torture

nationality

New Zealander

occupation / innovator as

philosopher

lawyer

is the inverse of law itself. The relation between torturer and victim is a brutal violation so fundamental it is the basis of all legal prohibitions.

Jeremy Waldron, torture is the inverse of law itself. In his Columbia Law Review article of October 2005, Waldron argues that the relation between torturer and victim is a brutal violation so fundamental it is the basis of all legal prohibitions. Torture plays, in his terms, an archetypal and imagistic function within law. The 'vividly emblematic' instance of torture functions everywhere in the 'background' of legal discourse, persistently communicating 'the spirit of the entire legal enterprise.' 'It sums up or makes vivid to us' 'our determination to sever the link between law and brutality, between law and terror and the enterprise of breaking a person's will.'14

Jeremy WaldronThinkers

Jeremy Waldron