POLI 214 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Human Rights Watch
11 Apr 2017
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If torture only worked once every 10000 times etc. even if it is 1% chance. You will take that 1% chance because the government has no choice. Ignatieff: was talking about free institutions and free societies. Secret operations/secrecy (off the book) are antithetical to democratic threats. He wants to avoid: the vice of the hypocrite. He feels that it would be the public face of the democratic government saying that torture is wrong but: They will have to account for themselves why they did it. If you accept the claim that torture will happen anyways, there is no upper limit. Legal framework: you would have to get a warrant for it. Having a legal process for torture it will be less likely to happen. Anyone who attempts to engage in torture would go against the law. The rights of the suspect will be better protected under such arrangement. The actual system unable then to control the abuse of torture:
