How Do We Determine the Existence of Torture Today?

A key question in the legal scholarship on torture consists in setting the criteria to differentiate it from other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. This blog post shows in which ways the Inter-American Human Rights System can contribute to answering this difficult question. One is the idea of the need to consider both “endogenous” and “exogenous” factors in the determination of the gravity of the suffering. Another one is the understanding of torture as something linked to the attacked person’s personality and capacities.