Inside Geneva: 40 years of the convention against torture

For 40 years, there has been an absolute ban on torture. But it still happens… “Horrific things can happen to you. Nobody is there to help you. Nobody is there to document it, etc. And I think sometimes we speak about torture without putting ourselves in the shoes of what this is,” says Gerald Staberock from the World Organisation Against Torture. On our Inside Geneva podcast this week, host Imogen Foulkes finds out how the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment came about. “The convention came in the 1980s, arising out of terrible situations in Latin America, the dictatorships in Chile and Argentina in particular. And of course, torture, enforced disappearances, and killings were used as a matter of course to suppress their populations and to suppress opposition,” explains Alice Edwards, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. Today, some say torture might be justified in certain circumstances. “We didn’t outlaw torture because it works ...