governments of member states of the United Nations and its specialized agencies in advance of its 35th session. The comments received are summarised in three documents published by the Commission on Human Rights (E/CN.4/1314, 19 December 1978; E/CN.4/1314/Add 1, 18 January 1979; E/CN.4/1314/Add 2, 31 January 1979). At that stage, the definition of torture in draft article 1 required that it be inflicted “by or at the instigation of a public official”. In its response the Austrian Government proposed that the concept of “public official” be expanded, for example by using the words “persons, acting in an official capacity” (E/CN.4/1314, para 43). The United States proposed that the term “public official” be defined in order to clarify the breadth of the concept and to make clear that both civil and military officials are included (E/CN.4/1314, para 45). The United Kingdom proposed that, in order to amplify the definition, the phrase “or any other agent of the State” be inserted after “public official” (E/CN.4/1314/Add 1, para 3). The observation of the Federal Republic of Germany was summarised as follows: “… in particular, it should be made clear that the term ‘public official’ contained in paragraph 1 refers not only to persons who, regardless of their legal status, have been assigned public authority by State organs on a permanent basis or in an individual case, but also to persons who, in certain regions or under particular conditions, actually hold and exercise authority over others and whose authority is comparable to governmental authority or - be it only temporarily - has replaced government authority or whose authority has been derived from the aforementioned persons.” (E/CN.4/1314/Add 2, para 2) Clearly, the German proposal was not implemented in terms. (See Boulesbaa, The UN Convention on Torture and the Prospects for Enforcement, (Martinus Nijhoff 1999), pp 27-28; Wendland, A Handbook on State Obligations under the UN Convention against Torture, Association for the Prevention of Torture, (2002), p 29.) Nevertheless, it may have influenced the expansion of the concept of “public official”. Nowak and McArthur summarise the matter as follows: “116. Severe pain or suffering only counts as torture in the understanding of the Convention if it is ‘inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity’. The formulation in the 1975 Declaration and the original Swedish draft (‘by or at the instigation of a public official’) reflects the traditional view that States can only be held accountable for human rights violations committed by State actors. Since the main purpose of the Convention was to require States parties to use domestic criminal law for the purpose of punishing Page 14