CAT/C/39/2 page 58 245. It is clear, anyway, that the Convention sought to distinguish violations of human rights deemed as torture from those that would constitute other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, even if in any case those are serious violations of human rights that need to be prevented and punished. From the provisions of the Convention one can note that other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment would be violations of a different, lower degree (“which do not amount to torture”), which receive a specific treatment in the Convention, in conformity with its article 16. 246. The Brazilian Government takes note that the Committee against Torture (CAT) has not been taking into consideration the distinction between torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, either within the scope of the analysis of periodic reports or in the examination of individual communications. Greater clarity in those distinctions would be important to better elucidate the obligations of States and of the normative contents of the conventional terms, thus leading to a more adequate protection of individuals and groups.48 247. Despite having equally utilized a “global approach”49 on the application of article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights50 (ICCPR), which also prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the Committee on Human Rights recognized, in its General Comment no. 20, that although it does not consider necessary to define a list of prohibited actions and establish sharp differences among the different types of treatment or punishment, the distinctions depend on the nature, purpose and severity of the treatment applied. It is also useful to observe that ICCPR contains different provisions on the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (article 7) and on the humane treatment of persons deprived of freedom (article 10), object of two different General Comments (GCs no. 20 and 21). This amounts to a strong indication of the different nature of violations deriving from the practice of torture and other forms of ill-treatment and from inadequate conditions of deprivation of freedom. 248. So far, the issue was further developed within the European system of human rights, in the interpretation and application of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which could be utilized, mutatis mutandis, for a better understanding of the provisions of the Convention Against Torture. The recognition that the distinction between torture and other inhuman treatment is rooted mainly in the “difference of intensity of the suffering inflicted” should be stressed.51 Torture would thus be “an aggravated and deliberate form of cruel, 48 BARRETT, J. The Prohibition of Torture under International Law, Part 2: The Normative Content, The International Journal of Human Rights, Volume 5, Issue 2, Jan 2001, pp. 1-29, pp. 1-2. 49 RODLEY, Nigel. The Treatment of Prisoners under International Law, Oxford: Claredon Press (1983), p. 71. 50 “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation. 51 ECHR, Ireland v. the United Kingdom, Judgement of 18 January 1978, § 167.