Human Rights Watch has just released a report - Cruel Britannia [pdf] - that charges the UK with complicity in torture in Pakistan. It is a shame that this report should begin with the sentence, 'A key lesson from the past eight years of global efforts to combat terrorism is that the use of torture and ill-treatment is deeply counterproductive'. It provides room for the thought that were the use of torture not counterproductive, we ought perhaps to be willing to countenance it. But as Cruel Brittania itself later registers:
The prohibition on torture is a bedrock principle of international human rights law. It is absolute and allows of no exceptional circumstances, including war, political instability or any other public emergency.
HRW's finding of British complicity in torture is therefore a matter for serious concern and its demand for an independent public inquiry fully justified. Crucial in this regard is the finding that:
In... five cases, British officials and agents first colluded with illegal detention by the Pakistan authorities and then took the collusion further by repeatedly interviewing or passing questions to the detainees between or during torture sessions. [Italics mine.]
Article 4.1 of the UN Convention Against Torture reads:
Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.
Generalized statements by government ministers on this matter do not answer to the gravity of the findings in HRW's report. An inquiry is called for.