THE NATIONAL AGENCY IN AN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT 2 – THE NATIONAL AGENCY IN AN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT The National Agency is Germany’s national preventive mechanism pursuant to Article 3 of the OP-CAT. Each of the States Party to the OP-CAT must designate such a mechanism, which may comprise one or more bodies. As at 31 December 2013, the OP-CAT had 91 signatory states and had been ratified in 70 states, including nearly all the Member States of the Council of Europe excluding Andorra, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Island, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, San Marino and Slovakia. Of these 70 States Party, 51 had already established a national preventive mechanism based on one of three models: Under one model, the remits of existing ombuds institutions were extended to cover the prevention of torture (e.g. in Sweden, Austria, Spain); secondly, various existing monitoring mechanisms were combined to create national preventive mechanisms (e.g. in the UK); a third groups of states, including Germany, France and Switzerland, established new national preventive mechanisms. A preventive mechanism was also set up at the United Nations, namely the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT). It comprises 25 members who are nominated and elected by the States Party. Since 2012 the SPT has shared out its regional competences amongst its members. The SPT may visit the States Party for two reasons: First, like the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), it can visit places of detention in the States Party with the aim of making recommendations regarding protecting persons who are being deprived of their liberty against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. To that end it essentially has the same powers as the national preventive mechanisms. Second, it may also pay visits to States Party to support them in setting up their national preventive mechanisms and offer training and technical assistance. It paid such a visit to Germany in April 2 2013. There are other international organisations which are involved in implementing the ban on torture and ill-treatment in Germany. In December 2009, Germany sent its Fifth Periodic Report to the United 3 Nations Committee against Torture. The Report was presented to the Committee in Geneva in November 2011. The Director of the Federal Agency and the Chair of the Joint Commission took part in the presentation and also provided information about the National Agency, which had then only recently taken up its work. The CPT visits each State Party once every five years. It can also carry out ad-hoc visits. The CPT has visited Germany six times since it was established. During these visits the CPT examined numerous places of detention from a human rights perspective. 4 The CPT made its last periodic visit in 2010; it will return to Germany in 2015. In November 2013 it conducted an ad-hoc visit which focused primarily on preventive detention (Sicherungsverwahrung) and the use of physical restraints (Fixierung) in prisons. In the period under review the human rights situation in Germany was also examined in the context of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review Procedure. Several states recommended that Germany improve 5 the resources available to the National Agency. Up until 2012 the national preventive mechanisms of the Member States of the Council of Europe regularly discussed and shared experience about the focal points of their activities at conferences of the European NPM project organised by the Council of Europe. After this project was completed, a conference on custody pending detention was held independently of that in 2013 in Strasbourg. It was organised by the Council of Europe and the UK’s national preventive mechanism; the National Agency 6 took part in the conference. The National Agency was also involved in other international activities in the period under review. For example, the Chair of the Joint Commission met with, amongst other people, the Head of the Human Rights Directorate in the Australian Ministry of Justice, thus following up on a first meeting in 2010. The meeting focused on establishing a national preventive mechanism in Australia. In addition, the National Agency met with representatives of the National ht.pdf?__blob=publicationFile (last retrieved: 17 February 2014) 4 CPT/Inf (2012) 6 5 See http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/UPR/ Pages/DESession16.aspx (last retrieved: 17 February 2014) 6 See 2.2 below 2 See 2.1 below Federal Ministry of Justice (2009), http://www.bmjv.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/EN/5_CAT_Beric 3 16