12 CPT: 12TH GENERAL REPORT ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES The Convention and its Protocols 20. As a result of recent ratifications by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, 44 States are today bound by the Convention. In other words, the CPT’s field of operations once again encompasses all member States of the Council of Europe (cf also Appendix 1B.) The CPT hopes that the Optional Protocol will soon be adopted and looks forward to cooperating with the Sub-Committee on Prevention of Torture to be established under the Optional Protocol. Further, following the deposit on 7 November 2001 (by Ukraine) of the last remaining ratification needed for the entry into force of Protocol No 1, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has been empowered since 1 March 2002 to invite any non-member State to accede to the Convention. By letter of 24 April 2002, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia became the first country to invoke the use of that power, requesting that it be invited to accede to the Convention. This request met with a favourable response; after consulting the CPT, the Committee of Ministers decided on 20 June 2002 to issue such an invitation. 22. In the same way as the first Protocol, Protocol No 2 to the Convention also entered into force on 1 March 2002, following its ratification by Ukraine on 7 November 2001. Consequently, the CPT’s on-site activities now cover the whole of the Caucasus and should soon extend throughout the Balkan region. These developments inevitably have resource implications, which will be addressed in the section “Administrative and budgetary questions”. 21. It will be for the Committee of Ministers to decide on the use which should be made of the power it now holds to invite non-member States to accede to the Convention. However, the CPT wishes to take this opportunity to comment upon the view expressed in certain quarters that the entry into force of Protocol No 1 renders superfluous the new visiting mechanism envisaged in the proposed Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture. In the CPT’s opinion, such a view is entirely erroneous. Nothing in the preparatory work of Protocol No 1 suggests there was a wish on the part of member States of the Council of Europe that the European Convention for the prevention of torture should acquire a universal role, and the CPT has no reason to believe that such a wish exists today. The primary purpose of preparing the Protocol was undoubtedly to enable Central and Eastern European countries to benefit from the Convention’s monitoring mechanism, without waiting for their expected future membership of the Council of Europe to materialise. The precise form which the Optional Protocol has now taken, with its two-pillar system, serves to underline the need for universal, regional and national approaches to preventing torture and the complementarity of the European Convention and the Optional Protocol. Protocol No 2 introduces technical amendments related to the CPT’s membership. Firstly, CPT members may now be reelected twice instead of just once, as had been the case previously. The aim of this change is to ensure a certain continuity of experience within the Committee, which was felt necessary given the very particular nature of its activities. Secondly, a system for renewing half the Committee’s membership every two years has been introduced. As a result, the current profusion of term of office expiry dates will be replaced by an orderly renewal of the members of the CPT. As regards this second aspect, the Committee of Ministers decided on 21 February 2002 to divide, for election purposes, members of the then existing 41 Parties to the Convention into two groups (“A” and “B”), based on term of office expiry dates of 19 December 2005 and 19 December 2007. These two groups, which are reproduced in Appendix 3B, will be progressively established as existing terms of office expire. As regards members elected in respect of new Parties to the Convention, they will be allocated to one or other of the two groups, having regard to the objective of renewing half the Committee’s membership every two years.