Effects of psychological torture and cybertorture with emerging digital technologies under anti-torture legal obligations in China: A mixed methods research in risks and remedies

Abstract

International norms and domestic law-making and decision-making often underestimate the effects of psychological torture and the challenges posed by digital technologies like artificial intelligence, neurotechnology, and cybertechnology, such as cybertorture, used in interrogation techniques. This article focuses on how anti-torture legal measures, both in the international context and in their domestic implementation in China, respond to the contemporary challenges in the prevailing legal framework posed by the emergence of digital technologies and the effects of psychological torture. These challenges need to be considered from medico-legal perspectives in risk evaluation and remedies for the intertwined concept of neurorights and cybertorture and the effects of psychological torture, as well as introducing the argument that neurorights as an integral concept of human rights should be placed in the architecture of the human rights legal framework regarding cybertorture as a theoretical basis for legal reasoning in specific cases. This article aims to examine these challenges in the evolutionary interpretation of existing international conventions to combat torture by examining the changing trends in the interpretation of these instruments and the role played by soft law in them. It also examines how China, as a Convention's State party, provides judicial remedies for individual claims by psychological torture victims. It highlights that vagueness in the definition of concepts and the high threshold for the effects of psychological torture increase the risk of the victim suffering and act as a barrier to grant redress within medico-legal support. Using a mixed research method, it first analyzes two types of cause-of-action cases study regarding psychological torture of state compensation and involuntary admission procedures in Mental health Law. Quantitative analysis was also used to support the soundness of the exploratory conclusions drawn by the case study section. The empirical findings suggest that certain significant risk factors in China's law-making and judicial decision-making affect the fairness and availability of judicial remedies for individual claims.