A degrading-treatment violation required actual punishment, not merely its credible threat

Evidence

The Court’s judgment, issued in February 1982, produced a result that surprised commentators in its specific structure: the Court found NO violation of Article 3, but found a violation of Protocol 1, Article 2. … The Article 3 analysis was careful. The Court acknowledged the Tyrer judgment and its holding that judicial birching on the Isle of Man constituted degrading punishment. But it distinguished that situation from the school disciplinary context. The threat of school corporal punishment — even when the threat was genuine and regularly fulfilled against other students — did not, in the Court’s analysis, automatically reach the “degrading” threshold required by Article 3 for any individual child who had not actually received the punishment. — , The Rod and the Child, 9212

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Compelled compliance under a threat of unpleasant consequences is being obliged. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 141; Slowly escalating punishments prove more credible than sudden fatal threats — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 111; People punish norm violations at personal cost even without direct harm — Ernst Fehr, Third-Party Punishment and Social Norms, 147 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Compelled compliance under a threat of unpleasant consequences is being obliged. #responds-to (0.50) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 141