Over the proceeding decades, large scale changes began to occur in all areas of international law, and prisoners’ rights were no exception.
[1] Those rights include the rights to humane treatment which prohibits specifically violence causing death or seriously endangering health, or physical mutilation or scientific or medical experiments, protection from acts of intimidation, insults and public curiosity, protection from reprisals, exercise, protection from physical or mental torture, adequate physical and psychological treatment, to keep personal items including money, to be evacuated if the territory in which they are held becomes too dangerous, to adequate food, water, shelter and clothing, sanitary living conditions, religious freedom, and to complain.
[2] Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that any person deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and dignity.
[5] The standards set out by the UN are not legally binding but offer guidelines in international and municipal law with respect to any person held in any form of custody.
[6] It also sets out guidelines for prisoners under sentence which further includes treatment, classification and individualisation, privileges, work, educations and recreations, and social relations and after-care.
[7] In exceptional circumstances a state may make representations based on grounds of national defence, public safety, serious disorder in custodial facilities against a visit to a certain place or at a certain time.
"[10] Persons with disabilities are defined as those "who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.
The American government claimed that the facility was not covered by the Geneva Conventions protecting prisoners of war as the detainees were ‘enemy combatants’.
It is now clear that the CIA allowed water boarding[12] which is a breach of international law which prohibits cruel, humiliating or degrading treatment.
The prisoners held there were exposed to extreme temperatures, not given adequate food, bedding, or natural light and religious duties were interfered with.