COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE OPENS ITS SIXTY-SECOND SESSION

The Committee against Torture this morning opened its sixty-second session, hearing a statement by Paulo David, Chief of the Capacity Building and Harmonization Section of the Human Rights Treaties Branch at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and adopting its agenda for the session.

In his opening statement, Mr. David noted that torture was a crime that was never justified or allowed, not even in times of war or in the fight against terrorism. Those who committed the crime of torture would be held responsible anywhere, and victims of torture had a right to rehabilitation and redress. In order to transform those principles into reality, the permanent work of the Committee was essential and it was enriched by the contributions of all stakeholders, namely States and civil society representatives. The Convention against Torture Initiative was a unique State-driven collaboration which aimed at achieving universal ratification of the Convention by the identification of challenges and barriers to ratification and implementation of the Convention, addressing those obstacles through inter-State cooperation, assistance and dialogue, and mobilising legal advice and technical assistance to Governments at their request. Since the creation of the Initiative in March 2014 and following its numerous regional and national events, eight States had become party to the Convention. The Initiative had also launched a series of implementation and training tools for the Convention, which were practical tools to share good State practices. State reports to the Committee and concluding observations had been extremely important in directing the Initiative to make further inquiries on good practices.

Mr. David also mentioned the launch in September 2017 of the Alliance for Torture-Free Trade with the aim to end the trade in goods used to carry out torture at the initiative of Argentina, the European Union and Mongolia during the High-Level Week of the United Nations General Assembly’s seventy-second session. The High Commissioner for Human Rights had addressed a Convention against Torture Initiative high-level event in the context of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2017 on torture during interrogations, and on that occasion he had announced that his Office had been planning to co-create a manual on investigative interviewing with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations’ Police Division, for use by United Nations police officers.

Turning to the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, Mr. David informed that the Fund had decided the previous week to have its 2018 annual expert workshop on the theme “Access to justice for victims of torture.” As for ratification, the High Commissioner had stressed his determination to do everything in his capacity to ensure the comprehensive implementation of recommendations from all human rights mechanisms, including of the Committee against Torture. In that respect, under the Treaty Body Capacity Building Programme of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Fiji and Sao Tome and Principe had ratified the Convention against Torture. Together with the Convention against Torture Initiative, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was pursuing efforts with Angola and Suriname. The Programme Team had participated in sub-regional Initiative-led events in Costa Rica, Morocco and in the Pacific towards universal ratification, but also on reporting and implementation of treaty obligations.
With respect to administrative and resource related issues, and with regard to General Assembly resolution 68/268 and the preparations for the 2020 review, Mr. David informed that the Secretary-General’s first report had led to a proposal to reallocate the meeting time and human resources allotted to each treaty body, with a considerable increase in resources allocated to bodies examining individual communications. Before concluding, Mr. David paid tribute to three members leaving the Committee at the end of 2017: Alessio Bruni, Sapana Pradhan-Malla and Kening Zhang.

Jens Modvig, Committee Chairperson, thanked Mr. David, noting that there seemed to be more and more international efforts to combat torture.

Committee Experts thanked Mr. David for his comprehensive overview of anti-torture initiatives and activities. They expressed hope that the Committee would find extra time to work on the General Comment, and draft materials on follow-up. Experts referred to potential overlap of certain initiatives to develop non-coercive questioning manuals, and wondered how the Committee could contribute to mainstreaming of such initiatives.

The Committee then proceeded to adopt the programme of work and agenda of the sixty-second session.

The Committee will next meet in public on Tuesday, 7 November, at 10 a.m., to begin its consideration of the third periodic report of the Republic of Moldova (CAT/C/MDA/3).



For use of the information media; not an official record

CAT/17/22E