1. Introduction Torture is today prohibited under international law and the domestic laws of most states. The war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during World War II led to a sweeping international rejection of most, if not all, aspects of torture, and a number of international treaties have since been adopted to prevent its use. The development of domestic and international jurisprudence over the same period has also resulted in the strengthening of protection against torture. The monitoring by a number of international bodies of conditions of detention and the ability to take individual complaints to relevant international committees help provide this protection. There is also detailed ongoing scrutiny of national practices via reporting, recommendations and follow-up action as required under various international treaties. Finally, factors in the field of domestic protections, awareness raising, political demarches and training have been identified that should help to reduce the practice of torture. Nevertheless, torture continues to be a persistent practice worldwide. ODIHR hosts the anti-torture focal point of the OSCE. In its capacity as the Organization’s oversight body for monitoring the implementation of OSCE commitments in the human dimension, ODIHR follows developments in the arena of torture prevention across all OSCE participating States and assists OSCE field operations in carrying out their activities related to torture prevention. Since the beginning of 2008, ODIHR has focused its work on the implementation of OPCAT. This publication relates to all of these ODIHR tasks. 1.1 Methodology A questionnaire (see Annex I) was sent to all field operations in October 2007 1 to collect OSCE institutional experience on activities to combat torture and ill-treatment. The questionnaire focused on four issues:     existing OSCE field activities aimed at combating torture; systemic obstacles to the prevention of torture in the criminal justice system and elsewhere; implementation of international standards at the national level; and co-ordination and co-operation among organizations, governments and other bodies working on torture prevention. The questionnaire sought input from the field as to how torture and ill-treatment could most effectively be tackled at the grass roots level and, in particular, what difficulties have been encountered in the course of their activities and how these might be resolved. 1 This publication considers the anti-torture work of the OSCE field operations from the time of their establishment through May 2009. 8