The international community’s efforts to promote compliance with human rights norms are generally addressed at the level of the overall system of protection. The human rights community advocates for changes to the laws, policies, and practices that facilitate abuses such as torture—and many governments worldwide have joined that effort. If the international community as a whole were to endorse assurances to protect one person, it would be perceived as ignoring those systematic failings, neglecting the obligation to address the endemic nature of the problem, and providing abusive governments with a device to falsely flaunt their human rights credentials without having to abide by their general legal obligations on torture. The Limits of Post-Return Monitoring The vast majority of written diplomatic assurances contain no provision for independent monitoring of a person after he or she is returned. Some governments that secure diplomatic assurances, however, also arrange with the receiving government to conduct post-return monitoring, either by diplomatic personnel or an independent monitoring body. For example, the Swedish government made such arrangements with the Egyptian authorities after the two Egyptian men were returned, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited a man extradited from Austria to Dagestan, Russia based on such assurances (see Sweden and Austria sections below). By arranging for such monitoring, governments argue that they have provided the returned person with an additional measure of safety. Thus, post-return monitoring is meant to serve as both a disincentive and an accountability mechanism: 1) the receiving government allegedly would not breach the assurances because of fear that the sending government’s monitors would detect the abuse and 2) in the event of allegations or actual abuse, the sending government could hold the receiving government accountable for breaches of the assurances. These arguments, however, are based on a set of false assumptions. False: Torture is Easy to Detect Torture is illegal, criminal activity. It is practiced in secret, with the complicity of prison and detention facility staff and medical personnel, including physicians.65 Indeed, monitoring by the ICRC at Abu Ghraib prison was often frustrated by the actions of prison staff. The U.S.’s own internal investigations into abuses at the prison confirm this 65 See for example, Robert Jay Lifton, MD, “Doctors and Torture,” New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 351, No. 5, July 29, 2004, pages 415-416 [online] http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/5/415 (retrieved March 1, 2005). HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17 NO. 4(D) 24