The European Court of Human Rights attached a special stigma to torture in Ireland v United Kingdom, in its interpretation of the distinction between torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The concept is now central to the European Court’s description of torture under article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is, I argue, significant that the Court reached for this particular phrase. I consider the special stigma as a parapraxis facilitating a reading of the Court’s ‘unconscious text’. I connect the power to stigmatise with torture to explore the special stigma’s figurative, material and theological implications. Stigma, with its multi-layered meaning and its deep connections to torture, is useful in working out how Western powers generated their self-images as civilised whilst persisting with practices of torture. With the special stigma, the European Court rehabilitated the civilising standard and resurrected the historic association between torture and stigma.

中文翻译：

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文明的印记：酷刑的特殊烙印

欧洲人权法院在爱尔兰诉联合王国案中对酷刑施加了特殊的污名，在其解释酷刑与其他形式的虐待之间的区别时。这一概念现在是欧洲法院根据《欧洲人权公约》第 3 条对酷刑的描述的核心。我认为，法院采用这一特定短语具有重要意义。我认为这种特殊的污名是一种有助于阅读法院“无意识文本”的误用。我将污名化的力量与酷刑联系起来，以探索特殊污名化的象征意义、物质意义和神学意义。污名具有多层次的含义和与酷刑的深厚联系，有助于弄清西方大国如何在坚持酷刑做法的同时产生文明的自我形象。