Difference between revisions of "Representing Victims of Torture"
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==Identifying Victims of Torture== | ==Identifying Victims of Torture== | ||
| − | It is important for criminal defense attorneys to identify victims of torture because specific groups, such as children, women, the elderly, or religious persons may be more vulnerable to the effects of ill-treatment, making it easier to consider the degree of suffering severe enough to amount to torture. Identifying and keeping track of torture cases will also help identify patterns of abuse being directed at a particular group of victims. In certain cases, systematic torture of a particular group will allow the criminal defense attorney to utilize additional international mechanisms. For example, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 1948, included "acting with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group [by] causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" as part of its definition of genocide <ref | + | It is important for criminal defense attorneys to identify victims of torture because specific groups, such as children, women, the elderly, or religious persons may be more vulnerable to the effects of ill-treatment, making it easier to consider the degree of suffering severe enough to amount to torture. Identifying and keeping track of torture cases will also help identify patterns of abuse being directed at a particular group of victims. In certain cases, systematic torture of a particular group will allow the criminal defense attorney to utilize additional international mechanisms. For example, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December of 1948, included "acting with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group [by] causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" as part of its definition of genocide <ref> Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Art. 2 </ref>. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) incorporates this definition of genocide as well a definition of crimes against humanity which includes torture. As soon as a State becomes a party to the Statute, it accepts ICC's jurisdiction with respect to those crimes, and a State can recommend individual nationals suspected of those crimes to the Court. THe ICC will then have complete jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute unless the person recommended has already been tried or is in the process of going to trial in the State already <ref> The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court </ref>. |
===Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners=== | ===Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners=== | ||
