25 years of the CPT T he European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has reached its 25-year milestone. Following the entry into force of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (“the Convention”) on 1 February 1989, the setting up of a small secretariat and the election of its frst members, the CPT held its inaugural meeting in November 1989. The frst ever on-site monitoring activity took place half a year later, when a delegation visited Austria in May 1990. The CPT has evolved signifcantly since those early days. Five years ago, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, the CPT’s 19th General Report described the main developments. The Committee’s geographical scope has gradually expanded from an initial 15 states parties to the Convention to the current 47. Over the years, the CPT has progressively widened the range of places of deprivation of liberty it visits, covering not only police establishments and prisons, but also psychiatric hospitals, detention facilities for foreigners held under aliens legislation, juvenile detention centres and social care homes. The CPT has in recent years begun monitoring return fights and examining the treatment of foreign nationals during their deportation by air. In the course of its monitoring activities, the CPT has developed a corpus of standards on many issues covered by its work, such as safeguards against ill-treatment, conditions of detention, health care and combating impunity, to name just a few. In this year of the 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the substantive section of this General Report contains a freshly updated version of the CPT’s standards in respect of juveniles deprived of their liberty under criminal legislation. Compared to the frst decade of its existence, the CPT now makes much more use of the possibility it has to carry out ad hoc visits including, if necessary, visits organised at very short notice. This trend is likely to continue in the coming years. The importance of having the capacity to respond rapidly to newly emerging situations has again been underscored by the recent developments in Ukraine, where the CPT carried out two such visits in the year 2014 alone. All these developments underline the fact that it has been possible for the Convention mechanism to evolve considerably within the framework of the Convention and illustrate the foresight of its drafters. Not only has the CPT itself evolved, but so has the overall environment in which it operates. New European, international and national actors have emerged, such as the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) and the National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) established on the basis of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) of the United Nations. The Committee welcomes wholeheartedly these developments since they have created opportunities for partnerships and synergies, in other words for ► Page 5