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The Bonavero Institute of Human Rights based at Mansfield College, Oxford University, is delighted to host the launch of the book Tackling Torture: Prevention in Practice by Malcolm Evans.
How big a problem is torture? Are the right things being done to prevent it? Why does the UN appear at times to be so impotent in the face of it?
In this vitally important work, Malcolm D. Evans tells the story of torture prevention under international law, setting out what is really happening around the world. Challenging assumptions about torture’s root causes, he calls for what is needed to enable us to bring about change.
The author draws on over ten years’ experience as Chair of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to give a frank account of the remarkable capacities of this system, what it has achieved in practice, or not been able to achieve – and most importantly, why.
Tackling Torture book cover
The sculpture on the cover of the book, titled ‘Valley of the Shadow’, emerged unexpectedly from the stone for sculptor Deborah Harrison. The figure is exhausted, but otherwise healthy, with the different colours of the stone suggesting that he is heavily bruised. His legs emerge from the raw stone as if from mud. Sir Malcolm Evans, the former chair of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, was instantly drawn to the sculpture, which now sits in his front room. Having it in such a central place highlights the need to acknowledge that torture – which is so often hidden and ignored – is a part of our lives. For those who have endured torture, the experience will always be with them. But it is also a part of life in that many of us live in communities where torture is allowed to be a part. Sir Malcolm has described how ‘the book and the image in my mind have become fused’ and that the sculpture was a ‘very significant and major spur’ to make the book happen.