Accountability, denial and the future-proofing of British torture

Abstract

When powerful liberal democratic states are found to be complicit in extreme violations of human rights, how do they respond and why do they respond as they do? Drawing on the example of the United Kingdom's complicity in torture since 9/11, this article demonstrates how reluctant the UK has been to permit a full reckoning with its torturous past. We demonstrate that successive UK governments engaged in various forms of denial, obfuscation and attempts to obstruct investigation and avoid accountability. The net effect of their responses has been to deny the victims redress, through adequate judicial processes, and to deny the public adequate state accountability. These responses are not simply aimed at shielding from prosecution the perpetrators and those who have oversight of them, nor preventing political embarrassment. The various forms of denial and obstruction are also designed to ensure that collusion can continue uninterrupted. A core concern of intelligence officials and ministers has been to prevent any process that would lead to a comprehensive prohibition on involvement in operations where torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are a real possibility. The door remains wide open, and deliberately so, for British involvement in torture.

Regime of torture: Guantánamo Bay’s ongoing detention and prosecutions of the CIA’s Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation prisoners

“…Successive US (and UK) 136 governments have sought to position the events of CIA RDI programme as an aberration in the increasingly distant past. In emphasising the efficacy of internal and external pushback against CIA-led torture, existing IR scholarship has largely left these government narratives unchallenged.…”

When identity meets strategy: The development of British and German anti-torture policies since 9/11

“…In line with that, the research shows how targeted shaming as an accountability mechanism for indirect human rights violations is more effective when focusing on undermining such flawed narratives and the state’s self-image on the international stage, rather than solely trying to trigger immediate domestic uproar without any graphic evidence (Sikkink, 2013). Hence, both states were at different points of time subjected to public shaming campaigns, however, both states withstood the pressure by juxtaposing their own involvement and with that of the United States as the main perpetrator (Blakeley and Raphael, 2020) resulting ultimately in neither Merkel, Blair nor Brown pursuing policy-change. It was not until Cameron was motivated however by the new coalition partner, but more importantly by the credible, anticipated threat to the British international identity that he eventually introduced the new guidance to avoid such a scenario.…”

“…In the end, the perceived benefits of introducing the reforms outweighed the anticipated costs, paving thus the way for the so-called “Consolidated Guidance.” 1 The new policy stressed the strict prohibition of torture and cruel/inhumane/degrading treatment, extended previous guidelines on addressing concerns about detainee mistreatment, and significantly increased accountability by publicizing the guideline. Despite these improvements, however, it also gave great discretionary power to Ministers, displayed a limited scope of applicability (Intelligence and Security Committee, 2018b: 2), maintained ambiguous language (Blakeley and Raphael, 2020: 705), and failed to extend the Guidance to external cooperation partners (Liberty, 2018). Consequently, the Gibson Inquiry, due to its non-judge-led composition, faced significant criticism from the start and was eventually abandoned in 2012.…”

Towards intelligence accountability as a virtue

“…Furthermore, I distinguish between discussions concerning the executive's accountability and intelligence services' accountability. 42 One might argue that such a distinction is hard to make, as the executive eventually is accountable for the conduct of public organisations, including intelligence services. However, in that case, it is no longer a question of the accountability of intelligence services themselves and hence, exceeds the scope and purpose of this review.…”