The world’s first conference on the abolition of torture drew more than 300 delegates representing over 70 countries and international organizations. It opened with the news that the United Nations General Assembly had passed a resolution condemning torture, along with a personal message from the U.N. secretary general.

Amnesty International, the nonprofit human rights advocacy group that organized the conference, preceded it by releasing a report documenting torture in 65 countries and collecting over a million signatures of citizens from 91 countries asking the U.N. to outlaw torture.

The conference ended with an ambitious plan to end torture, including identifying the institutions and individuals responsible for torture, learning how and why torture happens, developing legal solutions, creating an International Court of Criminal Justice and providing medical treatment for torture survivors.

That conference took place 50 years ago, in 1973. And still people torture each other.

As a sociologist who studies torture, I have spent years trying to learn what causes torture and how to prevent it. During my first career as a legal advocate for survivors of torture seeking asylum in the United States, I saw the terrible effects of torture on my clients. Physical scars were rare – most torturers are careful not to leave marks – but psychological scars were common, making it difficult and retraumatizing for survivors to tell their stories to the immigration judge.

Since then, I have studied how people become torturers, whether torture works, how it affects its victims and how to prevent it.

Five decades after that first anti-torture conference, a lot of work remains, particularly in preventing torture from happening in the first place. But there has been some progress, too.

In 1973, the world was just beginning to learn how widespread torture actually was. Governments of all types used torture: the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland, the U.S. military in Vietnam, communist governments such as the Soviet Union and China, and right-wing dictatorships such as Argentina, Greece and Chile. Soldiers used torture against guerrilla opponents, police used torture against criminal suspects, and security forces used torture against political opponents.

The stated purpose of torture was to get information and obtain confessions, but the real purpose of torture was to maintain power through fear. Then, as now, common torture methods included beatings, electric shock, rape, suspension from the ceiling and asphyxiation.

In 1984, after years of work by Amnesty International and other groups, the United Nations approved the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, placing an absolute ban on torture, with no exceptions, and providing legal protection for victims. Today, 173 countries of the world’s 195 have signed it, including the U.S.

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