The obligation to prevent and punish torture Specific obligations to prevent and suppress torture derive from both international treaty law and customary international law. States Parties must make torture, attempts to torture, and complicity and participation in torture, criminal offenses under national law.14 States must ensure that no statement established to have been made as a result of torture is invoked as evidence in any proceedings.15 And States may not expel, return or extradite any person to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing he or she would be in danger of being tortured.16 The Convention against Torture requires States to take proactive steps to prevent torture through appropriate training of all personnel involved in the custody, interrogation or treatment of detained persons and to conduct a “systematic review [of] interrogation rules, instructions, methods and practices as well as arrangements for the custody and treatment of prisoners subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment in any territory under its jurisdiction.”17 Torture is a crime of universal jurisdiction – national courts have the power to try alleged perpetrators of torture even if neither the suspect nor the victim are nationals of the country where the court is located, and the crime took place outside that country. The Convention against Torture imposes the obligation on all states parties to prosecute suspected torturers present in their territory, or extradite them for the purposes of prosecution.18 14 Convention against Torture, article 4; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), article 7 (as interpreted by the UN Human Rights Committee: “States parties should indicate...the provisions of their criminal law which penalize torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment... Those who violate article 7, whether by encouraging, ordering, tolerating or perpetrating prohibited acts, must be held responsible.” UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 20, 10 March 1992, UN Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.1 at 30, para. 13. 15 Convention against Torture, article 15; ICCPR, article 7 (as interpreted by the UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 20, para. 12); ECHR, article 3 (in conjunction with article 6 on the right to a fair trial, as established in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, which has taken the view that “The use of evidence obtained in violation of Article 3 in criminal proceedings raises serious issues as to the fairness of such proceedings. Incriminating evidence – whether in the form of a confession or real evidence – obtained as a result of acts of violence or brutality or other forms of treatment which can be characterised as torture should never be relied on as proof of the victim’s guilt, irrespective of its probative value.” European Court of Human Rights, Harutyunyan v. Armenia, Application No. 36549/03, 28 June 2007, available at http://www.coe.int, para. 63. 16 Convention against Torture, article 3; ICCPR, article 7 (as interpreted by the UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 20, para. 9); ECHR, article 3 (as established in European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence). 17 Convention against Torture, articles 10 and 11, respectively. 18 Ibid., article 5(2) states: “Each State Party shall likewise take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over such offences in cases where the alleged offender is present in any territory under its jurisdiction and it does not extradite him pursuant to article 8 [concerning extradition] to any of the States mentioned in paragraph I of this article.” Article 7(1) stipulates that “The State Party in the territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 [torture, attempt to torture, or complicity or participation in torture] is found shall...if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.” 9 Human Rights Watch | June 2010