85. These factors, combined with the additional challenges of prosecuting perpetrators, outlined below, mean that many cases of torture or other ill-treatment throughout the OSCE region remain unreported. This lack of reporting serves to mask the actual scale of the problem. Criminalisation of torture in national law 86. The absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment imposes a number of obligations on states, including the primacy of defining torture and other ill-treatment in national legislation in accordance with international law and reflecting the gravity of the crime in the suggested punishment for acts of torture.189 States should take effective legislative measures to include torture as a separate and specific crime in national legislation and adopt a definition of torture that covers all the elements contained in article 1 of the UNCAT.190 This serves to underline society’s abhorrence of the crime and the fact that the prohibition of torture is one of the few absolute and non-derogable human rights standards. Without a separate offence of torture, it is difficult to ensure compliance with the obligation to investigate and prosecute instances of torture. The UN Committee against Torture has explicitly recognized that discrepancies between the definition of torture under the UNCAT and the definition incorporated into national law can create “actual or potential loopholes for impunity”.191 87. There are examples where the definition of torture and its incorporation in criminal codes, as required by the UNCAT, are lacking in the OSCE region. This is true in at least one Western European OSCE participating State, where the UNCAT has noted that the provisions of the penal code that are applied in cases of torture do not reflect the gravity of the crime of torture and, therefore, do not provide for commensurate punishment for the perpetrators.192 In the South Caucasus region, progress has been made. Before 2015, the definition of torture in one OSCE participating State referred only to acts by private parties, meaning that the use of torture by state officials was not criminalized, and no public official had ever 189 Article 4, UN General Assembly, Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 10 December 1984. 190 For more information on anti-torture legislation see e.g. Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT), “Guide on anti-torture legislation”, (2016). 191 See paragraph 9 of the General Comment No.2 on Implementation of Article 2. 192 UN Committee against Torture, List of issues prior to submission of the eighth periodic report of Switzerland, 8 January 2018; ODIHR, “Opinion on the Definition of Torture and its absolute prohibition in Polish legislation”, (2018). 55