Arguments in favour of legalised torture should not go unchallenged, say Philip Rumney and Martin O’Boyle
One could have anticipated many responses to our recent article discussing the torture debate (see 157 NLJ 7296, pp 1566–67), but Robert Spicer’s article (see 157 NLJ 7301, p 1761) stands alone in current discussions on the legalisation of torture for the purpose of preventing acts of terrorism. Spicer claims that it is “difficult to find any references in the legal press—including NLJ—to proposals for the legalisation of torture” and goes on to claim that: “There is not, and should not be, any such debate.”
In claiming there is no torture debate, Spicer ignores the work of Bagaric, Clarke, Posner and Vermeule cited in our original article, as well as a response to Bagaric and Clarke, written by one of the authors of this article (Rumney). Leaving aside this particular blind spot, Spicer has missed a huge body of work. Westlaw lists dozens of articles, most of them published in the US, that examine the possibility of introducing a legalised system of torture,
