Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 2-2017
Journal / Book Title
HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
Abstract
The use of torture in the War on Terror reinvigorated a longstanding debate about how to prevent such human rights violations, and whether they should be criminalized. Using US history as a case study, this article argues that the criminal sanction is likely to be more successful in preventing such abuses than many other often suggested methods. Analyzing thousands of pages of released government documents as an archive leads to the counterintuitive finding that torturers were often deterred, at least momentarily, by fear of criminal liability, and would have been successfully deterred if not for the lack of prior prosecutions.
DOI
10.1353/hrq.2017.0007
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Laguardia, Francesca, "Deterring Torture: The Preventive Power of Criminal Law and its Promise for Inhibiting State Abuses" (2017). Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 30.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/justice-studies-facpubs/30
Published Citation
Laguardia, F. (2017). Deterring Torture: The Preventive Power of Criminal Law and its Promise for Inhibiting State Abuses. Human Rights Quarterly 39(1), 189-212.