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The experience the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture gained through its visits is that there are many serious problems which are not considered to be problems at all and accepted as being ‘just the way things are’. As a result, completely unacceptable forms of ill-treatment are allowed to pass not only unchallenged but even unnoticed by those who are responsible for them. The currently fashionable expression ‘hidden in plain sight’ might seem to sum this up: that we do not notice what is going on right in front of us. This is despite its not being hidden at all and being clearly visible. It is just accepted as acceptable when obviously it is not. This chapter explores this phenomenon and why it can be that states which routinely condemn forms of ill-treatment fail to even recognise it as occurring at all.
This chapter sets out the background to the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and how it developed over a 25-year period from a proposal to be incorporated into the text of the UN Convention against Torture itself into a freestanding legal instrument establishing the largest and most distinctive of the UN human rights treaty bodies. Along the way, the difficulties faced in bringing this project to fruition also resulted in the adoption of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, and at a very late stage the addition of ‘National Preventive Mechanisms’ into the OPCAT system. It provides an important case study concerning the generation of international human rights instruments over time and provides essential background for understanding the work of the OPCAT system today.
This chapter develops the sceptic’s conceptual framework as an alternative to the deterministic framework prevalent in economics. The proposed conceptual framework is based on the identification of two separate orders of fact, where the ex post order of facts provides a record of past events, and the ex ante order of facts relates to the structure in the economy and can serve as a guide to action. The ex ante order of facts encompasses causal and structural facts. Determinism requires some empirical regularities, grounding these in the ex post order of facts, under the assumption of the scientific vocation of the impersonal perspective according to which prediction is but explanation – of ex post facts – in the opposite direction. The free will argument used against determinism also fails to draw the distinction between ex post and ex ante facts, since its limiting itself to providing an intelligible account of past events.
There is a very close connection between ‘accepting the unacceptable’ and ‘excusing the inexcusable’. This chapter highlights how, even when something is known to be wrong – or accepted to be unacceptable – it may just not be considered sufficiently serious to merit notice, attention or comment. As a result, when challenged, often bizarre excuses are offered to justify what those offering them know to be inexcusable. The plausibility of the excuse is less important than the fact of making it, and having been made, it then becomes difficult to accept the need for change at all. A classic and stark example is the extent to which some continue to try to excuse the continued use of torture and ill-treatment itself, despite its prohibition. Critically engaging with such excuses can entrench them, yet the very structure of international human rights protection prompts excuse-making, thus rendering the prevention more complex.
This chapter discusses the nature of an economics which does not rely on the concept of a preference field, but which provides for empirical orientation by means of institutions. The notion of consistent choice that finds expression in everyday terms such as a disposition, taste, habit, fashion or custom has the form of an ex ante fact. Provided the notion is not illusory, dispositions, tastes, and so on are therefore independent of particular situations and have a certain invariance, though one would expect them to change from time to time. The proposed abstract model of a genetic explanation consists of (i) explanatory constraints serving as ex ante facts and (ii) explanatory shells for forming ex post facts. If economics is to have empirical content it needs to free itself from a paradox it finds itself in. Choices in general cannot be formulated as ex ante facts. But institutions could be so formulated, though unfortunately economists treat them mostly as ex post facts; either (i) as choices now presented as ex post facts, or (ii) end points of a historical investigation. If formulated as ex ante facts they serve as constraints, but not as constraints on behaviour, instead as constraints on possible explanations.
Economic theory might be expected to position institutions as its empirical content, but the integration of theory and institutional facts has so far not been accomplished in economics. The raison d’être of this book is the opening of a path towards the integration of theory and institutional facts, applying an analytical – rather than historical or evolutionary – approach. This requires a conceptual framework that shows how knowledge of institutions fits into our understanding of economic questions. The conceptual framework relates to the empirical content of economics, identifying two types of facts, distinguishing, for instance, between statistical data, on the one hand, and the relationship that may exist between statistical data, on the other hand. Institutions should figure as facts.
This book is about the prohibition and the prevention of torture. Its purposes are twofold. The first is to give a frank account of what the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) has been able to achieve over the first 15 years of its existence. This also involves being honest about what the SPT has not been able to achieve too, and – more importantly – the reasons for this. The second purpose, and perhaps the more significant, is to expose some of the myths which permit torture to continue to flourish, despite the plethora of international prohibitions that surround it. To that end, the first part of the book considers what, legally speaking, torture is. The background to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT) is presented and the practical working of the SPT and how it seeks to prevent torture and ill-treatment is explored. The second part of the book draws on the author’s personal experience and aims to explore the challenges of working preventively, by considering examples of the SPT’s work. This is used to highlight some of the less predictable barriers to effective torture prevention. The book concludes with reflections on what could be done to make torture prevention more effective.
When problems or failings are identified, there is tendency to resort to stereotypical solutions, which reflect established standards or human rights orthodoxies. Yet these may sometimes be hopelessly inadequate, cannot realistically be done or, if done, might not be able to make a difference and, in the worst cases, even make matters worse. Such responses are considered in this chapter, which highlights the importance of tailoring interventions to the practical realities of the situation. Difficult situations may call for unusual solutions, and numerous examples are given. There is a need to retain sufficient flexibility to be able to come up with solutions which may actually work – which may actually prevent – even if this goes beyond, or outside of, the established repertoire of responses.
This book is about the prohibition and the prevention of torture. Its purposes are twofold. The first is to give a frank account of what the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) has been able to achieve over the first 15 years of its existence. This also involves being honest about what the SPT has not been able to achieve too, and – more importantly – the reasons for this. The second purpose, and perhaps the more significant, is to expose some of the myths which permit torture to continue to flourish, despite the plethora of international prohibitions that surround it. To that end, the first part of the book considers what, legally speaking, torture is. The background to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT) is presented and the practical working of the SPT and how it seeks to prevent torture and ill-treatment is explored. The second part of the book draws on the author’s personal experience and aims to explore the challenges of working preventively, by considering examples of the SPT’s work. This is used to highlight some of the less predictable barriers to effective torture prevention. The book concludes with reflections on what could be done to make torture prevention more effective.
This chapter considers the role which the notion of rational action plays in equilibrium theory. An individual’s choice reveals something about his preferences to the observer and even to the choosing individual himself. The assumption that there is a most preferred combination of goods is merely the assumption that an individual acts purposefully. When we interpret behaviour as purposeful action the beliefs and preferences that are revealed may simply be ones that an individual happened to have at a particular moment, without any significance beyond that moment. When we treat the beliefs, aims and preferences of others as empirical facts, the nature of such facts differs according to whether they are elements in our intelligible accounts of the actions of others or whether they are factors that we take into account in our own actions. They feature as either ex post facts or ex ante facts. In neo-classical economics the empirical content of preferences are ex post facts that have been mistaken for ex ante facts.
