78 United Nations Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol provisions in regional human rights treaties, is missing in the CAT and had already been missing in the various proposals discussed during the drafting history.28 It is likely that such an individual right was taken for granted by the drafters and needs to be assumed to be implicit in the Convention.29 After all, in the Preamble the Convention explicitly refers to Article 7 CCPR and expresses the desire to make more effective the struggle against torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment throughout the world. 17  The formulation of Article 2 (1) must be interpreted as including the obligation of States parties to respect and protect the human right not to be subjected to torture. But the main emphasis of this formulation, as in Article 16, is put on the positive obligation of States parties to fulfil.30 Article 2(1) CAT is drafted in similar words as Article 2(2) CCPR. The obligation to fulfil, derived from the latter provision, means to enact laws, to provide an effective remedy and procedural guarantees, to establish relevant legal institutions and other legislative, administrative, political, or judicial measures.31 Article 2(1) CAT puts the focus of the obligation to fulfil on effective measures to prevent acts of torture. This reflects the general object and purpose of the Convention, which is to strengthen the existing prohibition of torture by specific measures of criminal law aimed at deterring torture and other measures of a preventive nature. 18  The Committee has stipulated that the obligation to prevent torture and other ill-​ treatment under Articles 2 and 16 are ‘indivisible, interdependent and interrelated’32 and that the obligation to prevent cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in practice very much overlaps and is largely congruent with the obligation to prevent torture.33 This is also reflected in the practice of the Committee, as it usually references Articles 2 and 16 together in its recommendations to States as part of the Concluding Observations. 19  The Committee has clarified in its General Comment on Article 2 that States parties are obliged to undertake ‘effective measures to prevent public authorities and other persons acting in an official capacity from directly committing, instigating, inciting, encouraging, acquiescing in or otherwise participating or being complicit in acts of torture’ as laid down in the Convention’.34 The Committee has emphasized that States bear responsibility not only for the acts and omissions of their officials, but also for others, such as agents, private contractors, and others acting in official capacity or on behalf of the State, in conjunction with the State under its direction or control, or otherwise under colour of law.35 States parties not fulfilling these obligations violate the Convention. 20  The question of whether the violation of the right not to be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is at the same time a violation of the CAT and whether a victim of an act of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment can 28   See above 2.2; see also Chris Ingelse, The UN Committee against Torture:  An Assessment (Kluwer Law International 2001) 242ff. 29   Pieter Kooijmans, ‘The Ban on Torture:  Legal and Socio-​Political Problems’ in Franz Matscher (ed), Folterverbot sowie Religions-​und Gewissensfreiheit im Rechtsvergleich (Kehl 1990), 95; Ingelse (n 28) 243. 30   On the obligations of States to respect, fulfil and protect human rights under international human rights law see Manfred Nowak, Introduction to the International Human Rights Regime (Brill/​Nijhoff 2003). 31   Manfred Nowak, UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary (2nd rev edn, NP Engel 2005) 38 (CCPR Commentary). 32   CAT/​C/​GC/​2 (n 1) para  3. 33   See below Art 16, 3.2 on whether Arts 3 to 15 apply not only to torture but also to other forms of ill-​treatment. 34   CAT/​C/​GC/​2 (n 1) para 18. See also Art 1 for a more detailed discussion of these terms. 35   CAT/​C/​GC/​2 (n 1) para 15. See also above Art, 1 § 130. Zach