A/71/298 ill-treatment has in fact long been associated with high risks of obtaining false confessions and unreliable information. It is well established that victims will say anything — regardless of whether it is true — to appease their tormentors and make the pain stop (see European Court of Human Rights, Othman (Abu Qatada) v. the United Kingdom). It follows that the perpetrators cannot reliably assess whether information elicited through mistreatment — if any — is truthful, false or complete. Research on lie detection reveals that trained interviewers can differentiate fabrications from truths at a rate only slightly better than chance (slightly above 50 per cent). Those employing torture and ill-treatment during interviews tend to misread victims and fail to recognize the truth, often perpetuating a vicious cycle of mistreatment and fabrications. 5 18. Behavioural and brain sciences underlie the recognition that mistreatment and coercion are unreliable and counterproductive means to elicit accurate information. Torture and ill-treatment harm those areas of the brain associated with memory, mood and general cognitive function. Depending on their severity, chronicity and type, associated stressors typically impair encoding, consolidation and retrieval of memories, especially where practices such as repeated suffocation, extended sleep deprivation and caloric restriction are used in combination. Such practices weaken, disorient and confuse subjects, distort their sense of time and render them prone to fabricate memories, even if they are otherwise willing to answer questions. 6 They are also detrimental to the establishment of trust and rapport, and compromise the interviewer’s ability to understand a person’s values, motivations and knowledge — elements required for a successful interview. 19. Irrefutable evidence from the criminal justice system demonstrates that coercive methods of questioning, even when not amounting to torture, produce false confessions. Coercion can overcome one’s will to the point where he or she may doubt his or her own memory, believe accusations made against him or her or confess owing to a conviction that no one will believe his or her innocence (see Supreme Court of Canada, R. v. Oickle). DNA exonerations in some jurisdictions reveal that more than one fourth of wrongfully convicted persons made a false confession or incriminating statement. 7 Studies reveal that the more coercive the questioning, the higher the probability that it will result in a false confession, and, in addition, that criminal defendants who falsely confess and plead “not guilty” at trial are nonetheless convicted 81 per cent of the time, often on the basis of their confessions alone. 8 20. Reliance on inaccurate information obtained through mistreatment has adverse operational consequences, wasting resources better applied to enhance investigative __________________ 5 6 7 8 6/25 The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in its study on the rendition, detention and interrogation programme carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency, concluded that the use of what were termed “enhanced interrogation techniques” was an ineffective means of eliciting intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees. See Shane O’Mara, Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2015). See Innocence Project, “False confessions or admissions”, 2016. Available from www.innocenceproject.org/causes/false-confessions-admissions/. See Mark A. Costanzo and Ellen Gerrity, “The effects and effectiveness of using torture as an interrogation device: using research to inform the policy debate ”, Social Issues and Policy Review, vol. 3, No. 1 (2009). 16-13568