Forced nudity as unjust humiliation

Abstract

The article deals with the position of forced nudity in the system of offenses against private individuals committed by public officers in the Chilean Criminal Code, a system composed, in decreasing order of severity, of torture (Art. 150 A), unlawful coercion or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (Art. 150 D) and unjust humiliation (Art. 255). On the basis of an interpretation that subsumes in Art. 150 D only degrading treatment equivalent in pain or suffering to cruel or inhuman treatment, the relatively lesser gravity of forced nudity as such (i.e., without concomitant circumstances that substantially aggravate it) and the refutation of the alleged contrary solution in international case law on human rights and international criminal law, it is ar ued that forced nudity is generally a case of unjust humiliation and not of unlawful coercion.