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Steven H. Miles, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007;64(3):275-276.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Torture is illegal and practiced by more than half of the nations of the world. The United Nations Convention Against Torture defines it as any "act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person . . . when such pain or suffering is inflicted by, or at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."¹ Despite this clarity, torturing nations often contrive laws or rationalizations that attempt to excuse the abuse of disarmed captives as warfare or as merely vigorous interrogation, so-called torture lite.

In its war on terror policies for "counterresistance" interrogations, the United States defined words like "severe" or "intentional" in Convention Against Torture in ways that it had rejected when invoked by other countries defending their mistreatment of prisoners. It also proposed that there is a . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Torture vs Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment: Is the Distinction Real or Apparent?
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Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007;64(3):277-285.
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