The Justice Department and the UN Convention Against Torture

John Yoo and the Department of Justice took the position that the definition the UN Convention provided against torture was extremely "vague" and interpreted that there were no real clear definitions of any of it. They said it failed to define "severe" and also claimed there was no definition of physical pain or suffering. "The words were ambiguous." The department issued a memo to the White House with more definitive words to use. "Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." This definition left things WIDE OPEN for torture. Critics even stated that along these lines, it could be considered and argued that what Sudaam Hussein had done would not be torture either. This brought about the view that torture is prohibited, but defined so limited that anything could be justified.