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Renditions and Diplomatic Assurances “Outsourcing” Torture With the world’s attention trained on abuses of detainees by United States authorities at the Abu Ghraib prison in Bagdhad, it is easy to overlook the global dimensions of the problem. In locations far from the public eye, most often in total secrecy, dozens and perhaps hundreds of suspects have been transferred from one country to another, often from Western countries to those in the Middle East or Asia, but in other cases between countries within a single region. Evidence is emerging that, in many such cases, the suspects are being tortured. The global ban on torture includes a ban on sending people—no matter their alleged crime or status—to any country where they would be at risk of torture or ill-treatment. Even if a person is suspected of having committed a terrorist act, it is illegal to send him or her to a place where there is a risk of torture. Such transfers, which typically involve no courts or judicial process, have been referred to as "renditions." The obligation not to transfer a person to a place where he or she is at risk of torture is known as the principle of nonrefoulement and is enshrined in numerous international treaties, including the Convention against Torture. It is a logical extension of the ban on torture: if authorities are prohibited from directly torturing a person, it makes sense that they be prohibited from sending a person to a place where they know or should know that he or she is at risk of torture. In some cases, governments appear to be transferring people in full knowledge that torture likely will be used to extract information and confessions regarding alleged terrorist activities and associations. In others, governments have justified such transfers with the argument that their first obligation is not to give safe harbor to terrorists. In many cases, governments, aware of the legal prohibition on sending suspects to such countries, seek written guarantees—so-called "diplomatic assurances"—from authorities in the country concerned that the suspect will not be tortured if transferred. A growing number of cases, detailed in the reports and briefings listed on this page, suggest that such guarantees are insufficient. There are important reasons why this is case. Security and police authorities in countries where torture is still practiced routinely (countries to which many suspected terrorists are sent) deny that torture occurs at all, making such assurances all but worthless. And the treatment of such suspects is almost impossible to monitor: torture is illegal and is practiced in secret, deep within the walls of closed detention facilities, with no opportunity for independent actors to keep an eye on how authorities are treating detainees. Indeed, torture has resulted even when the transferring government has insisted on written guarantees and the right to monitor suspects’ subsequent treatment. Further Reading
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