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![handle is hein.journals/slps21 and id is 111 raw text is: SOVEREIGN BODIES, SOVEREIGN
STATES AND THE PROBLEM OF
TORTURE
Lisa Hajjar
There remain deep tensions between the traditional internal autonomy of states (sovereignty)
and international concern for individual welfare, tensions that pervade both the law and the
politics of international human rights and embarrass the international effort to improve the
condition of individual human beings everywhere (Henkin, 1990: 13).
Torture is the calculated infliction of pain, but it is also an emblem of state power. To talk
about torture is not just to talk about pain but to enter into a complex discourse of morality,
legality and politics (Cohen, 1991: 23).
[J]ustice is an abstract principle. In contrast, security is a tangible concern. Bombs and blood
speak loudly, in clearer and more convincing tones than words and principles. Even from
a moral standpoint, security's interest in survival takes precedence over the individual's
interest in liberty (Zamir, 1989: 377).
INTRODUCTION .
Torture - the deliberate infliction of pain and suffering by agents or represen-
tatives of (some) authority - has been practised in many societies throughout
history and utilized for a wide variety of purposes (religious, juridical, puni-
tive) (see Peters, 1985). But its construction as an 'international problem', which
calls forth an international response, has a relatively recent vintage. The massive
prevalence of state torture during World War II became one of the driving
concerns to spur a veritable revolution in international law to create and define
human rights' (see Henkin, 1991; Lauren, 1998). And the struggle against torture
Studies in Law, Politics and Society, Volume 21, pages 101-134.
Copyright © 2000 by Elsevier Science Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN: 0-7623-0746-3
101](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/slps21&div=7&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)