Human rights are the subject of enduring interest, engagement and controversy both in the academic and public domain. Absolute human rights provoke such interest and controversy even more intensely. Yet the interest and controversy triggered has not been equated with extensive and critically engaged legal scholarship on the meaning and implications of absoluteness as a characteristic of human rights, and how this informs the contours of the right enshrined in Article 3 of the ECHR. Article 3 prohibits torture, and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, with no exceptions or...