was found by the European Court of Human Rights not to constitute torture but only inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The administration's reservation to article 16 will make it more difficult for the United States to complain about such ill treatment. Further, the reservation would diminish the treaty's application to the ill-treatment of children and of mental patients. Those vulnerable people should not be deprived of the treaty's protection.

In conclusion, we urge you to give your advice and consent to the treaty against torture promptly with as few limitations as possible. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weissbrodt and addenda follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID WEISSBRODT

Thank you, Chairman Pell, for the invitation to speak before your committee. I'm a law professor at the University of Minnesota.1 I am testifying today as a representative of the Center for Victims of Torture and the Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee. Both are headquarterd in Minneapolis.

Because I have only a few minutes to talk with you, I would ask the committee's permission to submit for the hearing record an analysis of the Treaty against Torture and the Administration's proposed reservations, understandings, and declarations.

The Center for Victims of Torture, the Minnesota Lawyers Committee, and our clients urge you to give your advice and consent for the ratification of the Treaty against Torture. Minnesota may seem an unlikely place to which torture victims would flee. Nonetheless, there are about 6 thousand victims of torture from all over the world who live in Minnesota alone. There are estimated to be over 100,000 victims of torture who have found refuge in the U.S. They come from the two-thirds of the world's countries which practice or condone torture. Torture has no ideology; it is practiced by governments of both the right and the left, as confirmed by the clients who seek help at the Center.

Unfortunately, torturers learn from each other. Repressive governments share torture techniques and integrate advances in science to accentuate pain and psychological damage. I have submitted to the Committee staff a manual on torture distributed to mercenaries. This manual confirms what we had concluded from our clients: that the goal of torture is to cause intense physical pain, humiliation, and long-term psychological damage on individuals. But the ultimate objective of torture is to terrorize the entire community and render it politically inactive. The Center has helped people who have been subjected to electro-shocks, cigarette burns to the body, hanging by hands and feet, and other atrocities. Unless treated, torture has a life-long impact on the victims, their families, friends, and communities. It is frustrating for us who try to heal the wounds of torture to believe that we have no recourse to stem the flow of victims who come to us for help.

Stopping torture should be a primary objective of U.S. foreign policy and the policies of all governments. The Treaty against Torture will confirm the obligation of the United States to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The treaty rejects the idea that in extreme circumstances torture may be necessary. The treaty is a law; it must be enforced to be effective. The treaty will expose and thus help prevent torture. It will provide a basis for investigating, adjudicating, criticizing, and ultimately preventing cases of torture. The treaty cannot immediately erase torture from the earth. But it will provide a useful tool to stop the horrors people are suffering. Ratification will demonstrate that the United States is committed to ending this ongoing tragedy.

The United States has nothing to fear from ratifying the Treaty against Torture. The U.S. generally has a good human rights record. The limitations on the treaty proposed by the administration, however, particularly as to Articles 3 and 16 as well as the treaty's self-executing application-give the unfortunate impression that at least some of the government attorneys are trying to minimize the protection this treaty will provide. None of the 50 governments, which have ratified the Treaty against Torture, have interposed so many limitations. In regard to Article 16, for

1 While I the Briggs & Morgan Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Law, I am not speaking today for the University of Minnesota or the Briggs & Morgan law firm.

example, we need to prevent not only torture, but also other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Sophisticated interrogators, for example in Northern Ireland, have used a combination of techniques such as forcing individuals to stand for long periods, hooding, incessant noise, sleep deprivation, and refusing food and drink. This combination of techniques was found by the European Court of Human Rights to be inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, but not torture. the administration's reservation to article 16 will make it more difficult for the U.S. to complain about such ill-treatment. Further, the administration's reservation would diminish the treaty's application to the ill-treatment of children and mental patients. Those vulnerable people should not be deprived of the treaty's protection.

We urge you to give your advice and consent to the Treaty against Torture with as few limitations as possible.

Thank you.

CLIENT FACT SHEET

The Center For Victims of Torture is a non-profit agency that was founded in 1985 to promote treatment for survivors of politically motivated torture by foreign governments, and their families. In addition, the Center serves as an information, education and training rsource, and provides research toward effective treatment for survivors, as well as toward the prevention of torture itself.

The Center's multi-disciplinary treatment team of three full-time and two parttime staff provides clients with medical assessment and long-term medical care, psychological assessment and long-term psychotherapy, psychiatric evaluation and follow-up, advocacy and social work services, as well as pro bono legal assistance, through a cooperative arrangement with the Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee. The treatment function of the Center for Victims Of Torture officially began in 1987.

Since May 1987, the Center has received calls from 334 potential clients. Of these, 126 did not fit our guidelines as victims of political torture, as defined by the World Health Organization. They were victims of abuse by family members, victims of cults or institutional abuse, victims of combat stress or medical malpractice. The remaining 208 people did fit our criteria as victims of political torture.

Of these 208 persons, 73 refugees and three American citizens have received, or are in the process of receiving assessment or long-term intervention in the form of support counselling or therapy at the Center. Seventy of these persons are survivors of torture and seven are family members of victims. They come from Afghanistan (1), Cambodia (7), Chile (1), El Salvador (6), Ethiopia (22), Guatemala (1), Honduras (1), Iran (10), Laos (1), Liberia (1), Nicaragua (1), Romania (4), Somalia (1), South Africa (8), South Korea (1), Viet Nam (6); three American citizens and a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. Fourteen of these persons are female (18 percent) and 62 are male (82 percent). They range in age from 18 to 51 years. An additional nine persons have received only medical care, 10 have received short-term support counselling, 2 cases are pending, 25 cases have received consultation services, 53 cases have been referred to other service agencies, and 33 have requested information only. Immigration Status: 30 percent are refugees, 5 percent American citizens and 65 percent are political asylees in the process of applying for asylum. The 69 survivors of torture who have undergone long-term intervention reported the following types of torture:

Symptoms

Psychological:

Mock executions, threats of death, forced to watch others killed or tortured, humiliation..

Inadequate food, sleep, exercise.

Pharmacological:

Use of drugs..

SYMPTOMS

PHYSICAL: Headaches, Joint pain, back pain, auditory difficulties, dental problems, gastrointestinal problems, scars, visual handicap.

PSYCHOLOGICAL: Severe nightmares, insomnia, irritability, panic, appetite disturbances, anxiety, intrusive reexperiencing of the event, hyperalert, alienation, depression.

COGNITIVE: Loss of concentration and short-term memory, confusion.

Presently receiving assessment, long-term intervention, social work services, medical services or support counselling: 21 persons during this month (Intake/Assessment: 4 persons). Discharged: 0

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you very much, Mr. Weissbrodt.

I thank all of the witnesses for the succinctness and the merit of their presentations. At this time, I would like to submit an article on International Rehabilitation Center for torture victims in Copenhagen, Denmark.

[The information referred to follows:]

HEALING THE WOUNDS OF TORTURE

Psychiatrist Peter Vesti makes sure he neither dresses like a doctor nor talks like on to his patients. The hospital where he works does not look remotely like a clinic. Vesti is on the staff of a unique hospital in a pleasant suburb of Copenhagen. Its title says it all-the International Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims. Yet for the 200 patients who have managed to reach the center's two cheerfully decorated villas, the darker side of life is evident.

Doctors in white coats, sterile waiting rooms, and high-technology diagnostic equipment are taboo, says Vesti. The soft-voiced physician, who dresses as casually as a golfer, says that a conventional hospital atmosphere could trigger agonizing memories of other doctors who tortured patients or stood by while they were brutally interrogated, intervening only to patch them up so that they could be brutalized further.

All of the patients at the center bear the marks of physical and mental torture. Many have been tormented by electricity shot through their bodies, in their mouths, to their sexual organs. Many of the female patients were raped by their torturers. When the center opened 6 years ago, most of its patients came from Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. Today the majority are from Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. The youngest victim whom the center has treated was 5. Like the names of almost all of the patients, his name is kept secret for fear of reprisals against his relatives.

The center's medical director, Dr. Inge Genefka, cautiously believes that some of the hard-won lessons at the center could be of benefit to the hostages in Beirut when they are finally freed. On gaining freedom, the reactions of hostages, suggests Genefka, are essentially little different from those of torture patients. They commonly display psychological problems such as irritability, anxiety, and memory lapses and have difficulty concentrating,,

"Torture does not end with freedom," she says. "The aftereffects can be equally scarring. We constantly tell our patients that they would not be normal if they were not depressed, that no one comes out of a torture chamber happy. We try to convince them that being depressed is part of the road to recovery.'

The psychiatrists and psychologists at the center use methods borrowed from those used to help survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, rape victims, and Vietnam veterans. Vesti explains the gist of the treatment: "We take great pains not to spark overwhelming memories in patients. On the other hand, we do encourage our patients to talk about their experiences, but at their own speed. This is a horrible job.

I get angry and sad when I get a few glimpses of what is going on in the world now."

The center receives an annual grant from the Danish government of $800,000, which covers half of the operating costs. The balance is made up by private contributions. Patients are not charged, but only those who have been granted the status of political refugees by Denmark are eligible for treatment. There is a waiting list of almost 150.

The center's medical team has taught its techniques around the world, sometimes secretly to health professionals in countries where torture is commonplace. Staff members have at times risked their lives to pass on their special knowledge.

Therapists at the center do not use the standard hospital equipment, because they could further traumatize patients who were frequently bound, wired, and electrically shocked. Instead, they rely on massage to relieve pain and to help patients. "Some patients refuse, at first, to take off their clothes," says Inge Bloch, a physiotherapist. "They know that stripping has been a prelude to pain. Others panic if they are touched suddenly or approached from behind."

Vesti carefully encourages his patients to relive the terror of their torture and vent emotions that they have had to bottle up. He encourages them to display fury at the humiliation of being tortured, to help expunge deep-seated feelings of guilt at having survived when others died.

He and his colleagues have come to understand the methodology of the torturers. "Contrary to a popular idea, torture is not used only to extract information," says Vesti. "It is also designed to break strong personalities. Ultimately, it is used to intimidate whole societies. The sight of what an experienced torturer can achieve can cow the strongest man or woman.'

The center's staff believes that psychological torture is on the increase, because attacking the mind leaves no clear-cut evidence, unlike blows to the body. But after an average stay of 12 months, about 90 percent of the center's patients do return to normal lives-a tribute both to the mind's power to adapt and to the work of the center's staff.

The CHAIRMAN. I apologize for not being able to stay on. I will be submitting some questions in writing. I would ask that the record be kept open for at least a week so that any of my colleagues who have questions can present them, and that will be part of the written record.

I would now turn the gavel over to Senator Helms.

Senator HELMS [presiding]. I am going to submit questions to each of you myself. conclude in just a moment. This means that we will conclude in just a moment.

But I do have a couple of questions for Mr. Forte and Professor Rice.

If the reservations or understandings that both of you have proposed are fully adopted, would you then support this convention? Mr. RICE. I think if the reservations that we have proposed were adopted as reservations, I think the treaty would accomplish much and it would be deprived of its harmful side effects. Yes, I would support it.

Senator HELMS. Mr. Forte.

Mr. FORTE. Absolutely, sir.

The United States policy in all human rights treaties should be to increase respect for human rights, to protect the American constitutional order and to prevent these treaties from being perverted in a political way against those who really need the benefit.

I think the reservations that we are suggesting do all those three things. If the staffs could refine them with the State Department, I think the treaty would become an effective aspect of international human rights.

Senator HELMS. Just to make a point, I would ask this question.

In our American legal system, does international law ever supersede domestic law?

Mr. RICE. Well, we have the treaty power, which makes treaties the supreme law of the land, subject to Reid against Covert, and you have a Court of Appeals decision saying that international law is part of the law of the United States.

It is something in my opinion to be wary of. It is something to be concerned about because the Constitution of the United States and the legislative processes therein prescribed are the proper way to make law for the United States.

I don't think we ought to make law by the treaty process.

Mr. FORTE. The short answer, Senator, and forgive me for oversimplifying it, is that international law is not a part of domestic law of the United States until it is codified through Congressional enactment, through acceptance of long-term "common law aspects" of court decisions, or it is accepted through the appropriate constitutional treaty-making power.

That is why if you are referring in an ancillary way to the proviso in the State Department's sanctions reservation-"provided that the sanctions are not otherwise prohibited by international law" that proviso strikes me as far too broad.

I think what the State Department meant was "provided that the sanctions do not otherwise constitute torture being within the context of the convention" not that someplace, somewhere else in international law could all of a sudden start changing our method of sanctions.

I think all that needs is a redraft. It is far too broad as currently phrased.

Senator HELMS. I am confining my questions to you two because the other, three witnesses have endorsed the treaty out of hand, and very eloquently, I might add.

Mr. WEISSBRODT. Although, Senator, I think that there are some things to say about the questions that you have asked. For example, on the issue having to do with lawful sanctions, when the United States was considering this issue in the U.N., it said the reference to lawful sanctions, in the second sentence of paragraph one of article 1, must be understood to mean sanctions which are lawful under both national and international law.

The reason the United States said that I think is because they were concerned about chopping of hands in places like Iran and Sudan. They were concerned that, essentially, if you did not have something like that, governments like Sudan or Iran or Saudi Arabia would chop off people's hands and say this is a lawful sanction under our law, and we don't want to see that from a U.S. perspective.

That is why we put the term "international law" into that understanding, and it is perfectly justified.

Mr. RICE. Senator, could I just make one comment there?

Senator HELMS. Sure.

Mr. RICE. I was pleased that Mr. Weissbrodt brought up before in this connection the "hooding" and other practices in Northern Ireland, which went to the European Court and were found to be cruel and inhuman punishment,, but not torture.