Article 1. Definition of Torture 43 Declaration, in the Swedish and IAPL drafts. Only the USSR proposed in the General Assembly to delete the word ‘severe’, but no convincing reasons were provided for this surprising amendment. On the other hand, the US and UK Governments wished even to strengthen the required intensity of the pain or suffering by adding the word ‘extremely’ before ‘severe’. Finally, the Swiss Government advocated that no distinction should be made between torture and inhuman treatment as to the respective severity of the suffering.92 68  These differences of opinion, at least to some extent, are also reflected in the approaches between the European Commission and Court of Human Rights. In the Greek case, the Commission took the position that the severity of pain or suffering distinguishes inhuman treatment (including torture) from other (including degrading) treatment, whereas the purpose of such conduct constitutes the decisive distinguishing criteria between torture and inhuman treatment.93 On the basis of this definition, the Commission had no problems in qualifying the five combined ‘deep interrogation techniques’ which had been used by British security forces against suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland (wall-​standing in a ‘stress position’, hooding, subjection to noise, deprivation of sleep, food, and drink for long periods of time) as torture.94 69  The UK and US position, on the other hand, seems to be inspired by the more cautious approach of the ECtHR in the Northern Ireland case. In its well-​known judgment of 18 January 1978, the Court held:95 In order to determine whether the five techniques should also be qualified as torture, the Court must have regard to the distinction, embodied in Article 3, between this notion and that of inhuman or degrading treatment. In the Court’s view, this distinction derives principally from a difference in the intensity of the suffering inflicted . . . Although the five techniques, as applied in combination, undoubtedly amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, although their object was the extraction of confessions, the naming of others and/​or information and although they were used systematically, they did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture as so understood. In other words, the Court arrived at the conclusion that the severity and intensity of the suffering (and not the specific purpose as assumed by the Commission) was the decisive criterion for distinguishing torture, to which a ‘special stigma’ is attached (‘deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering’), from other forms of inhuman or degrading treatment.   E/​CN.4/​1314 (n 8) paras 23, 36; see also E/​CN.4/​1314/​Add.1 (n 22), para 2.   Opinion of the Commission of 5 November 1969 in the Greek Case (1969) (n 89) 186: ‘It is plain that there may be treatment to which all these descriptions apply, for all torture must be inhuman and degrading treatment, and inhuman treatment also degrading. The notion of inhuman treatment covers at least such treatment as deliberately causes severe suffering, mental or physical, which, in the particular situation, is unjustifiable. The word “torture” is often used to describe inhuman treatment, which has a purpose, such as the obtaining of information or confessions, or the infliction of punishment, and it is generally an aggravated form of inhuman treatment.’ 94  Report of the Commission of 25 January 1976, ECHR Ser B, No 23–​1, 410. This jurisprudence was also not revised in the Court’s 2018 ruling on this matter: Ireland v United Kingdom App no 5310/​71 (ECtHR, 20 March 2018). Consequently, the ruling was strongly criticized, eg by Amnesty International, ‘UK/​Ireland:  Hooded Men Torture Ruling Is “Very Disappointing” ’ (20 March 2018) <https://​www.amnesty.org/​en/​latest/​news/​2018/​03/​uk-​ireland-​hooded-​men-​torture-​ruling-​is-​very-​disappointing/​> accessed 21 March 2018. 95   Ireland v United Kingdom App no 5310/​71 (ECtHR, 18 January 1978)  para 167. See the dissenting opinion of Matscher. 92 93 Zach