26 EL HASKI v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT Prohibition and Prevention of Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in Africa, adopted by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, and the rules of procedure of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and of the International Criminal Court. They added that the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture had repeatedly emphasised the importance of the exclusionary rule, with the latter taking the view that it was an inherent part of the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. 77. In the submission of the third-party interveners, the exclusionary rule applies to evidence obtained not only by torture but also by other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Whilst Article 15 of the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Article 10 of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture refer only to torture, Article 12 of the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment refers to other forms of prohibited ill-treatment; the position of the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture is, moreover, consistent with the latter. In addition, the rule extends both to confessions by the person against whom evidence is being sought and to witness statements of third parties. Referring to the above-cited Jalloh and Ashot Harutyunyan judgments, they pointed out that it was clear from the Court’s case-law that the use of evidence obtained by torture automatically rendered the trial unfair. They further drew attention to the Court’s finding in Jalloh (§ 106) that where the evidence in question had been obtained by treatment contrary to Article 3 not amounting to torture, the impact on the fairness of the proceedings would depend on the circumstances of each individual case. They took the view, however, that the Court had left open the question whether the use of evidence obtained by other prohibited ill-treatment automatically rendered a trial unfair (ibid., § 107). 78. The third-party interveners observed that the Committee against Torture had considered that the forum State was under an obligation to ensure that statements admitted in evidence in any proceedings had not been obtained by torture (they referred in this connection to the Committee’s decision in G.K. v. Switzerland). They indicated that, whilst there was little international jurisprudence on the burden and standard of proof, it was quite well established that, where a party to proceedings alleged that evidence had been obtained by torture, the forum State had a duty to investigate the circumstances in which it had been obtained; if that proved to be the case, the evidence had to be excluded. The jurisprudence was inconsistent, however, as to the extent to which an individual had to sustain his or her allegations. Referring to the decisions in Halimi-Nedzibi v. Austria, Encarnación Blanco Abad v. Spain, P.E. v. France and G.K. v. Switzerland,