Torture, Power, and Law

This volume brings together the most important writing on torture and the 'war on terror by one of the leading US voices in the torture debate. Philosopher and legal ethicist David Luban reflects on this contentious topic in a powerful sequence of essays including two new and previously unpublished pieces. He analyzes the trade-offs between security and human rights, as well as the connection between torture, humiliation, and human dignity, the fallacy of using ticking bomb scenarios in debates about torture, and the ethics of government lawyers. The book develops an illuminating and novel conception of torture as the use of pain and suffering to communicate absolute dominance over the victim. Factually stimulating and legally informed, this volume provides the clearest analysis to date of the torture debate. It brings the story up to date by discussing the Obama administration's failure to hold torturers accountable.

Author: David Luban
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 09/04/2014
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781107656291

About the Author
Luban, David: - David Luban is University Professor in Law and Philosophy at Georgetown University. His many publications include Lawyers and Justice: An Ethical Study (1988), Legal Modernism (1994), Legal Ethics and Human Dignity (2007), and well-known essays on just war theory and international criminal law.