A/76/168 occurred, assigning responsibility and providing acknowledgment and redress of the suffering and harm endured by victims; (d) As pertaining not only to the accountability of individuals, but also to that of States, institutions, organizations and other collective or corporate entities that may commit or enable torture or ill-treatment. 5. The present report offers an overview of the most important legal and practical challenges conducive to the current systemic accountability gap for torture and illtreatment, examines various functions and forms which accountability can take and, based on a clarified, consolidated and more comprehensive understanding of accountability, makes recommendations on measures that can be taken to improve worldwide accountability for torture or ill-treatment. 6. The examples provided in the present report are not aimed at singling out individual States, rather but to illustrate points for which there may be plenty of o ther examples, which could not be comprehensively covered within the word limit. II. Significance of accountability for torture and ill-treatment 7. As a thematic priority of work, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that: The rule of law and accountability for human rights violations are critical for prevention of violations, conflict, and violence, the building and sustaining of peace, and achievement of inclusive development. The costs of lawlessness are starkly evident across the world: in failures of justice and impunity for crimes, conflict over unaddressed grievances, and oppressive, unaccountable rule. We need governance systems in which all duty bearers, institutions and entities, public or private, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, independently adjudicated, and consistent with international human rights norms and standards. 3 8. Accountability for torture or ill-treatment signifies the holding to account of individuals, public authorities or the State itself as an entity, as well as corporations, organizations and other collective bodies, in respect of any act or omission that may engage their responsibility under the prohibition of torture and ill -treatment. Such accountability encompasses a duty to make amends for any misconduct, notably through appropriate reparations, including rehabilitation. Accountability is relational, and its beneficiaries are not only the immediate victims of violations, but also any individuals and communities affected, as well as the wider public. Mechanisms of accountability may take various forms, pertaining to the legal, political, economic or social domains. Moreover, while accountability is often associated with individual responsibility, it pertains not only to matters of individual culpability but also to collective or institutional misconduct, as well as systemic and structural failings. 4 9. The absolute prohibition of torture and ill-treatment has been codified in numerous universal, regional and national legal instruments but also reflects a general principle of law, namely “elementary considerations of humanity”. 5 The prohibition is authoritatively recognized as a core principle of customary international law and, __________________ 3 4 5 4/23 www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/ManagementPlan/Pages/law-accountability.aspx. Danielle Hanna Rached, “The concept(s) of accountability: form in search of substance”, Leiden Journal of International Law, vol. 29, No. 2 (June 2016), pp. 317–342. Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua ( Nicaragua v. United States of America), Merits, Judgment of 27 June 1986, I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 14, with reference to the Corfu Channel case (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland v. Alb ania), Judgment of 9 April 1949, I.C.J. Reports 1949, p. 4. 21-09914