest to take out the whole reference re Execution. While death is obviously one of the outcomes of torture there appears to me a major difference between "death in captivity" and a formal execution based on a court judgement.

I would also suggest to put in the complete UN convention definition. It is not really a major debating point what constitutes torture. The definition is clear enough and courts around the world have also drawn the lines quite clearly. The controversy - as far as it stands - is more concerned with whether there are instances when torture would be a legitimate.

I will try and continue to update this section

Refdoc

I'm not convinced about the definition being at all clear and uncontraversial - for instance, this news article referenced on Current events contains the following statement:

The Geneva Conventions outlaw the torture and execution of prisoners. But rulings by the European Court of Human Rights found that sleep or food deprivation, sustained noise, forced standing and sensory deprivation (called "hooding") are not considered torture.

Now, I don't know how accurate that statement is, but I don't think anyone from Amnesty International would have quite the same definition, do you? The Geneva definition suffers because it uses the word severe to qualify pain or suffering, which is actually a very vague term.

- IMSoP 05:07, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Pet Diet		Real Food for Cats: 50 Vet-Approved Recipes to Please the Feline Gastronome		Veterinarians Guide to Natural Remedies for Dogs : Safe and Effective Alternative Treatments and Healing Techniques from the Nations Top Holistic Veterinarians		The Consumer's Guide to Cat Food; What's in Cat Food, Why It's There, and How to Choose the Best Food for Your Cat
Fat Cat, Finicky Cat: A Pet Owner's Guide to Cat Food and Feline Nutrition