Law and Torture: Widening the Apertures from the Doctrinal to the Critical
Book launch by Ergün Cakal.
All interested are cordially invited to the launch of Ergün Cakal’s book ‘Law and Torture’ (published December 2025 by Cambridge University Press).
The launch will be moderated by Professor Mikael Rask Madsen (Director of iCourts, University of Copenhagen) and discussants will include:
- Natasa Mavronicola, Professor of Human Rights Law, University of Birmingham
- Peter Vedel Kessing, Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights
- Tomas Max Martin, Head of International Research and Learning, Danish Institute Against Torture (DIGNITY)
About the book
This book is anchored in Ergün’s experiences as a legal advisor at DIGNITY and his reflections towards a different type of ‘law and torture’ practice and research. From the book’s blurb:
"Contemporary understandings of torture are ruled by a medico-legal duopoly: the language of law (regulating definition and prohibition) and that of medicine (controlling understandings of the body in pain). This duopoly has left little space for contextual conceptualisation – of ideological, emotional and imaginational impulses which function in readily recognising some forms of violence and dismissing others. This book challenges the rigour of this prevailing duopoly. In its place, it develops a new approach to critique the central scripts of 'law and torture' scholarship (around progress, violence, evidence and senses). Drawing on socio-legal and critical-theoretical scholarship, it aims to 'widen the apertures' of the dominant dogmas to their interconnected social, political, temporal and emotional dimensions. These dimensions, the book advances, hold the key to more fully understanding not only the production of torture's definition and prohibition; but also its normative contestation – to better grasp whose pain gets recognised and redressed and why."
Ergün completed his PhD at iCourts in 2025 and has recently returned to iCourts as postdoc on the AMICI project.
Registration
Please register for the event.
The launch will be in-person and online. The event will be followed by refreshments. Please indicate if you’re planning to attend in person to ensure we can make the necessary arrangements.