PART 2: Procedures of the Human Rights Commitee and the Committee against Torture Upon receipt of such information, the Special Rapporteur will consider the details of the response and will communicate the information to the individuals or group who made the allegation (as appropriate). The Special Rapporteur will also consider whether to pursue further dialogue with the State party.470 Urgent appeals and allegation letters sent by the Special Rapporteur, both individually and jointly with other mandates, are periodically compiled in a joint communications report submitted by all the special procedures mandates to the Human Rights Council.471 In addition, the Special Rapporteur’s observations regarding such communications are compiled in an annual report (see Section 2.3.4(b)).472 iii. Fact-finding Visits An integral part of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate is to undertake fact-finding visits to States. These visits are always carried out with the consent of the State involved and may be arranged in two ways. A State’s government may invite the Special Rapporteur to visit, or the Special Rapporteur may seek to solicit an invitation from a government due to the “number, credibility and gravity of the allegations received, and the potential impact that the mission may have on the overall human rights situation”.473 NGOs may play an active role in lobbying the Special Rapporteur to visit a particular State. Country visits provide the Special Rapporteur with the opportunity to gain a firsthand understanding and insight into the human rights situation in relation to practices of torture and ill-treatment, and in relation to the particular States visited. The types of investigation undertaken by the Special Rapporteur include visits to places of detention, and meetings with relevant individuals and groups, such as victims, their families, NGOs, journalists, lawyers, and government authorities. In order to ensure that the visit of the Special Rapporteur will enable him or her to gain a true perspective of the situation and that the visit will not generate or aggravate situations of abuse, the Rapporteur asks for certain guarantees from the government of the State before the visit commences. These include: – Freedom of movement throughout the country. – Freedom of inquiry, especially regarding access to places of detention. 470 Methods of Work, para. 8. 471 Communications reports of special procedures are available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ HRBodies/SP/Pages/CommunicationsreportsSP.aspx. 472 See, e.g., Report of the Special Rapporteur, Observations on communications transmitted to Governments and replies received, (2013) UN Doc. A/HRC/22/53/Add.4. 473 See Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights, “Special Rapporteur on Torture, Country Visits” , available at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/torture/rapporteur/visits.htm. 145