10 CPT: 10TH GENERAL REPORT Meetings Publications 7. The CPT held three plenary sessions during 1999, in the course of which 16 visit reports were adopted: on visits to Albania, Croatia, Finland, Ireland, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Spain in 1998, and to Bulgaria, Latvia, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands Antilles, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Turkey and Ukraine in 1999. 10. In the course of 1999, CPT reports on visits to the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany (Frankfurt Airport), Iceland, Ireland, Sweden and Turkey were published at the request of the governments concerned, as well as many interim and follow-up responses of governments. Specific reference should be made to the publication on 23 February 1999 of the report on the CPT’s periodic visit to Turkey in October 1997, together with the interim response of the Turkish authorities. This is the first occasion on which the Turkish authorities have authorised the publication of a CPT visit report. The CPT also welcomes the Turkish Government’s decision to publish the observations made by its delegation after the ad hoc visit to Turkey in 1999. Frequent recourse is now being had to the expedited procedure for the adoption of visit reports, thereby enabling the Committee to handle an increasing number of reports without any increase in plenary session time. 8. The practice of organising information seminars in States which are relatively new Parties to the Convention has continued, thereby providing the opportunity for officials to become familiar with the CPT’s working methods and mandate at an early stage. Such seminars were organised in Rīga and in St. Petersburg in 1999. Further, members of the CPT frequently participate in meetings organised by intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, in order to speak about particular aspects of the Committee's work. 9. The CPT also intends to pursue the practice of direct, face-to-face discussions between State authorities and representatives of the Committee. Such discussions might increasingly be organised at the time of forwarding CPT visit reports, in order to facilitate the focussing of attention on the key issues raised in a report, as well as the transmission of information to all relevant government departments. Discussions of this kind were organised in Sofia during December 1999, in connection with the transmission of the report on the CPT’s visit to Bulgaria earlier that year. 11. At the time of writing, 65 of the 98 visit reports drawn up by the CPT have been published. Many of the remaining 33 visit reports have only recently been forwarded to governments and will in all likelihood be published in due course. A State-byState table showing the situation as regards the publication of CPT visit reports is set out in Appendix 2. 12. Reference should also be made to the recent publication of two books about the CPT, prepared by Austrian and British academics: Folterprävention in Europa (Verlag Österreich), by Ursula Kriebaum, and Protecting Prisoners (Oxford University Press), a collection of essays edited by Rod Morgan and Malcolm Evans. They contain in particular the most comprehensive independent analyses to date of the CPT’s "jurisprudence". Cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 13. In the course of 1999, the ICTY asked whether the CPT would consider accepting the task of monitoring, in certain States, the treatment of persons serving sentences imposed by the Tribunal. The CPT is honoured that the Tribunal has sought its assistance and, having regard to the great importance of the Tribunal’s work, has decided to respond favourably to its request. A draft exchange of letters between the Tribunal and the CPT regulating this matter is now close to being finalised.