Seventeen short essays, together with a very detailed Israeli Supreme Court judgment (1999), provide useful discussions of a timely and important subject. Considerable disagreement occurs, and sometimes participants address each other in strong language. Thus, when Ariel Dorfman pleads for “humanity to say no to torture under any circumstance” (p. 17), Judge Richard Posner responds that the statement “is not only overwrought in tone but irresponsible in content” (p. 295).

The reason for these very passionate disagreements is quite clear. “Torture,” Henry Shue notes, “is contrary to every relevant international law…. No other practice except slavery is so universally … condemned…. Yet unlike slavery, torture is widespread and growing” (p. 47). That is because so many contemporaries believe that torture is necessary for dealing effectively with terrorism, he adds. Every contributor here regards torture as repugnant, but only three endorse Dorfman's position that it can never be permitted. Most of the contributors argue that there is a case for exonerating an occasional torture. Michael Walzer, in a republished essay “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands,” makes the best general case for the occasional need to torture a prisoner. Citing Machiavelli and Max Weber, he observes that the political world requires one occasionally to behave immorally. Yet even when those acts succeed in their purpose by producing good or averting evil, they are still immoral acts.

The circumstance that “permits” torture is normally called the “ticking bomb scenario.” This is a situation in which an interrogator has good reason to believe that a prisoner knows that a bomb is going to explode and that torture is the only way to extract the necessary information in time to prevent the attack. But those persuaded by the power of the ticking-bomb argument disagree strongly on how best to proceed. Should one provide a prior legal authorization, or should one wait for a torture to occur and then prosecute the torturer, exonerating him only if he could demonstrate that the judgment appeared reasonable? Which of these alternatives is likely to produce fewer and the most appropriate instances of torture? Allan Dershowitz's “Tortured Reasoning” argues for a prior legal authorization, but most of the contributors here who would permit the occasional torture argue that a prior legal authorization would in fact generate more abuses.

John Langbein's “The Legal History of Torture” makes perhaps the most persuasive case against legalization. Langbein points out that torture was used throughout Europe except in England until the end of the eighteenth century. The reason was that those states used Roman law. Those convicted for murder would be put to death; and because “certainty” was required for conviction, judges could not employ circumstantial evidence. The only proof accepted was derived from two eyewitnesses or a confession. Torture had no place in English law; circumstantial evidence was permitted in capital cases and juries were authorized to make judgments about the evidence. Strong efforts were made over centuries to reduce torture abuses on the Continent, but they did not succeed partly because “a constituency” for torture was created and kept growing. Only after the laws of evidence were changed and prison sentences permitted was torture eliminated. But contemporary torture derives from the desire to preempt atrocities, and preemption is the principal theme in very different counterterrorist policies since the 1880s, when modern terrorism began. But no contributor explores the difference or even acknowledges it.

Definitions of torture and the possibility of using interrogation coercion that is not torture (by Sanford Levinson, Jerome Skolnick, John T. Parry, and Fionnuala Ni Aolain) are extensively discussed. The Israeli Supreme Court, which found that torture practiced by Israel's General Security Service (GSS), or Shin Bet, was contrary to Israeli law, offers a vivid, shocking, and comprehensive picture of the various methods Shin Bet used. Finally, Mark Uriel considers the Argentine experience to examine the effect of torture on the torturers.

How effective have decisions to abolish torture been? Oona Hathaway discusses the 1987 United Nation's Convention against Torture and provides some surprising conclusions: “Countries that ratify treaties … do not always have better torture practices than those that do not…. [T]he Convention does not always have the intended effect of reducing torture in countries that ratify, but, in some cases, the opposite might even be true” (p. 201). The picture is different in Ni Aolain's examination of another and earlier major multiparty torture treaty. The European Convention on Human Rights forced Greece, France, and the UK to abandon abusive interrogation policies. The effectiveness of the Israeli Supreme Court decision to abolish torture is not discussed, and while most people familiar with the situation indicate that it has had serious effects, knowledgeable observers believe that some torture still persists.

The major weakness of the volume is that it provides very little material to help us understand if torture is effective or not in curbing terrorism, a weakness the editor explicitly recognizes. Only Miriam Gur-Ayre (“Can the War against Terror Justify the Use of Force in Interrogations? Reflections in the Light of the Israeli Experience”) addresses the problem. She argues that Israeli torture has not been effective, but the alternative view is not articulated and no other case is considered. Levinson's introduction cites others to show that French torture in Algeria (where, incidentally, the ticking-bomb scenario was invented) was effective. But that conclusion is debatable. Torture did help end the “Battle of Algiers” quickly, but it tainted the French reputation at home and abroad, contributing to their defeat. Also, the Algerian circumstances were peculiar. The National Liberation Front (FLN) stopped attacking the French because it needed all of its resources to mobilize a general strike to show the UN which party the Algerian people supported. Those forced to close their businesses were subjected to torture by the French, whereupon their interrogators got the information they needed. At best, the Battle of Algiers is an unclear case for the effectiveness of antiterrorist torture.

There are only a few references to Abu Ghraib in Iraq and to Guantanamo; but the book was put together before the May 2004 revelations, which the editor says precluded a serious discussion of American practices. Still, some explanation of the various possible implications of the Bush administration's announced policy to hold “prisoners of war” without giving them Geneva Convention rights would have been useful.

The book's purpose is to stimulate discussion by the public, which finds the subject so distasteful as to be avoided. No sustained analysis, however, of public attitudes was commissioned. Those of us familiar with the 125-year history of modern terror know that no government collapsed because it used torture against terrorists. On the other hand, a government in Uruguay, the “Switzerland of Latin America,” was overthrown because its antiterrorism policies were too limited.

The “torture problem” now is a significant factor in American political debate. In October 2005, the Senate voted 90-9 to ban “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of prisoners held by the military. The House has not yet voted on the bill, and the president may veto it. If he signs the bill we will probably find, as others have, that the prohibition is often not effective. Surely, the debate will continue, and this collection will be a useful primary source for all interested parties.