Sensing suffering: on common-sense and compassion in the legal imagination and recognition of torture

Abstract

Emotion and imagination are central to recognising another’s suffering—aiding in evaluating what is seen, heard, and registered. Tending to torture’s adjudication, this article connects the ‘law and torture’ jurisprudence to two areas of ‘law and emotion’ scholarship, namely common-sense and compassion (and, with the latter, empathy).