UN human rights investigators this evening said torture was absolutely forbidden by international law and chided the "many states" it said were trying to justify it.
In a joint statement issued ahead of Human Rights Day tomorrow, 33 experts said there could be no security without respect for fundamental freedoms. They did not name countries bending the rules.
The United States has been accused by human rights groups of abusing detainees captured in its war on terrorism, and a UN investigator last week said torture was widespread in China.
"On the occasion of Human Rights Day, we express alarm at attempts by many states to circumvent provisions of international human rights law by giving new names to old practices," the UN investigators declared.
"Torture and any form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment are prohibited in all circumstances, including during a state of emergency," they said.
The 33 special rapporteurs and special representatives of Secretary-General Kofi Annaninclude the UN special investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, who last week said he had found the use of torture in China to be widespread.
All human rights - civil, cultural, economic, political and social - are inalienable rights of every person, according to the experts, most of whom report to the annual UN Commission on Human Rights but are considered to be independent.
"They cannot be brushed aside by governments when they become 'inconvenient'," they said. Two major human rights instruments - the Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Poltical Rights - ban torture and mistreatment.
On Wednesday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, in a news conference, said the torture ban had become a "casualty of the so-called war on terror".