Torture

Leon Panetta, US President Obama's nominee to be Director of the CIA, stated in his confirmation hearings last Thursday that he believes waterboarding to be torture (see here). This is the third admission in recent weeks by senior US officials (or prospective officials) that the US has tortured some of the persons detained now detained in Guantanamo Bay. Similar statements were made  by Susan Crawford, Convening Authority for the Military Commisions (see here) and by the new Attorney General Eric Holder (see this Youtube clip). These statements have given rise to intense discussions about whether the US is under an obligation to prosecute those CIA officials who participated in the interrogations and higher level administration officials who approved them. It is therefore of particular interest that Leon Panetta stated categorically that the US will not prosecute those CIA officials who had been involved in harsh interrogations (see here). Kevin Jon Heller and Philippe Sands have an excellent exchange at Opinio Juris (see here and here)  pointing out that under Art. 7(1) of the Torture Convention, the  US' obligation is not quite to…