The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

there does not exist any agent-principle conflict between the interrogator and the state whose will he
carries out in the torture chamber. To support this argument, it is now necessary to consider how to
think about torture, and what recent scholarship has to say on how it operates.
2.3. Conceptualizing Torture
The lack of a relevant literature examining the utility of torture directly should come as no
surprise. States have little interest in publicizing the messier aspects of coercive interrogation,
especially those who are signatories to the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations conventions
against torture. Previous research has indicated that states, even autocracies, have changed their
methods of torture from scarring towards 'clean' techniques as a means of evading detection by the
international human rights monitoring regime (Ron, 1997; Rejali, 2008). Even where states are explicit
in the use of coercive and abusive tactics, very rarely are these practices pronounced by the name of
torture. (Levinson 2004, Ch. 1) Instead, states have used euphemisms such as 'torture light', the 'third
degree', 'verschärfte Vernehmung' ('sharpened interrogation') and 'information eduction,' have argued
about how 'severe' the suffering induced must be to count as torture; and that techniques that do not
leave scars are less problematic than those that cause permanent damage.
This reluctance to be too specific is matched by the rarity with which states detail what
techniques can be used: even the Third Reich, famously unconcerned with international legitimacy,
provided few explicit instructions on how (scarring) torture was to be used. 24 The 1942 directive from
Gestapo head Heinrich Müller, which expanded on the licit techniques from an earlier 1937 directive,
authorized only “beating, sweating, and exhaustion exercises.” (Rejali, p. 94) Given the tapestry of
survivor testimony detailing the use of whips, electricity, and the extraction of fingernails, it is clear
that whatever utility the Nazi regime found in the use of torture, it found no utility in detailing exactly
what was to be expected from its interrogators. 25 This reticence to be to explicit about how torture is
done is not a relic of the modern age. As we have seen, describing torture, even when it is legal,
“would be indecent (sic) in an Ordinance...” 26 Even when torture is the law of the land, policing it is
problematic when there might be people watching.
24 One pivotal exception is the instructions given to French interrogators during the Battle of Algiers: “[Y]ou have a right
to water and electricity.” Rejali, 2008. p. 161
25 Due to the lack of documented evidence of a state-led torture policy, the Tribunal was able to convict one single
defendant of torture – Ernst Kaltenbrunner, for torture conducted in the concentration camps. (ibid.)
26 Ruthven 1978, p. 60
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