Under current law, UNCAT's CID terms are thus unavailing to alien enemy combatants captured and held in foreign countries during wartime.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: A war to the death

McCain borrows the term cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment (CID) from the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT).

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: A war to the death

When the Senate ratified UNCAT in 1994, it enacted a significant reservation: the CID terms were limited to what was already covered under U.S. law by three Bill of Rights provisions: the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: A war to the death