Canada¡¯s Role in the Globalization of Torture: Post-WWII Prohibitions, Made-in-Canada Innovations, and the Globalization of ¡°No-touch¡± Torture

Article 5 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares ¡°No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.¡± Not long afterwards, US military and intelligence agencies, in partnership with their Canadian and British allies, began research exploring ¡°mind control.¡± Their research resulted in ¡°no-touch¡± torture, based in large part on breakthroughs by Canadian researchers at McGill University. This new form of torture did not differ from the traditional in effect, but it did have the benefit of avoiding conventional torture¡¯s telltale traces. These Canadian innovations were exported by both Britain (to Northern Ireland, the British Cameroons, Brunei, British Guiana, Aden, Borneo/Malaysia, and the Persian Gulf) and the US (from Vietnam in the early 1960s through Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s to Guantanamo and elsewhere to this day). Torture historian Darius Rejali argues that the adoption of such ¡°no-touch¡± techniques is, at least in part, driven by the spread – and increased effectiveness – of human rights monitoring. This suggests the importance of understanding the origins and character of ¡°modern¡± torture if we hope to curb its current proliferation.