CAT/C/54/2 Prevention of Torture for its invaluable support to the Optional Protocol and to the Subcommittee. IV. Issues of note arising from the work of the Subcommittee during the period under review A. Changes in membership 43. At the fifth Meeting of States Parties to the Optional Protocol, held in Geneva on 23 October 2014, elections were held to elect 13 members for mandates running from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2018. The Subcommittee wishes to acknowledge with deep gratitude the contribution of its six leaving members to its work. As the Optional Protocol permits only two consecutive terms of elected membership, the leaving members include the remaining three original founder members of the Subcommittee. This marks the end of the first full cycle of Subcommittee membership, and the Subcommittee wishes to pay tribute to the unique contribution that those founder members made to the development of the Subcommittee as a treaty body. 44. Nonetheless, the Subcommittee believes that elections also provide opportunities to rejuvenate its membership and bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the development of its mandate, the very basis of which is constructive dialogue to generate change through which to ensure that torture and other forms of ill-treatment are prevented. Change and renewal are, therefore, at the heart of its work. In that spirit, the Subcommittee warmly welcomes its newly elected members and congratulates its serving members who have been re-elected for another term. 45. The Subcommittee has much to achieve, and is confident that the commitment and independence of its membership is an invaluable asset in moving towards its goals. B. Suspension of visit to Azerbaijan 46. The Subcommittee suspended its visit to Azerbaijan due to difficulties encountered in carrying out its mandate, as a result of which it was unable to visit several places of detention and was prevented from completing its work at others, despite repeated attempts to do so and assurances of unrestricted access given by the Azerbaijani authorities. Given the serious breaches of the Optional Protocol, the delegation concluded that the integrity of its visit, scheduled to run from 8 to 17 September, had been compromised to such an extent that it had to be suspended. C. 1. Development of working practices Optional Protocol advisory visits 47. For some years the Subcommittee has undertaken NPM advisory visits, but where there either is no NPM, or there is no effective engagement with a designated entity, such visits need to be recrafted in order to be effective. To that end, in 2014 the Subcommittee decided to undertake its first Optional Protocol advisory visit, to Nigeria. The visit was designed to fill the “Optional Protocol engagement gap” by utilizing, in the context of a preventive visit, Optional Protocol article 11 (b) (i) to advise and assist States parties, when necessary, in the establishment of an effective and Optional Protocol-compliant NPM. The object of an Optional Protocol advisory visit is to enable the Subcommittee to understand 10