A/HRC/43/49 and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Istanbul Protocol) and raised awareness of the challenges of psychological torture in numerous individual communications. On 26 June 2019, on the occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the Special Rapporteur launched his thematic consultations on the topic at a side event of the forty-first session of the Human Rights Council including an expert panel on the “Fault lines between non-coercive investigation and psychological torture” and the screening of “Eminent Monsters”, a documentary film on the origins and devastating effects of contemporary psychological torture.9 14. Although these initiatives have been generally well received by States, national practice still tends to deny, neglect, misinterpret or trivialize psychological torture as what could be euphemistically described as “torture light”, whereas “real torture” is still predominantly understood to require the infliction of physical pain or suffering (so-called “materialist bias”). 10 Some States have even adopted national definitions of torture excluding mental pain or suffering, or interpretations requiring that, in order to constitute torture, mental pain or suffering must be caused by the threat or infliction of physical pain or suffering, threats of imminent death, or profound mental disruption. Both the Committee against Torture and mandate holders have rejected these approaches as contrary to the Convention against Torture. 11 Beyond that, however, the use of the term “psychological torture” in jurisprudence and human rights advocacy remains fragmented, and both legal and medical experts have long called for its clarification. 12 15. In the light of these considerations, in the present report, the Special Rapporteur: (a) Examines the predominant conceptual discrepancies arising in relation to the notion of “psychological torture”; (b) Proposes working definitions of “psychological” and “physical” torture from the perspective of international human rights law; (c) Offers recommendations regarding the interpretation of the constitutive elements of torture in the context of psychological torture; (d) Proposes a non-exhaustive, needs-based analytical framework facilitating the identification of specific methods, techniques or circumstances amounting or contributing to psychological torture; (e) Illustrates how various combinations of methods, techniques and circumstances – not all of which may amount to torture if taken in isolation and out of context – can form “torturous environments” violating the prohibition of torture; (f) Encourages the interpretation of the prohibition of torture in line with contemporary possibilities and challenges arising from emerging technologies and explores, in a preliminary manner, the conceivability and basic contours of what could be described as “cybertorture”. 9 10 11 12 See www.hopscotchfilms.co.uk/news/2019/7/26/eminent-monsters-to-be-screened-at-a-unitednations-side-event. David Luban and Henry Shue, “Mental torture: a critique of erasures in U.S. law”, Georgetown Law Journal, vol. 100, No. 3 (March 2012). A/HRC/13/39/Add.5, para. 74; CAT/C/USA/CO/3-5, para. 9; CAT/C/GAB/CO/1, para. 7; CAT/C/RWA/CO/1, para. 7; CAT/C/CHN/CO/4, para. 33; and CAT/C/CHN/CO/5, para. 7. See, for example, Pau Pérez-Sales, Psychological Torture: Definition, Evaluation and Measurement (London, Routledge, 2017); Hernán Reyes, “The worst scars are in the mind: psychological torture”, International Review of the Red Cross, vol. 89, No. 867 (September 2007); Ergun Cakal, “Debility, dependency and dread: on the conceptual and evidentiary dimensions of psychological torture”, Torture, vol. 28, No. 2 (2018); Almerindo E. Ojeda, ed., The Trauma of Psychological Torture (West Port, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers, 2008); Nora Sveaass, “Destroying minds: psychological pain and the crime of torture”, City University of New York Law Review, vol. 11, No. 2 (Summer 2008), p. 303; and Metin Başoğlu, ed., Torture and its Definition in International Law: An Interdisciplinary Approach (New York, Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 397 and 492. 5