- 43 APPENDIX 5 Letter from the President of the CPT to the United Nations Deputy Secretary General for Human Rights Strasbourg, 20 October 1992 Dear Deputy Secretary General, 1. I refer to your letter of 27 August 1992, by which you drew the attention of the European Committee for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (CPT) to the draft Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, proposed by the Costa-Rican Government on 22 January 1991. Pursuant to paragraph 5 of Resolution 1992/43, adopted by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on 3 March 1992, the CPT would like to submit the following observations to the working group of the Commission on Human Rights entrusted with the task of elaborating the draft Optional Protocol. 2. The CPT considers that it should refrain from expressing any view as regards the advisability of establishing at universal level a system of visits by a committee of experts to places of detention. This is a policy issue which others must address. However, if and when such a system is established, it shall obviously be essential for the activities of the new body to be effectively coordinated with those of regional bodies performing a comparable task. 3. In this connection, the CPT has taken note with interest of Article 9, paragraph 1, of the draft Optional Protocol. The Committee fully approves of the basic spirit of this provision, which is, through consultation, to avoid a wasteful duplication of efforts by parallel systems of control. To this end the CPT would certainly be eager to have the closest possible relations with the Sub-Committee envisaged by the draft Optional Protocol. 4. However, the CPT has misgivings as regards the specific means of coordinating the respective activities of the Sub-Committee set up under the draft Optional Protocol and regional bodies, highlighted in Article 9, paragraph 1. The participation of a member of the Sub-Committee, as an "observer", in missions carried out by regional bodies is foreseen; this member would subsequently make a "strictly confidential" report to the Sub-Committee.