Regime of torture: Guantánamo Bay’s ongoing detention and prosecutions of the CIA’s Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation prisoners

Abstract

Under the Convention against Torture, if states know of torture having taken place, they have obligations to provide redress and rehabilitation for victims and pursue prosecution of those responsible. Despite this, the United States continues to detain prisoners who were subjected to years of CIA torture in Guantánamo Bay. The United States is pursuing the death penalty through the Military Commissions (MC) system which falls far short of any international standards for fair trial. Ongoing systematic physical and psychological abuse prolongs torture’s effects. We argue that the ongoing arbitrary detention, abuse, denial of healthcare, and the MCs constitute a regime of torture that persists today, with the acquiescence of successive US administrations, and with the collusion of multiple agencies of the US state. This regime is deliberately intended to keep CIA torture victims incommunicado as long as possible to prevent evidence of the worst excesses of CIA torture from ever coming to light. This regime has profound implications for human rights accountability and the rule of law. Our argument offers an opportunity to revisit the prevailing narrative in International Relations literature, which tends to view the CIA torture programme as an aberration, and its closure an indicator of the restoration of the anti-torture norm.