Convention Against Torture — U.S. Resolution of Advice and Consent
This post is to be read by students of Birdsong’s Refugee and Asylum Law seminar. These are the reservations and interpretation of the CAT treaty approved by the United States Senate in 1990:
U.S. reservations, declarations, and understandings, Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Cong. Rec. S17486-01 (daily ed., Oct. 27, 1990).
I. The Senate’s advice and consent is subject to the following reservations:
(1) That the United States considers itself bound by the obligation under Article 16 to prevent “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” only insofar as the term “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” means the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
