The Severity of Suffering as a Criterion for Distinguishing Between Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment in the Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

This article examines how the Inter-American Court of Human Rights differentiates torture from other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment through its interpretation of the notion of ‘severity of suffering’. While international legal debates have traditionally relied on intensity-based models to distinguish these categories, there is limited empirical analysis of how courts operationalise severity. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of 45 judgments concerning Article 5 of the American Convention on Human Rights, this study reconstructs the criteria employed by the Court in assessing the gravity of ill-treatment. The findings show that the Court evaluates severity of suffering through a contextual and relational framework that combines endogenous factors, such as the method, duration, context, and effects of the violence, with exogenous factors, relating to the victim's personal characteristics and conditions of vulnerability. The article argues that this approach allows the Court to distinguish torture from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment without resorting to rigid hierarchies of suffering. By clarifying the internal logic of this jurisprudence, the article contributes to debates on the coherence of international standards prohibiting torture.