ESSEX PAPER 3: INITIAL GUIDANCE ON THE INTERPRETATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE UN NELSON MANDELA RULES Mandela Rules can be interpreted as a detailed description of how dignity should be respected within prison. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has noted that, The principle of humane treatment of persons deprived of liberty constitutes the starting point for any consideration of prison conditions and the design of prison regimes. It complements and overlaps the principle on the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment by requiring States (and consequently the prison authorities) to take positive measures to ensure minimum guarantees of humane treatment for persons in their custodial care (see Human Rights Committee general comment No. 21, para. 3). Treating all persons deprived of their liberty with humanity and with respect for their dignity is a fundamental and universally applicable rule, the application of which, at a minimum, cannot be dependent on the material resources available in the State party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (para. 4).2 Rules 1 to 5 of the Nelson Mandela Rules explain that states not only have negative duties to ensure that the treatment of prisoners does not offend human dignity but also positive obligations that require the prison administration to take specific action to protect prisoners’ dignity. These positive duties are set out throughout the Rules. For example, Rules 12 to 21 address basic issues fundamental to a prisoner’s inherent dignity on accommodation, hygiene, clothing and food, requiring the prison administration to take positive action such as: •  Ensuring that ‘all parts of the prison regularly used by prisoners [including cells, bathrooms and eating areas are] properly maintained and kept scrupulously clean at all times’3; •  Providing prisoners ‘with water and toilet articles as are necessary for health and cleanliness’4; •  Where a prisoner is not ‘permitted to where his or her own clothing’, providing him or her with adequate and clean clothing suitable for the climate5; •  Ensuring all prisoners have their own bed and ‘separate and sufficient bedding’6; •  Providing prisoners with drinking water whenever needed and ‘food of nutritional value adequate for health and strength, of wholesome quality’.7 The Essex Group pointed to the fundamental power imbalance between the prison administration and prisoners as imprisonment is a regime enforced upon prisoners, thereby placing their human dignity at constant risk. Certain acts or omissions by the prison administration inherently violate UN General Assembly, Interim Report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, A/68/295 (9 August 2013) , available at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prisonreform/SPECIAL_RAPPORTEUR_EN.pdf , at para 35 (Interim Report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment). The requirement to treat persons deprived of their liberty with dignity is set out in Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR), Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights 1981, the Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa 1996, Principle 1 of the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners 1990; Principle 1 of the UN Body of Principles on the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment 1988; Principles 12 and 87 UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty 1990; the Guideline 8 of the Guidelines for Action on Children in the Criminal Justice System 1997 and Article 2 of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials 1979. 2  Rule 17. 3  Rule 18(1). 4  Rules 19 and 20. 5  Rule 21. 6  Rule 22. 7  Penal Reform International and the Essex Human Rights Centre |8