Is the prohibition against torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment really 'absolute' in international human rights law? A reply to Graffin and Mavronicola

Abstract

In two articles published in this journal, I argued that the prohibition against torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is not genuinely absolute in international human rights law as almost universally supposed. Neil Graffin and Natasa Mavronicola have recently offered critiques. But each, regrettably, suffers from three fatal defects: most of my arguments are simply ignored, I have already thoroughly explored every single one of those addressed, and their attempts to concede certain elements of my case in order to defend a narrower conception of absoluteness fails. What follows is a brief response to set the record straight.