The bill would supplement the existing legal prohibition on returning individuals to countries where they are likely to be tortured by requiring the State Department to establish a list of countries that commonly use torture in detention and interrogation. It would prohibit U.S. officials or contractors from transferring any person in their custody to a country on the list, unless those transfers occur as part of an immigration or extradition proceeding where the individual has an opportunity to raise a Convention against Torture claim in a judicial forum, including the opportunity to challenge the reliability and sufficiency of any diplomatic assurances. Under the bill, the Secretary of State could waive the prohibition if she could certify that a country on the list had “ended” the acts of torture and ill-treatment that were the basis for the inclusion of the country on the list and that there was a verifiable mechanism in place to ensure that any person transferred to said country would not be tortured or illtreated. Written or oral assurances against torture from a government would not be sufficient to constitute such a verifiable mechanism. In all cases, the bill would prevent reliance on diplomatic assurances as the basis for determining that an individual is not at risk of torture. To ensure compliance with these provisions, the bill would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to revise the immigration regulations implementing article 3 of the Convention against Torture: …to ensure that written or verbal assurances made by a country that a person in immigration proceedings in the United States (including asylum proceedings) will not be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading if the person is removed by the United States to the country are not, standing alone, a sufficient basis for believing that the person would not be tortured or subjected to such treatment if the alien were removed to the country.124 It would also require the other government agencies to issue regulations regarding the responsibilities of U.S. government officials and contractors to comply with article 3 of the Convention against Torture both within and outside the U.S. 124 Ibid., p. 14. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17 NO. 4(D) 42