Perspectives on Torture in East Asia

Abstract

Several international agreements (such as the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) have banned the use of state-sponsored torture. Torture was also a major issue at the United Nation’s first Geneva Convention where they drafted the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Not only does the Convention against Torture require countries to make the use of torture illegal, but it also specifies that under no state of emergency, external threat, or orders from a superior officer or authority can a right to torture be justifiably invoked. As of June 1, 2011, 65 nations, including China and Japan, but not North and South Korea, had ratified the Convention against Torture.