The Justice Department and the UN Convention Against Torture

The issue is that the Convention against Torture is very vague. It limits actions considered torturous to obstructing necessary bodily functions, causing organs to fail, or causing death. There is no specification of what the definition of "severe" is. This leaves a huge gray area that gives the opportunity for officials to misconstrue or abuse the standards. The view of John Yoo and the Justice Department is that torture is not by any means allowed, yet the criteria for what torture is is so vaguely defined that it is near impossible to limit torturous acts.