Legal Journals

Obama publishes ?torture? memos, immunizes CIA staff

By clong

The Obama Justice Department has released four memos detailing the harsh techniques used on some detainees during the Bush administration.  The memos - three written in 2005 and another in 2002 - give legal support for various coercive techniques and conclude that the CIA’s methods were not “cruel, inhuman or degrading” under international law.

However, the memos give specific authorization for such questionable tactics pushing detainees against a wall, facial slaps, cramped confinement, stress positions and sleep deprivation.

President Obama assured CIA agents that those who used harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects “relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice” during the Bush era will not be prosecuted.

For further information, please click here and here.

Full post as published by Harvard International Law Journal Digest on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).