The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (United Nations Convention against Torture) is an international human rights instrument, under the review of the United Nations, that aims to prevent torture around the world.
The Convention requires states to take effective measures to prevent torture within their borders, and forbids states to transport people to any country where there is reason to believe they will be tortured.
The text of the Convention was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1984 and, following ratification by the 20th state party, it came into force on 26 June 1987. 26 June is now recognised as the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, in honour of the Convention. As of September 2012, the Convention had 151 parties.
Read more about United Nations Convention Against Torture: Summary, Optional Protocol, Committee Against Torture
Famous quotes containing the words united, nations, convention and/or torture:
“In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“If nations always moved from one set of furnished rooms to another—and always into a better set—things might be easier, but the trouble is that there is no one to prepare the new rooms. The future is worse than the ocean—there is nothing there. It will be what men and circumstances make it.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
““We’ll encounter opposition, won’t we, if we give women the same education that we give to men,” Socrates says to Galucon. “For then we’d have to let women ... exercise in the company of men. And we know how ridiculous that would seem.” ... Convention and habit are women’s enemies here, and reason their ally.”
—Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947)
“He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)