46 A practical guide to the Istanbul Protocol – for lawyers ANNEX INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEMS I. PREVENTION MECHANISMS 1. INTERNATIONAL (UNIVERSAL) MECHANISMS a. United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture The Special Rapporteur’s remit is to provide the United Nations Human Rights Council with information on governments’ legislative and administrative actions in relation to torture and the extent to which State Parties are fulfilling their obligations under the United Nations Convention against Torture. Individuals can send allegations of torture to the attention of the Special Rapporteur on Torture. Upon receiving these allegations, the Special Rapporteur’s dialogue with a government can begin in one of two ways. If the Rapporteur believes that the allegations he has received are credible, he will either transmit an urgent appeal or raise the allegation in a standard communication. The urgent appeal procedure is designed to respond urgently to information reporting that an individual may be at risk of torture and is used to prevent possible incidents of torture. It will therefore be used only where information is very recent. It is a non-accusatory procedure, which means that it merely asks the Government to take steps to make sure that the person is not tortured, without adopting any position on whether or not the fear of torture might be justified. Standard communications are transmitted to governments on a periodic basis and contain both allegations concerning individual cases (individual allegations) and those concerning general trends, patterns and special factors contributing to the practice of torture in a country (general allegations). These communications are transmitted to the government against which the allegations have been made, in order to give that government an opportunity to comment on them. Depending on the response received