A/76/168 and ill-treatment. This impunity is often shaped by formal obstacles to individual accountability enshrined in national laws, including, most notably, the absence of legal provisions specifically criminalizing torture and ill-treatment; the admissibility as evidence of self-incriminating confessions extracted through coercion; and the application of statutes of limitation, blanket amnesties and immunities or other jurisdictional impediments to the prosecution of torture and ill-treatment. Such obstacles tend to shield the powerful and abandon the vulnerable and powerless, and they are fundamentally incompatible with the duty of States to ensure accountability for torture or ill-treatment, redress and reparations for victims, and the effective prevention of such abuse. 27. The Special Rapporteur draws particular attention to the necessity of criminalizing, in national law, not only perpetrators of torture and ill -treatment, but also those whose complicity or participation in such abuse consists of superior orders, instigation, consent or acquiescence. Moreover, criminal responsibility can also arise from deliberate or negligent omission, most notably through command or superior responsibility as reflected in article 28 (a) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and recognized in customary international criminal law. Accordingly: A superior shall be criminally responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court committed by subordinates under his or her effective authority and control, as a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly over such subordinates, where: (i) The superior either knew, or consciously disregarded information which clearly indicated, that the subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes; (ii) The crimes concerned activities that were within the effective responsibility and control of the superior; and (iii) The superior failed to take all necessary and reasonable measure s within his or her power to prevent or repress their commission or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution. 25 Thus, civilian and military superiors, including political leaders, failing to prevent or suppress torture or ill-treatment amounting to war crimes or crimes against humanity, or failing to prosecute their subordinates for such crimes, may well incur individual criminal responsibility by omission. 28. In this connection, the Special Rapporteur emphasizes the duty of judges and courts to enforce the law by examining cases involving torture and ill -treatment and, if allegations are confirmed, prosecuting and punishing perpetrators irrespective of their status or level of authority. The courts also have an essential role in overseeing the main components of accountability, notably through guaranteeing the independence and impartiality of criminal investigations and applying the exclusionary rule. For example, in Nepal, where the police were reluctan t to investigate cases of torture or ill-treatment, the Supreme Court ordered the Government to establish a separate body, composed of independent experts separate from the police, to investigate cases of torture or ill-treatment in which police officials had allegedly been involved. 26 The implementation of anti-torture legislation and the __________________ 25 26 10/23 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, art. 28 (b). Binod Ghimire, “Nepal has not seen a single conviction for torture and custodial deaths in the past three years”, The Kathmandu Post, 7 June 2021, available at https://kathmandupost.com/ national/2021/06/27/nepal-has-not-seen-a-single-conviction-for-torture-and-custodial-deaths-inthe-past-three-years. 21-09914