21 This may, for example, be the case where suspects are mistreated by investigating officers but where that mistreatment is not considered severe enough to constitute torture. However, it may not cover extensive periods of detention pre-trial in inhumane prisons which, in practical terms, will often result in confessions of guilt (as a way of ending the detention). ii) protect against coercion. In some of these countries, these protections explicitly cover inhuman and degrading treatment. In the United Kingdom, confessions are inadmissible if they are ‘obtained […] by oppression’ and the definition of ‘oppression’ includes ‘torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the use or threat of violence (whether or not amounting to torture)’.73 As discussed below, in many countries specific rules apply in the context of confessions to II.4 Evidence obtained by torture of a third party II.4.1 International standards The exclusionary rule prohibits the use of any evidence obtained by torture in any proceedings. It is not confined to criminal proceedings, nor to cases directed against the victim of the torture: statements procured through torture cannot be used in proceedings against any person. This is because the exclusionary rule is not only intended to guarantee the right against self-incrimination; it also is intended to guarantee the fairness of the trial as a whole. As articulated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: ‘[S]tatements obtained under duress are seldom truthful, because the person tries to say whatever is necessary to make the cruel treatment or torture stop. Accordingly, the Court considers that accepting or granting evidentiary value to statements or confessions obtained by coercion, which affect the person or a third party, constitutes, in turn, an infringement of a fair trial’.74 The rule is not limited to the situation in which the tainted evidence is sought to be brought before the courts of the forum where the torture allegedly took place. It is irrelevant whether the state where the evidence is sought to be introduced had a role in the torture or not, it would still be inadmissible in the proceedings. The UN Committee Against Torture addressed this in GK v Switzerland, which concerned an extradition request from Switzerland to Spain the basis for which was alleged to be (at least indirectly) based on testimony extracted by torture of a third person by Spanish authorities. Whilst the Committee did not ultimately find a violation, it observed that: ‘the broad scope of the prohibition in article 15, proscribing the invocation of any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture as evidence ‘in any proceedings’, is a function of the absolute nature of the prohibition’.75 In its conclusions and recommendations concerning the United Kingdom’s fourth periodic report, the UN Committee Against Torture indicated that ‘article 15 of the Convention prohibits the use of evidence gained by torture wherever and by whomever obtained’.76 Therefore, it is irrelevant whether the forum state where the evidence is sought to be introduced had a role in the torture; it would still be inadmissible in the proceedings. II.4.2 National implementation i) Examples of clear exclusionary rules Most of the countries examined prohibit reliance on third party ‘torture evidence’. This largely derives from the same express or implied prohibitions on evidence obtained by torture of a defendant. For example, in countries like Spain, where illegally obtained evidence is prohibited, this typically applies to all forms of evidence obtained by torture, regardless of who was the victim of the torture.77 In South Africa, the Constitutional rule on ‘torture evidence’ expressly refers to any ‘evidence obtained in a manner that violates any right in the Bill of Rights’.78 The Constitutional Court confirmed that this applies to third party evidence in the case of S v Mthembu.79