The use of torture is necessary to protect lives. Argue for or against this statement.

I am opposed to the idea of torture. I believe that imprisonment of terrorists is reasonable, for they have posed a threat to society, but the idea of hurting them shouldn’t be allowed. In fact there has already been a law created that prevents this from happening. In 1949 the Geneva Convention banned the use of “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture”. I think that torturing terrorists is the wrong thing to do, but in extreme scenarios it may justifiably be used in order to ensure safety to the public.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not approve torture.”No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The United Nations Convention Against Torture bans torture of all civilians, combatants, prisoners of war and terrorists alike. This is an unambiguous piece of international law, which forbids the use of torture in all circumstances; this includes the ‘exceptional ticking time-bomb’ scenario. Although the Geneva Conventions don’t explicitly ban the torture of terrorists because they are not parties to a state, the Convention Against Torture does protect terrorists.

In a ‘ticking time-bomb scenario’ there is a bomb that will detonate in a public area somewhere very soon. The person who planted the bomb is the only one who knows its whereabouts. That person should be held by the police/intelligence services. The interrogators have overwhelming evidence to believe that they have the right man. They can check anything he says to see if he is lying, because of the other intelligence they have gathered. However, he is refusing to disclose the location of the bomb under interrogation.The three reasons torture is justified in this scenario are firstly that there is a specific time pressure and the knowledge that there is no other possible to way to retrieve the information. Secondly, on a utilitarian calculus, the benefits to many outweigh the cost to one man. Thirdly, because the man is strongly assumed to be guilty, he/she deserves punishment anyway for his/her actions.

This sort of scenario can be replicated in books, films and video games.  In the game, Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain, the main character Snake is witness to the use of torture to get information to eventually save the world. This ends up showing the true colours of the characters torturing members of private militias. When you play, you can see whether these men who are torturing these people have a valid reason why they should do it or not. Whilst you play through this game you may end up picking a side between the two men who are put in charge of this form of torture. They both feel differently about the same problems they’re up against. In the end you have to make the call. The gamer must decide whether this is the correct thing to do in this development of events. I believe the decision that the player makes should be reasonable because of the upper hand the opposing group have; this game mirrors in an interesting and challenging way what making the decision of torture would be in real life to a civilian.

However, seeing as this has to be in my opinion I think that the laws that have been made are the correct ones. In one hand, terrorists shouldn’t be tortured because of the fact that they could be pressured into committing terrorist acts. In the other hand, I do believe that this could be the only way to prevent acts of terrorism. I don’t know what to choose and I don’t want to play god in choosing whether to kill/torture terrorists.