Even in ancient times, there was no lack of people prepared to stand up and protest against the use of torture, which was at the time used systematically as a legally valid means of extracting a confession.

At the end of the Second World War, the horrific acts committed by the Nazis were universally condemned, and the international community shared a desire to prevent the reoccurrence of such atrocities.

The sovereign states of the world therefore accepted the United Nations Charter of 1945 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which speaks of ’the inherent dignity and [...] the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’.

This principle of human dignity, which was restated at Helsinki in 1975, enables us to condemn all acts of torture.