COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE OPENS TWENTY-EIGHTH SESSION

CAT
28th session
29 April 2002
Morning



Panel Told of Adoption of Draft Optional Protocol
to Convention against Torture;

Reelects Peter Burns as Chairman



The Committee against Torture opened this morning its spring three-week session, with members hearing of the recent adoption by the Commission on Human Rights of a draft Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.
The draft text, which still must be approved by the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly, would allow a system of regular visits to places where people were deprived of their liberty in States that declared acceptance of the Protocol. Such visits would be carried out by a Subcommittee of the Committee against Torture, composed of ten Independent Experts, as well as by national bodies that the States parties would set up, designate or maintain. States parties would grant the Subcommittee unrestricted access to places of detention as well as to all information concerning the number and location of such places, the number of persons held in them and the conditions of detention. The Subcommittee would have the opportunity to hold private interviews with detainees.
Maria Francisca Ize-Charrin, Chief of the Support Services Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, also said in an introductory statement that the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recently had received its 66th ratification, allowing its entry into force, and that three new countries -- Ireland, Mongolia and Lesotho -- had become States parties to the Convention against Torture.
The Committee adopted its agenda and programme of work, adding an item on the situation in occupied Palestine, to be discussed during the third week of the session.
The Committee re-elected its Bureau. Peter Thomas Burns was re-elected Chairman; Guibril Camara, Alejandro Gonzalez Poblete, and Yu Mengja were re-elected as Vice-Chairpersons. And Sayed Kassem el Masry was re-elected as Rapporteur.
A Secretariat representative said 16 reports were pending in addition to those scheduled for consideration by the Committee at the current session. The representative added that 37 initial reports were overdue, along with 44 second reports, 38 third reports, and 30 fourth reports, for a total of 149.Committee Chairman Burns said the group would consider appointment of a Special Rapporteur to deal with the problem of overdue reports. Among the other options discussed were consolidation of reports when more than one was owed by a particular party -- one Committee Expert pointed out that if such a step were not taken and all the overdue reports were submitted, it would take the Committee seven years to consider them. Also proposed were adjustments to the reporting process that would reduce the repetition that now occurred in reports; and a decision to consider situations in countries that had reports 10 years overdue, using information obtainable in other ways.
The Committee will reconvene at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 30 April, to begin review of a fourth periodic report of Sweden. Sweden, as one of 129 States parties to the Convention against Torture, is obligated to provide periodic reports to the Committee on efforts to put the Convention into effect.
The Committee's twenty-eighth session will conclude on 17 May.

Introductory Statement
MARIA FRANCISCA IZE-CHARRIN, Chief of the Support Services Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the session of the Commission on Human Rights just concluded had adopted, after 10 years of negotiations, the Optional
Protocol to the Convention against Torture. The draft still had to be approved by the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly.
The text was a compromise text that had been proposed by the Chairperson of the relevant Working Group. It proposed the establishment of a system of regular visits to places where people were deprived of their liberty in order to prevent torture and other cruel treatment; such visits would be carried out by a Subcommittee of the Committee against Torture, composed of ten Independent Experts, as well as by national bodies that the States parties would set up, designate or maintain. The Subcommittee also would advise and assist States parties in the establishment of national preventive mechanisms, offer training and technical assistance and make recommendations. States parties would grant the Subcommittee unrestricted access to places of detention as well as to all information concerning the number and location of such places, the number of persons held in them and the conditions of detention. The Subcommittee would have the opportunity to hold private interviews with detainees.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in addressing the Commission on Human Rights, had referred to the matter of terrorism, Ms. Ize-Charrin said, and had cautioned that anti-terrorism efforts should not result in acts of torture or ill-treatment -- that no aim was so vital "that even the worst of means can be used to reach it".
Also of note was the recent threshold attained of 66 ratifications of the Rome Statute to allow establishment of the International Criminal Court, Ms. Ize-Charrin said.
And, since the last session of the Committee, the number of ratifications of the Convention against Torture had increased, as Ireland, Mongolia, and Lesotho had become States parties. The total number of States parties was now 129, Ms. Ize-Charrin said.


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