Perception, practice and proximity. Qualifying threats as psychological torture in international law.

Abstract

International law prohibits threats made by state officials when amounting to torture or other forms of ill-treatment (hereafter "ill-treatment"). Yet, there remains a pressing need to better distinguish in practice the threatening acts which amount to torture or illtreatment (and as prohibited) from acts which fall short. Responding to this need, this article reviews the literature and offers a discussion towards functionally conceptualising and, in turn, qualifying threats as torture or ill-treatment. Following a systematic full-text search of databases with the relevant Englishlanguage keywords, journal articles, NGO reports, case-law and UN documents were selected based on their relevance for conceptual, evidentiary and legal critique of threatsas- torture. Prevailing legal reasoning around threats-as-torture centres on the words "real, credible and immediate", with inadequate explication as to their application. To this end, this article proposes that an assessment of the perception of practice and proximity of state authorities to harm could be used to help qualify threats as "real, credible and immediate" and therefore torturous.