Abstract
The contemporary global struggle against torture began in 1973 at a conference organised by Amnesty International. Almost a decade later the organisation now known as DIGNITY—Danish Institute Against Torture was founded as the first Centre set up to treat and rehabilitate victims of torture. This chapter builds on interviews with six members of DIGNITY staff. Their narratives draw on a rich and multi-textured set of experiences working to prevent torture in various parts of the world. The chapter does not endeavour to paint an organisational history. Rather, the aim is more modest, namely to draw out some central pivotal themes and consider the relationship between personal and institutional reflexivity.
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Notes
- 1.
In the first version of this paper some space was given over to consideration of an additional theme, namely whether there is a price to pay for individuals engaged in anti-torture work. The consensus was basically that costs, if existent were minimal or worth it and could not be compared to the price paid by activists on the front-line. Despite what seemed like a reasonable hypothesis to me—that the fight against torture might leave its warriors marked in some way—interviewees were having none, or very little, of this.
- 2.
Janis and Noyes (2006) quote, for example, a much-cited appeals court judgement (in the case of Filartiga v. Pena-Irala) which stated how ‘the torturer has become, like the pirate and the slave trader before him, hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind.’ Further, Peter Kooijmans, the special rapporteur on torture writing in 1986 put it this way: ‘Torture is now absolutely and without any reservation prohibited under international law whether in time of peace or war. In all human rights instruments the prohibition of torture belongs to the group of rights from which no derogation can be made… If ever a phenomenon was outlawed unreservedly and unequivocally it is torture.’ (Kooijmans 1986).
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Jefferson, A.M. (2017). Situated Perspectives on the Global Fight Against Torture. In: Armstrong, S., Blaustein, J., Henry, A. (eds) Reflexivity and Criminal Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54642-5_15
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