safeguards, such as the elimination of confessions as the sole source of evidence, and legal and procedural safeguards at the pre-trial stages of investigation and custody, such as the audio-visual recording of interviews. They will draw on the large scientific evidence base supporting the effectiveness of investigative interviewing techniques in eliciting accurate and reliable information and evidence during questioning, and on best practices with respect to the implementation of key legal and procedural safeguards.61 28. Alternatives to coercive interrogations should also provide for specific provisions for particular groups that are more vulnerable during questioning. Factors that may increase vulnerability include age, gender, disability, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and being part of a minority or socioeconomically marginalized group, as well as being pregnant or breastfeeding. Specifically, persons with intellectual disabilities, children, women and girls, and persons belonging to minorities or indigenous groups, as well as non-nationals, including migrants regardless of their migration status, refugees, asylum seekers or stateless persons should benefit from specific protection measures during questioning. Such measures include, for instance, the identification of a third person who may assist in guaranteeing the welfare of the person being questioned during the criminal procedures. Individual assessments should be made before the questioning takes place, in order to identify whether the interviewee may be facing a heightened situation of vulnerability. 29. Audio-visual recordings of police interviews are widely recognized as a crucial safeguard against the use of torture and other ill-treatment. Already in 2002, the Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Theo Van Boven, stated that “all interrogation sessions should be recorded” and that “evidence from non-recorded interrogations should be excluded from court proceedings”.62 As mentioned above, the audio-visual recording of all interviews is mandatory by law in one participating State, and practice in this area is slowly developing in other countries.63 At 61 62 63 The APT, together with Anti-Torture Initiative (ATI) and the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) launched in 2018 a three-year process to develop a set of guidelines on investigative interviewing by law-enforcement officials and on the implementation of associated legal and procedural safeguards. These guidelines aim to reduce the well-documented risk of mistreatment and coercion that persons face during questioning by law enforcement, and during the first hours of custody. The drafting of the current guidelines is ongoing and the Steering Committee plans to approve a final draft in autumn 2020. For updated information on the process, see here. Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, 17 December 2002, E/CN.4/2003/68, para. 26(g). For example: A. Birtles, “The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the electronic recording of police interviews with suspects”, Human Rights Law Review (2001), 1, no. 1; J. Chalmers, ”Recording of police interviews”, in J. Chalmers et al. (eds.), Post-Corroboration Safeguards Review Report of the Academic Expert Group (The Scottish Government, 2014), pp. 23