Torture: An Expert's Confrontation with an Everyday Evil by Manfred Nowak

Abstract

Reviewed by: Torture: An Expert's Confrontation with an Everyday Evil by Manfred Nowak Jamie Mayerfeld (bio) Manfred Nowak, Torture: An Expert's Confrontation with an Everyday Evil ( Roger Kaminker trans., Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), ISBN 9780812249910, 208 pages. Manfred Nowak is one of the world's leading experts on human rights, a wellpublished scholar frequently appointed to high-level advisory and investigative positions. As the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment from 2004 to 2010,1 he led factfinding missions to eighteen countries spread across the world's major regions. These visits, alongside observations of his own country of Austria, become the case studies for a book—excellently translated by Roger Kaminker—devoted to answering the questions of why torture persists and how we can end it. Afforded access unavailable to other scholars and practitioners, Nowak provides a gripping and insightful discussion, one that gains authority from his long practical experience, extensive research, keen observation, fine moral sensibility, awareness of context, and collaboration with diverse experts. He addresses the major controversies (including "war on terror" rationalizations of torture)2 with wisdom and authority. This is a magisterial work—a godsend for human rights and required reading for those who work in criminal justice or share responsibility for individuals deprived of their liberty. On each country visit, the UN rapporteur on torture insists on the right to tour any prison or detention center without prior notification, interview detainees in the absence of state officials, and use photographs and video to document evidence of torture or ill-treatment. He or she typically meets with cabinet ministers, senior judges, and police chiefs, and often with heads of government. Nowak encountered cooperation in some states (Denmark, Georgia, Greece, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Togo, and Uruguay), obstruction in others (China, Equatorial Guinea, and Jordan), and artful manipulation in others (Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan). Some states (United States and Russia) demanded unacceptable terms that scuttled previously scheduled visits, while others (Cuba and Zimbabwe) offered what Nowak calls "fictitious invitations,"3 never intending to follow through.4 After each visit, the rapporteur briefs government officials on his or her conclusions and issues a public report. The United Nations Human Rights Council can take action in response to negative findings. Overcoming official resistance can require dogged persistence, nerves of steel, and the ability to think on one's feet. On several occasions, Nowak's team was obliged to stare down, or outwit, local officials. By means of "cat and mouse" [End Page 254] games,5 the authorities sometimes succeeded in impeding his investigations. Lying was standard practice: Nowak heard "many lies, rarely from detainees but routinely from the police, prison staff, the military, and politicians."6 Whenever possible, Nowak rescued individuals from torture or inhuman conditions of detention. After learning that a Togolese man, tortured into confessing the theft of a chicken, had been detained beyond the maximum forty-eight-hour period,7 Nowak ended up visiting the home of the public prosecutor, who then ordered the man's release. Similar interventions led to the release of some twenty other people and, as word spread, the authorities began freeing other detainees who had been held longer than forty-eight hours in police custody. In several countries, Nowak's recommendations were promptly adopted, sometimes bringing quick relief to thousands of people. The Uruguayan president ordered the closure of two prison blocs that were shockingly unfit for habitation.8 In Nigeria, after Nowak learned that between 20,000 and 25,000 people had been kept in pre-trial detention longer than the maximum sentence for the crimes of which they had been accused, the president promised their immediate release, and it appears that many were freed shortly thereafter.9 Governments in Georgia, Paraguay, and elsewhere adopted his recommendations to strengthen the criminal prohibition of torture, establish domestic inspections, overhaul police departments, and bolster public defenders. Torture rooms exposed in Nowak's inspections were sometimes closed down. It is likely that the country visits have had an inhibiting effect, in the shortand long-term, in ways unnoticed by Nowak. Varying socio-political contexts create alternate pathways to torture and...