CAT/C/44/2* (ii) Maintain direct contact with national preventive mechanisms and offer them training and technical assistance; advise and assist national preventive mechanisms in evaluating the needs and necessary means to improve safeguards against illtreatment; and make necessary recommendations and observations to States parties with a view to strengthening the capacity and mandate of national preventive mechanisms; (c) Cooperate with relevant United Nations bodies as well as with international, regional and national bodies, in the prevention of ill-treatment. 12. The Subcommittee considers the three pillars of its mandate to be essential for the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment but an objective assessment to date shows that the biggest obstacle to fulfilling these international obligations is the small number of visits to countries and, in particular, the total lack of any allocation for the budget item under article 11 (b) of the Optional Protocol, namely assisting States parties with the establishment of national preventive mechanisms. C. Powers of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture under the Optional Protocol 13. In order for the Subcommittee to fulfil its mandate, it is granted considerable powers under the Optional Protocol (art. 14). Each State party is obliged to allow visits by the Subcommittee to any places under its jurisdiction and control where persons are or may be deprived of their liberty, either by virtue of an order given by a public authority or at its instigation or with its consent or acquiescence.5 14. States parties further undertake to grant the Subcommittee unrestricted access to all information concerning persons deprived of their liberty and to all information referring to the treatment of those persons, as well as their conditions of detention.6 They are also obliged to grant the Subcommittee private interviews with persons deprived of liberty without witnesses.7 The Subcommittee is free to choose the places it wishes to visit and the persons it wishes to interview.8 Similar powers are to be granted to national preventive mechanisms, in accordance with the Optional Protocol.9 15. During the reporting period the Subcommittee has continued to exercise these powers successfully, with the cooperation of the States parties visited. D. Preventive approach 16. The process of prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment ranges from the analysis of international instruments on protection to the examination of the material conditions of detention, taking in along the way public policy, budgets, regulations, written guidelines and theoretical concepts explaining the acts and omissions that impede the application of universal standards to local conditions. 5 6 7 8 9 GE.10-41876 Optional Protocol, arts. 4 and 12 (a). Ibid., arts. 12 (b) and 14, paras. 1 (a) and (b). Ibid., art. 14, para. 1 (d). Ibid., art. 14, para. 1 (e). Ibid., arts. 19 and 20. 7