Committee Against Torture concludes fifty-third session

ROUNDUP

28 November 2014

Adopts Concluding Observations and Recommendations on Reports of Sweden, Ukraine, Venezuela, Australia, Burundi, United States, Croatia and Kazakhstan

The Committee against Torture today concluded its fifty-third session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Sweden, Ukraine, Venezuela, Australia, Burundi, United States, Croatia and Kazakhstan on their implementation of the provisions of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The concluding observations and recommendations will be available on the Committee’s webpage by the end of the day today.

In concluding remarks, the Chairperson of the Committee, Claudio Grossman, said that the Committee had decided on the country reports that it would consider during its sessions in 2015, while the length of the sessions remained under discussion. In addition to the very valuable retreat during which they had discussed methods of work, the Chairperson also highlighted the event held to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Convention against Torture.

In addition to its consideration of country reports, the Committee also discussed follow-up activities under articles 19 and 22 of the Convention as well as reprisals, and considered, in closed meetings, information appearing to contain well-founded indications that torture was systematically being practised in some States parties, as well as complaints from individuals claiming to be victims of violations of the provisions of the Convention by a State party. The Committee had a joint workshop with the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and the Special Rapporteur on Torture on gender-sensitive monitoring and the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the “Bangkok Rules”). It also met in private with national human rights institutions and non-governmental organizations from States whose reports were considered at this session.

Further information, including links to the reports to be considered at this session and the programme of work, are available on the Committee’s webpage for the current session.

The Committee is preliminarily expected to hold its fifty-fourth session from 20 April to 15 May 2015, during which it will consider the reports of Colombia, Congo, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Romania, Serbia, Spain and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
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For use of the information media; not an official record