the SPT members may not be local or even regional experts on the countries they visit. However, in order to conduct effective visits, the SPT needs to have a thorough understanding of local, national and regional practices that they may need to look out for during the visit. It is therefore absolutely key that information provided to the SPT takes into consideration the need to make the members as familiar as possible with the local context in the country they are visiting. Examples of this could be information about specific rooms or sections in a detention centre where torture is practiced or information about local customs that are relevant to the field visit. • The SPT carefully scrutinises all information provided to it in order to assess the situation in a given country. In this regard, it is crucial that all information provided to the SPT is completely reliable, since any information that lacks credibility may cast a negative light on the entire body of information provided by NGOs. It is important that situations are not exaggerated, that the information is objectively presented without value laden commentary and that it is clearly indicated when information is not up to date – meaning things might have changed. Selection of countries to be visited Each year during its November meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, the SPT makes a formal decision on which countries to visit during the following year. In 2012, the SPT will conduct six country visits, with three of the visits limited in focus to selected elements of its mandate such as establishment and functioning of National Preventive Mechanisms, and the remaining three visits focused on all aspects of its mandate. Depending on the available budget, the number of visits might increase in the coming years. Formally, the decision on which countries to visit is taken by consensus and, if needed, by a simple majority vote. In practice, the list of countries to be visited is drawn up by the bureau based on recommendations made by SPT Regional Task Forces and then presented to the full membership for approval.5 In selecting the countries, the SPT will take into consideration factors such as date of ratification, development of NPM, geographic distribution, the size and complexity of the state and reports of urgent issues. Furthermore, the SPT will strive not to duplicate the work of existing regional monitoring mechanisms, such as the CPT in the Council of Europe Region. A comparison of the regional distribution of visits with ratifications of the OPCAT shows an overrepresentation of visits to countries from Asia, Africa and Latin American compared to countries from the Council of Europe region, which have only been targeted for 14% of the visits despite representing more than 50% of ratifications. 5. Guidelines of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in relation to visits to States parties, 18 January 2011, paragraph 3 Working with the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture: A practical guide for NGOs engaging with SPT country visits 9