Reply #220

applies to detainees in the "War on Terror". IOW, International law.

More info on Article 3
First, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which the Senate unanimously ratified in 1955, prohibits the parties to the treaty from acts upon prisoners including “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; . . . outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” Second, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Senate ratified in 1992, states that “o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Third, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which the Senate ratified in 1994, provides that “ach State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction,” and that “ach State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture . . . .”

The United States has enacted statutes prohibiting torture and cruel or inhuman treatment. It is these statutes which make waterboarding illegal. The four principal statutes which Congress has adopted to implement the provisions of the foregoing treaties are the Torture Act, the War Crimes Act,,and the laws entitled “Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government” and “Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.” The first two statutes are criminal laws while the latter two statutes extend civil rights to any person in the custody of the United States anywhere in the world.
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/slip-opinions/waterboarding-is-illegal/
Regardless, the Obama executive order comes after this.