Naming torture and the legal implications of its omission from Article 18 of the FDRE Constitution
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/torture.v36i2.167985Keywords:
torture, Ethiopia, FDRE Constitution, Convention against Torture, transitional justiceAbstract
Introduction: Article 18(1) of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) Constitution prohibits cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment without naming torture. Routine human rights monitoring has treated the omission as a textual matter that interpretation under Articles 13(2) and 9(4) repairs. The article argues that the interpretive solution understates the legal consequences of the omission, which extend across constitutional non-derogation, criminalisation, and transitional justice.
Methods: The study applies doctrinal legal analysis combining constitutional and criminal-law interpretation, treaty interpretation under the Vienna Convention, examination of the work of the Committee against Torture and the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice and other tribunals, contemporary documentation from international and African civil society networks, and comparative analysis of standalone anti-torture statutes in Uganda, South Africa, and Nigeria.
Results: The omission produces three orders of consequence. At the constitutional level, Article 93(4)(c) protects only what Article 18 textually names, leaving emergency protection of torture dependent on interpretive performance in a system with limited judicial review. At the criminal-law level, Article 424 is not an autonomous offence of torture, Articles 270 to 272 capture torture only conditionally as a war crime, and crimes against humanity remain uncriminalised as a discrete international offence. At the prospective level, the 2024 Transitional Justice Policy mentions torture but does not perform the legal work that naming requires, leaving the draft Proclamation at risk of inheriting the deficit.
Discussion: Drawing on three African comparators, the article specifies seven legislative elements that corrective legislation must contain to align Ethiopian law with the Convention against Torture and to support practice in investigation, charging, evidentiary exclusion under Article 15, victim recognition, and accountability.
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