Convention Against Torture (CAT)
57 Articles

COVID-19 and International Law Series: States’ Obligations to Refugees and Migrants in Detention
Whether informally quarantined in camps or formally confined in overcrowded detention centers, refugees and migrants in detention are extraordinarily vulnerable in a pandemic.…

Torture by Rescue: Asylum-Seeker Pushbacks in the Aegean
Since at least March, Greece has been systematically returning asylum seekers who have arrived on its shores – who have the right to adjudication of their asylum claims – to…

The Netherlands’ Action Against Syria: A New Path to Justice
Cases such as one in Germany to address individual criminal responsibility are insufficient on their own to address the scope of the documented criminality.

How to Answer Iraq’s Failure to Put a Stop to Torture
Parliament should ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture. Short of that, Prime Minister al-Kadhimi can take action.

Toward a New Approach to National and Human Security: Uphold the Prohibition on Torture
A full reckoning for state-sanctioned American torture remains unfinished. The Obama administration took important steps towards fulfilling US obligations but fell short of what…

Toward a New Approach to National and Human Security: Introduction
One year from today marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11. A president addressing the nation on such a solemn occasion should be able to tell the American people not only that there…

How China is Violating Human Rights Treaties and its own Constitution in Xinjiang
China’s “Strike Hard” campaign against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, ... questionably framed by the Chinese government as a counterterrorism operation,…

Trump’s Latest Assault on Asylum Has Nothing to Do with National Security or Public Health
Last Thursday the Trump administration issued the latest in a long line of administrative rules that unlawfully ban and punish asylum seekers and others pursuing related humanitarian…

Systemic Racist Police Brutality Shocks the Conscience of Humanity, but is it an International Crime?
(Editor’s note: To mark today’s 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia, Just Security is publishing two articles. In addition to this piece by Margaret deGuzman…

How Inter-State Procedures in Human Rights Treaties Can Support the Black Lives Matter Movement
The initiation of inter-State conciliation proceedings alone, under either convention, could send a powerful and symbolic message about the need for reform. The Conventions provide…

The US Goes to Bat for Lebanon’s “Butcher of Khiam”
American intervention in Lebanon's trial of Amer Fakhoury undermines the rule of law and disregards obligations under the Convention against Torture.

The Trump Administration’s Indefensible Legal Defense of Its Asylum Ban
"The Trump administration has finally made public its legal justification for its decision to halt asylum processing during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is embarrassingly bad.…