THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL APPROACHES TO THE DEFINITION OF TORTURE: PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS

The scientific article presents the most important stages of the evolution and legislative embodiment of the definition of “torture” in international legal acts, examines significant inconsistencies and differences between the definitions concerned and the approaches that were used as the basis for their development. Defining specific properties characterized as certain elements of new content or properties limiting the definition to more narrow characteristics in comparison to the preliminary definitions allowed the researcher to compare international approaches to the legal enforcement the concept of “torture” in terms of defining the main elements of a crime (object, objective side, subject, subjective side) and to highlight their main advantages and disadvantages. The article focuses on the study of a phased process of establishing the prohibition of torture and defining of the concept of torture in national legislation; all amendments of Article 127 “Torture” of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the reasons justifying the changes in the approaches to the characteristics of torture are also investigated. The effect of each of the aforementioned amendments on the elements of the crime of torture is determined, especially in terms of defining the subject of the crime and the consequences of setting forth the fact that the subject of the crime is general or special entails. A weighty result of the study is the determination of actual relationship between the concepts of “torture” enshrined in international legal acts and the Criminal Code of Ukraine and the definition of the main reasons for the incompatibility of the two definitions compared. The practical value of the research lies in the factual definition of problems that impede the effective operation of the mechanism of legal counteraction against torture in Ukraine and the formulation of proposals aimed at eliminating them.