"The report seemed to be aimed squarely at the Bush administration's attempts to justify its practices, and was presented just days after disclosures in news reports that administration lawyers had permitted the C.I.A. to move some prisoners from Iraq to other places, circumventing provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

'The absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill treatment means that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture,' the report said.

'No executive, legislative, administrative or judicial measure authorizing recourse to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment can be considered as lawful under international law.' "

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