The European Court of Human Rights attached a special stigma to torture in Ireland v United Kingdom, in its interpretation of the distinction between torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The concept is now central to the European Court's description of torture under article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is, I argue, significant that the Court reached for this particular phrase. I consider the special stigma as a parapraxis facilitating a reading of the Court's 'unconscious text'. I connect the power to stigmatise with torture to explore the special stigma's figurative, material and theological implications. Stigma, with its multi-layered meaning and its deep connections to torture, is useful in working out how Western powers generated their self-images as civilised whilst persisting with practices of torture. With the special stigma, the European Court rehabilitated the civilising standard and resurrected the historic association between torture and stigma.
CITATION STYLE
Farrell, M. (2022). The Marks of Civilisation: The Special Stigma of Torture. Human Rights Law Review, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngab029
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