Torture: Does It Make Us Safer? Is It Ever Ok?: A Human Rights Perspective

Of all the issues on the human rights agenda, torture offered Americans the moral high ground . . . until this year. With the abuses at Abu Ghraib that led to accusations of torture within the domestic criminal justice system, the question of cruel and unusual treatment has taken on new urgency in the United States and elsewhere.

In Torture, twelve newly written essays by leading thinkers and experts range over history and continents, offering a nuanced, up-to-the-minute exploration of this wrenching but timely topic, including, among others, Reed Brody on the road to Abu Ghraib and "ghost detainees"; Eitan Felner on the Israeli experience; Tom Malinowski on violations of State Department "forbidden practices" at Abu Ghraib and in Afghanistan; Kenneth Roth on the U.S. government's shift from cover-up to justification; and Minky Worden on a global survey of torturing countries.

Intended for a general audience, some of the key questions addressed include how to define torture, whether torture is ever effective, and whether it is ever acceptable.

Kenneth Roth is executive director of Human Rights Watch. He has written articles on a range of human rights topics for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and the International Herald Tribune, among other publications. He lives in New York City.

Minky Worden is director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. She is a co-editor (with Kenneth Roth) of Torture: Does It Make Us Safer? Is It Ever OK?: A Human Rights Perspective (The New Press).