PROHIBITION OF TORTURE OR INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AS A MECHANISM FOR ENSURING HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract

The category of human rights, and with it the problem of ensuring them, appears as one of the central issues of modern legal science. International human rights law is not limited to the rights enumerated in international treaties, but also includes rights and freedoms that have become part of customary international law, which is binding on all states, including those that are not parties to any which specific international agreement. According to some human rights, rights are recognized as having a special status as mandatory norms of customary international law (ius cogens), which means the inadmissibility of any derogations under any circumstances and their primacy, in particular over other international obligations. Prohibitions of torture, slavery, genocide, racial discrimination and crimes against humanity, as well as the right to self-determination, are widely recognized as imperative norms. The character of the imperative norms of international law is the prohibition of torture, since deviation from it is considered inadmissible under any circumstances. In addition, despite the fact that international law has concluded a huge number of international treaties aimed at the protection of individuals both in peacetime and during armed conflicts, the solution to such an important problem as the prohibition of torture still needs further elaboration, as well as close cooperation between states and the international community as a whole. The implemented measures, which are developed on the basis of international treaties at the universal, regional and local levels, are aimed at forming a legal framework in the field of the prohibition of torture as a mechanism for observing human rights. Existing international standards on human rights declare and establish that torture and other cruel treatment and punishment degrade the dignity inherent in the human person and are not permissible under any circumstances.