EHRR 121, paras 76-77), the Council of Europe Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (S v Switzerland (1991) 14 EHRR 670, para 48) and the 1975 Declaration referred to in para 31 below (Ireland v United Kingdom (1978) 2 EHRR 25, para 167). More pertinently to these appeals, the Court has repeatedly invoked the provisions of the Torture Convention: see, for example, Aydin v Turkey (1997) 25 EHRR 251, para 103; Selmouni v France (1999) 29 EHRR 403, para 97. In Soering v United Kingdom (1989) 11 EHRR 439, para 88, the Court said (footnotes omitted): “Article 3 makes no provision for exceptions and no derogation from it is permissible under Article 15 in time of war or other national emergency. This absolute prohibition on torture and on inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under the terms of the Convention shows that Article 3 enshrines one of the fundamental values of the democratic societies making up the Council of Europe. It is also to be found in similar terms in other international instruments such as the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights and is generally recognised as an internationally accepted standard. The question remains whether the extradition of a fugitive to another State where he would be subjected or be likely to be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment would itself engage the responsibility of a Contracting State under Article 3. That the abhorrence of torture has such implications is recognised in Article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which provides that ‘no State Party shall . . . extradite a person where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.’ The fact that a specialised treaty should spell out in detail a specific obligation attaching to the prohibition of torture does not mean that an essentially similar obligation is not already inherent in the general terms of Article 3 of the European Convention. It would hardly be compatible with the underlying values of the Convention, that ‘common heritage of political traditions, ideals, freedom and the rule of law’ to which the Preamble refers, were a Contracting State knowingly to surrender a fugitive to another State where there were substantial grounds for believing that he -20-