• dirittopenale
• jusinbello
• nemico
• terrorismo
• tortura

Il fenomeno della tortura è oggi estensivamente contemplato e codificato nell’ambito sia del diritto internazionale, sia – più recentemente – del diritto penale internazionale. Divieti di tortura sono contenuti in ogni trattato di diritto internazionale umanitario o convenzione sui diritti umani. L’indiscutibile sussistenza di obblighi internazionali, e non, aventi ad oggetto l’incriminazione della tortura, sembrano tracciare un consenso quasi universale in merito alla sua repressione.
Nondimeno, il pericolo di un aggiramento del divieto si è definitivamente concretizzato, all’indomani degli attacchi terroristici dell’11 settembre 2001 alle Torri Gemelle di New York e al Pentagono di Washington. Il coinvolgimento degli Stati Uniti in episodi di tortura, quale policy istituzionale, fece emergere un gran numero di interrogativi con riferimento allo jus in bello, jus ad bellum, e diritti umani fondamentali. Da un lato, infatti, il dibattito della scienza penalistica (e non solo) internazionale con riferimento alle misure di contrasto al fenomeno del terrorismo si è incentrato sulla punizione del criminale “elevato” a nemico. Dall’altro, il bilanciamento delle esigenze di sicurezza nazionale con il rispetto dei diritti umani, nella prospettiva tradizionale occidentale, pur in presenza di un conflitto armato, ha suscitato sdegno e disapprovazione per il programma di enhanced interrogations adottato dall’amministrazione del Presidente Bush. Tuttavia, i recenti avvenimenti che, dalla fine del 2015 hanno scosso l’Europa, si sono dimostrati significativi al punto di dover procedere ad una rivisitazione del sofisticato baluardo europeo “can’t happen here, can’t happen now”.
Il presente lavoro di ricerca, pertanto, intende indagare puntualmente il procedimento di istituzionalizzazione della tortura quale reazione degli Stati Uniti alla minaccia terroristica, e il conseguente impatto in ambito domestico ed internazionale delle misure estreme cui il governo Bush fece ricorso, volgendo poi l’attenzione al sistema europeo di tutela dei diritti fondamentali.

A universal consensus achieved within the international community over the ban of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, in both forms physical and mental, apparently captures this crime as one of the most stigmatized under international law and domestic law. While retracing the roots of torture in the legal system, the prohibition appears as the result of a struggling, though never ending, relationship between law and violence. The deliberate infliction of pain, in order to compel confessions or extract information, shares the logic of domination and a tempted reaffirmation of power. This logic arises again in the context of a new kind of threat that, after 9/11, altered the paradigm of use of force in self-defense, showing a strong connection between national security strategies and derogation of fundamental human rights. The past and present political and academic debate about non torture policies often stresses the need for liberal democracies to find their own way to balance human rights and protection of national security. In the wake of 9/11, we started addressing many important issues. Some old topics have been revisited, but also new ones have been brought up out of urgency, many new legal claims have been advanced by important legal actors, especially the United States, in at least three areas of law, the jus in bellum, the jus ad bello, and human rights. The whole idea that U.S. was engaged in a global war against terrorist groups, that it could detain or target people based on the alleged membership of this people to that kind of groups changed the international discourse. When the U.S. made all of these claims, it also confronted with lot of negative reactions from powerful states, especially in Europe. What is intriguing about the current moment is that several European states have been found guilty of complicity in the extraordinary rendition program of the CIA officials from the European Court of Human Rights, proving that those states that pushed back against some of the more extravagant plans of the United States are now in a position of crisis that could allow them to make similar choices. The situation Europe finds itself in now is at cross-boarders: pick a topic, Europe is in crisis. And it can be seen from the French political reaction to the Paris attack. The first thing President Hollande said was ‘we are at war’, adopting immediately the rhetoric that was advocated by the Bush Administration after 9/11. In this respect, this work considers the reasons of the lack of compliance with the prohibition of torture, explaining what happened to the rule once it was tested in a new challenging context. This thesis exposes a comprehensive review of the key documents for the contemporary legal debate on torture, examining the content of the prohibition in the international and domestic framework with respect to the United States. The premise is that the main challenge to the prohibition does not come from a lack of legitimacy of the rule. The main challenge is arguably the construction of a policy established as a response to a threat embodied by members of society defined as enemies. Furthermore, the work outlines the several factors that combined together led to the “construction of a policy” of noncompliance with the rule, assuming that the respect of the prohibition changed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.