Durham, N.C. - During a recent stop in Kiev, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice stated that the prohibition against using cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment applies to all U.S. personnel, either at home or abroad. Many in the press hailed her comments as a dramatic change in U.S. policy since previous statements issued by the Bush Administration had indicated the ban applied only within territory under our jurisdiction, but not in other countries.

Under the previous view, members of our military could be prosecuted for committing such acts outside our borders because they operate under a separate criminal code with worldwide application. But non-military personnel were not subject to that code and were granted greater leeway in what they did overseas.

How are we to interpret the significance of Rice's comments? Is it a fundamental change in the practices we use in interrogating terrorists overseas, or is it something more subtle meant principally to appease our European allies who are up in arms over revelations of secret CIA prisons operated within their borders? Suspicion abounds, especially since the State Department and the White House are saying that what Rice announced in Kiev only reflects existing policy and not something new. A closer analysis of the law and existing policy may prove helpful.

The UN Convention Against Torture clearly requires each signing country to take effective measures to prevent acts of torture "in any territory under its jurisdiction," with torture being defined as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted upon a person. The Convention also requires each signing country to "prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture..."

When the Senate approved the Convention, it specifically conditioned its approval on the reservation that the phrase "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment" meant only those acts that are prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Such acts might include the use of excessive physical force, extensive sleep deprivation and the withholding of food.

More importantly, when Congress enacted legislation to make the Convention's sanctions part of our federal criminal code, it believed existing law was sufficient to deal with acts of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment committed within the United States, so they sought only to cover acts committed elsewhere. The result, the so-called "Torture Statute," criminalizes all acts of torture occurring anywhere outside the United States.

But since the Convention did not also require states to criminalize cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the Torture Statute makes no mention of them at all. Therefore, according to numerous memoranda published by the Department of Justice, nothing in our laws prohibited cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment committed by U.S. non-military personnel outside our borders.

When President Bush repeatedly reassures us that our government agents have not and will not commit acts of torture anywhere, we should note that he specifically does not include cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in his comments. That is the reason why Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, is so adamant about pursuing his amendment to the pending Department of Defense Authorization Act which would, for the first time, prohibit all U.S. officials from committing such acts overseas.

It is also why Vice President Cheney is actively lobbying the Congress to make an exception in the amendment for CIA personnel. There is no question that, at least until Secretary Rice's comments in Kiev, it has been U.S. policy and the Administration's interpretation of existing law that the CIA and other non-military government officials were able to use any and all techniques overseas as long as they did not amount to "torture."

Secretary Rice's recent comments are ambiguous, and we must wait for further clarifying remarks from the Administration as to their exact meaning.

But ultimately, whether we are talking about law or policy, we as a nation must clearly and unambiguously proclaim that acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, like torture, serve no useful purpose and must never be condoned, wherever committed. If we as Americans are to continue in a leadership role in the free world, nothing else will suffice.