social needs but their fiscal needs to pursue justice and hold perpetrators to account. An interesting and important response to supporting survivors is that by NSA project partner EATIP (El Equipo Argentino de Trabajo e Investigación Psicosocial) in Argentina, who provide support in the form of travel expenses, legal aid and psychological counselling to contribute to access to justice and redress for torture survivors witnessing in trials for crimes against humanity during the Argentine dictatorship. Through EATIP, a lawyer has worked on the preparation of briefings, court filings and attendance at hearings in close contact with the witnesses in order to facilitate and optimize their participation in the trials. The NSA has also contributed to the payment of necessary travel expenses for witnesses to attend and testify. Psychiatric medication has been purchased and is being provided for free to the victims of torture who need it. EATIP currently has a valuable cooperation with the Association of Former Detained Disappeared (AEDD) on the current cases of crimes against humanity, both in terms of rehabilitation and intervention. Mexico CCTI (Colectivo Contra la Tortura y la Impunidad) has helped incarcerated torture survivors with their legal cases in order to achieve psychosocial and economic reintegration of the survivors and work towards ensuring their freedom. The support covers mainly travel expenses and legal aid, including forensic documentation following the Istanbul Protocol guidelines. The activity involves the legal defence in two very important and precedent-setting cases – the case in Ciudad Juárez, and that in Tlaxcala. Both of these cases involve five torture survivors who were tortured in order to make them confess to crimes. CCTI has established links in particular with four other organisations to widen the support for these extremely difficult cases. For legal assistance they have allied with Centro Paso del Norte and Centre in Guadalajara and established alliances with human rights organisations such as el Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Frayba (Chiapas) and Código (Oaxaca). CCTI was able to send teams of one doctor and one psychologist to the prisons (Maximum Security Prison of Tepic and Medium Security Prison “Villa Aldama” en Veracruz) where the survivors are held in order to carry out the first medical and psychological evaluations necessary for the medical reports. The examinations were made according to the standard of the Istanbul Protocol. After the examinations in Ciudad Juárez, a complaint was filed to the National Human Rights Commission and the National Preventative Mechanism stating the lack of medical and psychological attention for two of the detained survivors who had received a high degree of maltreatment. In the Tlaxcala case, CCTI filed amicus curiae (known as a friend of the Court briefing) – where CCTI voiced their views on the case and put across their knowledge of the subject to aid the legal process. However, the Attorney General of Justice has delayed the process with the argument that the people responsible from the public ministry were reading the records of the case. As a result, CCTI is still awaiting the court’s decision on the appeal to define the next steps in the psychosupport legal strategy. Suggested reading: R. A. 9851: A Breakthrough Law for International Humanitarian Law Enforcement in the Philippines, Balay Rehabilitation Center, March 2010 24