66 United Nations Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol The Committee also welcomed the enactment of legislation banning flogging as a disciplinary penalty for prisoners.258 In all of these cases the Committee has thus made it very clear that it understands that these punishments violate the Convention and cannot be subsumed under the lawful sanctions clause. 142  The United Arab Emirates, when accessing the Convention in 2012, also issued a ‘declaration’, confirming that ‘the lawful sanctions applicable under national law, or pain or suffering arising from or associated with or incidental to these lawful sanctions, do not fall under the concept of “torture” defined in article 1 of this Convention or under the concept of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’.259 This ‘declaration’, which in fact is a reservation, was strongly objected by a number of European States, underlining that it is incompatible with the object and the purpose of the Convention. 143  Regarding the death penalty and methods of execution, with reference to Articles 1, 2, and 16, in 2006, the Committee expressed concern at substantiated information indicating that executions in the United States ‘can be accompanied by severe pain and suffering’260 and recommended that the State party carefully review its execution methods, in particular, in order to prevent severe pain and suffering.261 One can conclude from this reference that the Committee understands that capital punishment might very well amount to torture. The Committee in the meantime also regularly recommends States parties to accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.262 144  More recently, the Committee also expressed its concern that Hong Kong, China in its legislation still includes ‘lawful authority, justification or excuse’ of illicit conduct.263 The Committee not only reiterated that the prohibition of torture is absolute and non-​ derogable and that it does not permit any possible defence, but it also considered that the defence of ‘lawful authority, justification or excuse’ is broader in scope than the lawful sanction clause in Article 1. The Committee thus concludes that this regulation could lead to interpretations that are not in line with the Convention. 145  Regarding the Kazakh report, the Committee criticized that the definition in the Criminal Code excludes ‘physical and mental suffering caused as a result of “legitimate acts” ’.264 It subsequently asked that the State party should ensure ‘that only pain or suffering arising from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions are excluded from the definition, and should remove the reference to “legitimate acts” in that context’.265 It did not specify in any way about its understanding regarding the scope of the lawful sanctions clause. 146  It is difficult to find any meaningful scope of application for the lawful sanctions clause. One extreme interpretation is the one advocated by Saudi Arabia and other Islamic States maintaining that any sanction imposed in accordance with domestic law, including the most severe forms of corporal punishment and executions of capital punishment, was   CAT, ‘Concluding Observations: Egypt’ (2002) UN Doc CAT/​C/​CR/​29/​4, para 3(a).   See declaration by United Arab Emirates in Appendix A.4. 260 261   CAT/​C/​USA/​CO/​2 (n 141) para  31.  ibid. 262  CAT, ‘Concluding Observations:  Burkina Faso’ (2014) UN Doc CAT/​ C/​ BFA/​ CO/​ 1, para 24; CAT/​C/​CHN/​CO/​5 (n 148)  para 50; Ethiopia, CAT/​C/​ETH/​CO/​1 (n 215)  para 24; CAT, ‘Concluding Observations: Guinea’ (2014) UN Doc CAT/​C/​GIN/​CO/​1, para 25; CAT, ‘Concluding Observations: Kuwait’ (2011) UN Doc CAT/​KWT/​CO/​2, para 17; CAT/​C/​USA/​CO/​3-​5 (n 86) para 25. See also below Art 16. 263   CAT, ‘Concluding Observations: Hong Kong’ (2016) UN Doc CAT/​C/​CHN-​HKG/​CO/​5, para 10. 264 265   CAT/​C/​KAZ/​CO/​3 (n 224) para  24.  ibid. 258 259 Zach