Committee against Torture opens its fifty-fourth session

20 April 2015

The Committee against Torture this morning opened its fifty-fourth session, hearing a statement by the Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and adopting its agenda for the session.

In an opening statement, Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said over the last 30 years much had been achieved by the Committee against Torture, but there was more to be done. On the one hand there had been an expansion of the definition of torture through jurisprudence which had increased the threshold of protection under national and international law. More people were protected and more victims had access to justice and redress. On the other hand, torture was being increasingly justified, especially in the context of the fight against terrorism and due to new types of atrocities. That worrying trend was undermining the most fundamental provisions of the Convention and the upholding of its core values, said Mr. Salama.

Mr. Salama recalled that the situation of torture around the world and the challenges faced in eradicating it were highlighted by the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ivan Simonovic, in his keynote address to the Human Rights Council high-level side event entitled ‘Universal ratification and implementation of the United Nations Convention against Torture’, which took place in March 2015 in Geneva. Mr. Salama updated the Committee on the United Nations Convention against Torture Initiative and said since its last session an additional eight States – Australia, Egypt, Finland, Italy, Honduras, Poland, Slovenia and Uganda – had joined the Convention against Torture Initiative Group of Friends, which now consisted of 21 States. Mr. Salama also welcomed the ratification of the Convention by Viet Nam on 5 February 2015 and called on the remaining non-States parties to undertake the ratification process.

The promotion of the Convention by the field presences of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was a priority, said Mr. Salama, briefing the Committee on advocacy work undertaken in Fiji, South Sudan and Guinea Bissau. He also spoke about the Voluntary Fund for the Victims of Torture, which allocated grants to victims to pay for legal, psychological, medical and humanitarian assistance. Mr. Salama said a welcome development of interest to the Committee was the long-awaited online public database containing all treaty body case law. The database was an important part of efforts to make the work of the treaty bodies more visible and accessible, and it was hoped that it would benefit people all over the world. A milestone yet to be achieved would be the webcasting of all treaty body public meetings, he commented. Finally, Mr. Salama highlighted that the issue of reprisals against persons who cooperated with the treaty bodies would be on the agenda at the next meeting of treaty body chairpersons in San José, Costa Rica from 22 to 26 June 2015.

During the session, the Committee will consider the reports of New Zealand, Congo, Romania, Luxembourg, Spain, Serbia, Colombia and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. All of those dialogues would be webcast live via www.treatybodywebcast.org. The session will conclude on Friday, 15 May 2015. A detailed programme of work, as well as links to related documentation, is available in the background press release.

The Committee will next meet in public at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 21 April 2015, to consider the sixth periodic report of New Zealand (CAT/C/NZL/6).

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For use of the information media; not an official record