As a result of the work assembling the documents, memoranda, and reports that constitute the material in The Torture Papers the question of the rationale behind the Bush administration's decision to condone the use of coercive interrogation techniques in the interrogation of detainees suspected of terrorist connections was raised. The condoned use of torture in any society is questionable but its use by the United States, a liberal democracy that champions human rights and is a party to international conventions forbidding torture, has sparked an intense debate within America. The Torture Debate in America captures these arguments with essays from individuals in different discipines. This volume is divided into two sections with essays covering all sides of the argument from those who embrace absolute prohibition of torture to those who see it as a viable option in the war on terror and with documents complementing the essays.
Edited by:
Karen J. Greenberg (New York University)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 242mm,
Width: 160mm,
Spine: 29mm
Weight: 723g
ISBN: 9780521857925
ISBN 10: 0521857929
Pages: 436
Publication Date: 21 November 2005
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: the rule of law finds its Golem: judicial torture then and now Karen Greenberg; Part I. Democracy, Terror, and Torture: 1. Tortured liberalism David Luban; 2. How to interrogate terrorists Heather MacDonald; 3. Torture: thinking about the unthinkable Andrew McCarthy; 4. The curious debate Joshua Dratel; 5. Is defiance of law proof of success: magical thinking in the war on terror Stephen Holmes; 6. Through a mirror, darkly Scott Horton; 7. Speaking law to power: lawyers and power Richard Bilder and Detlev Vagts; 8. 'Engine of state' and the rule of law Jeremy Waldron; 9. Torture: an interreligious debate Joyce Dubensky and Rachel Lavery; Part II. On the Matter of Failed States, The Geneva Conventions and International Law: 10. Unwise counsel: the war on terrorism and the criminal mistreatment of detainees in U.S. custody David Bowker; 11. Rethinking the Geneva Conventions Lee Casey and David Rivkin; 12. The disappearing state David D. Caron; 13. War not crime William H. Taft IV; Part III. On Torture: 14. Panel discussion - torture: the road to Abu Ghraib and beyond Burt Neuborne, Dana Priest, Samuel Rascoff, Anthony Lewis, Joshua Dratel, Major Michael Dan Mori and Stephen Gillers; 15. Legal ethics and other perspectives Jeffrey Shapiro; 16. Legal ethics: a debate Stephen Gillers; 17. Lawyers know sin: complicity in torture Christopher Kutz; 18. Renouncing torture Michael Dorf; 19. Reconciling torture with democracy Deborah Pearlstein; Part IV. Afterword: 20. Litigating torture: the German Criminal Prosecution Michael Ratner and Peter Weiss; 21. Ugly Americans Noah Feldman; Part V. Relevant Documents: 22. Uncharted legal territory - RE: 1949 Geneva Conventions: the President's decisions under International Law William Taft IV to William Haynes, March 22, 2002; 23. The 'torture' memo - RE: standards of conduct for interrogation Jay Bybee to Alberto Gonzales August 1, 2002; 24. Redefining torture Memo - RE: Legal standards Applicable Daniel Levin to James B. Comey, December 30, 2004; Part VI. Afterthought: To the American People: Report upon the Illegal practices of the United States Department of Justice Zechariah Chafee, Felix Frankfurter, Ernst Freund, Roscoe Pound, et al. May 1920.
Karen J. Greenberg is the executive director of the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. She has a Ph.D. in American political history from Yale and teaches in the European Studies Department at NYU. She is a former Vice-President of the Soros Foundations/Open Society Institute and the founding director of the Program in International Education. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of numerous articles on the United States and Europe during World War II and an editor of the Archives of the Holocaust, Columbia University Series. She is the co-editor of the recently published The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib.
Reviews for The Torture Debate in America
With this superb collection of documents, we can begin to see the contours of our new post 9-11 world. The Washington Post on The Torture Papers ...a block of granite on the path of any forgetfulness. The book is a true public service, compiled by two U.S. lawyers, which brings the whole twisted story into the public domain, and let us hope into every library and many personal hands. Toronto Globe an excellent and thorough introduction ot the legal and institutional arrangements of the contemporary minority rights regime in the Western world. A great value of that book is precisely that it positions questions of minority rights and self-determination right in the analytical propinquity to democracy, and as such it manages to address an important lacuna within the rights-oriented literature of today. - Andrew Goldmsith, Law and Politics Review
