On the legal side, victims of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment have a firmly established right to a remedy and reparation under international human rights law, including under the UN Convention against Torture.19 The new General Comment of the Committee against Torture on Article 14 of the Convention20 provides a compelling authoritative reaffirmation of this principle. of the European Union. Identifying countries that have accepted CAT jurisdiction is a challenge and possibly the single most important obstacle to this remedy’s effectiveness today. I believe much more could be done to push not only for the ratification of the Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol but equally for the universal acceptance of jurisdiction under Article 22. The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and other mechanisms in particular could and should play a much more forceful role in this regard. States could systematically raise accession to the procedure under Article 22 of the Convention within the UPR process to help generate momentum and political will. From a practioner’s perspective, seeking justice in domestic courts can be an uphill battle. There are multiple reasons for this, some being legal, and others having to do with institutional cultures, the false protection of a corps spirit, and very often with secrecy. Again others have to do with courts not being independent, or judges and prosecutors lacking human rights knowledge and/or consciousness. Even in established democracies traditionally committed to the rule of law and vested with all requisite institutions to investigate and prosecute torture, accountability can remain illusive. The failure to provide any legal accountability for a policy of torture and for complicity into torture within the extraordinary rendition program is a particularly troubling example of this reality. Second, as we know, in many countries, lawyers and human rights activists do not sufficiently know about the procedure even when their countries have accepted jurisdiction. Too often there is a false perception of a divide between national law and international law. Not the least, authoritarian states want us to believe that international human rights standards and mechanisms have nothing to do with domestic law. In the many transition processes over the last thirty years in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America nothing has been further from the truth. International human rights standards have become a central element in domestic law across the world. The same needs to be the case with the Convention against Torture and the remedy that it provides. Hence, one of the ways forward has to be an investment in building knowledge, capacity, and interest to seek recourse to the complaint procedure. All this speaks to a needed sea change. I believe that the CAT can be part of this needed change in perception. In fact, the challenges around the world testify to the need for robust and strong universal anti-torture remedies in addition to a system of domestic remedies. In our experience working with and for victims of torture, the remedy to the UN treaty bodies or regional courts are more often than not the only credible recourse to seek justice and reparation. Hence, there should be vital interest in the complaint procedure to the CAT as one of the principal universal tools against torture. Our common objective today is to explore how to reinforce this tool in the global fight against torture and how to use it more strategically. Third, and closely related, is the need to protect lawyers and activists that document and litigate cases of torture, whether domestically or internationally, and who may often face a variety of direct and indirect threats. I know that some of our experts have personally lived through such threats and even direct attacks. The OMCT is today one of the leading organizations on the protection of human rights defenders. For us, it is important that protection is available at all stages of domestic and international litigation. We have seen internationally important improvements in dealing with reprisals against human rights defenders participating in UN mechanisms. The same attention now needs to be given to threats against torture activists documenting cases domestically. Mobilizing on the CAT Complaint Procedure The communication procedure has proved in the 25 years of the Committee’s existence — which we will be celebrating later this year — its value and very practical relevance. This is particularly so in relation to its case work on non-refoulement, e.g. the prohibition of sending a person to another jurisdiction if there is a real risk of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, or punishment. Indeed the large majority of cases adjudicated by the CAT as of today have concerned the risk of deportation or transfer. In contrast other cases have been far more limited and it is fair to say that the CAT remedy is an under-utilized weapon in relation to many of the vital guarantees against torture contained in the UN Convention against Torture. Building Strategic Litigation on the CAT Beyond mobilization, capacity building, and protection, we need to initiate a discussion about the strategic use of the communication procedure with the UN Committee against Torture, and I hope that this meeting can serve as a starting point. This touches on considerations of the choice of the forum. Some of the practicing lawyers here today will no doubt prefer to go to a regional court, such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, or maybe in the future also the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, not the least because of its legal status and the implementation of the decisions. Others may argue that pursuing cases with the UN Human Rights Committee instead of the UN Committee against Torture is advantageous because it allows raising related violations, such as arbitrary detentions and unfair trials. All these are Our common objective should be to change this. A few thoughts on what we would need to change: First, we need to mobilize and advocate for the accession to the complaint procedure under Article 22 of the UN Convention against Torture. As we speak, the OMCT is conducting a training seminar for lawyers in the Asia and Pacific region with the support 5