Conclusion Though the moral challenge might be understood to place limits on what may practically be achieved to regulate the practices of executive agencies, a proactive preventive approach can serve to reduce the threat and enhance professional standards of executive actors in line with international human rights obligations. With regard to affirmative steps that can be taken to further protection, while human rights concerns cannot prohibit all intelligence sharing, a realistic option can be something akin to an ‘acculturation process’, whereby countries which have more stringent norms on these issues can have a more positive and ongoing engagement with the intelligence agencies that are known to torture and therefore influence them to abstain from the use of torture. Equally, States might consider whether the important relationships they maintain with States which routinely torture should include the continuous exchange of information, with the inevitable result of torture. States should further consider how to more actively acculturate executive agencies in such States. Such a process must start to show how ineffective torture is as a method of interrogation. The lack of clear practical rules for executive actors and uncertainty over the application of legal principles indicates the adoption of internationally agreed standards on this issue would have an impact on executive agencies across the world. As actors see themselves as extremely moral actors, there is a presumption that such standards would be followed. The good practices of Martin Scheinin, former Special Rapporteur should be used as a good starting point. More comprehensive guidelines would be welcome to further implement the absolute prohibition against torture and other ill-treatment. It should not be accepted that executive agencies, or particularly those agencies that conduct analysis of information, do not know the circumstances of its collection. It is unlikely in practice that intelligence agencies would not ask any questions of the provenance 43