Citation

Quiroga J, Deutsch A. Torture 2023; 33(2): 151-156.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims)

DOI

10.7146/torture.v33i2.135388

PMID

37589071

Abstract

Now that the updated version of the Istanbul Protocol has been published, there is an opportunity to reconstruct pieces of history on the long road to having forensic torture assessment tools. This article is an attempt to contribute to that journey through our firstperson personal memories of those experiences, especially in the early years, far before the drafting and approval of the Istanbul Protocol: Amnesty International (AI).

The article reviews the historical precedents of the Forensic Assessment of Torture Survivors in the US in the 1970s and 1980s, setting the precedents of the US branch of the construction of the Istanbul Protocol that was developed in the late 1990s. It includes, as supplementary material, the first model of affidavit developed in Los Angeles at that time, which is the first predecessor in the history of the Istanbul Protocol in the US. Similar models were developed in Latin America, Canada and Turkey. All these efforts were later joined under the United Nations auspices in what finally ended to be the Istanbul Protocol.

Language: en

Keywords

Humans; United States; *Torture