How should liberal democracies faced with a threat of terrorism deal with a ticking bomb situation?

Résumé du document

Since the destruction of the World Trade Centre in 2001, the United States Government is involved in a "war against terrorism". After the scandals about torture, in Abu Ghraib or in the secret American prisons in Eastern Europe, the international community, especially the Council of Europe, officially disapproved the brutal and dirty methods employed by the American Secret Service in order to fight against terrorism. Since Beccaria, there has been a broad consensus that torture is "barbaric" and "inhuman". These methods are condemned by international laws, especially the article 17 of the Third Geneva Convention which forbids torture and "any other forms of coercion". Nonetheless, in a ticking bomb situation, should torture still be prohibited even if it is aimed at preventing terrorists from inflicting imminent large-scale suffering and loss of human life?

Extraits

[...] In order to avoid international condemnation, a way out is to talk about “moderate physical pressure” refering to Israel's Landau Commission Report[3]. The advantage of this denomination is it's as bad definite as the word torture by the Geneva Convention but it allows to use torture since the bounds are unknown. Is playing on his fears for himself and his family a “moderate physical pressure”? Is forcing a prisoner to stand for days at a time or sit in uncomfortable positions a “moderate physical pressure”? [...]

[...] Walzer claims that the authorities faced with a “dilemma of dirty hands” in front of terrorism. In other words, the authorities have firstly to act wrong, ordering to torture someone, in order to act right, saving the life of many citizens. Can the authorities refuse to order to torture a terrorist at the name of moral virtue whereas their moral dutie orders them to torture him so as to protect citizens? The first mission of the authorities is to protect citizens against enemies, never mind the methods used. [...]

[...] shall in all circumstances be treated humanely”. For instance, Henry Shue argues that torture violates the basic just war theory prohibition against attacking the defenseless. The Landau Commission on the methods employed by Israeli general security services in interrogating suspects of hostile terrorist activity thought that moderate measure of physical pressure” during interrogation is different in kind from torture . and does not offend the human values reflected in our legal system in the same way”. For instance, the Patriot Act. [...]

[...] It's always the problem with the laws[4] or practices of exception. In order to guarantee to the population a normal life in spite of the permanent terrorist threat, the authorities can believe it's more easy to always use torture because they already had good results with it. By this reflex, the authorities risk to threaten the fundamental principles of the society and to cause a major political crisis of legitimacy. To conclude, torture is universally view as unhuman but everyone knows that his government uses or used torture against such or such threats. [...]

[...] How should liberal democracies faced with a threat of terrorism deal with a ticking bomb situation? Since the destruction of the World Trade Centre in 2001, the United States' government is involved in a against terrorism”. After the scandals about torture, either in Abu Ghraib or in the secret American prisons in Eastern Europe, the international community, especially the Council of Europe, officially disapproved the brutal and dirty methods employed by the American Secret Service in order to fight against terrorism. [...]