including incommunicado detention, likewise breach the prohibition on arbitrary detention.116 137. It should also be noted that detainees are to be afforded effective, “prompt and regular access to counsel” to facilitate the exercise of their right to be free from arbitrary arrest and detention.117 The detaining officials are to inform the detainees of their right to counsel promptly after arrest.118 Ensuring detainees’ access to counsel from the outset of their detention is essential given that those arrested or detained on a criminal charge are to be quickly brought before a judge or official with judicial power.119 Lawful restrictions on access to counsel should be specified in law, limited to extraordinary circumstances, temporary and assessed on a case-by-case basis.120 138. The prohibition of arbitrary detention further prescribes that persons should only be detained in officially acknowledged places of detention, registered, provided prompt medical assistance and entitled to inform their relatives of their arrest, detention and whereabouts.121 The prohibition of unacknowledged detention cannot be derogated from, even in times of armed conflict.122 The secret detention123 of individuals always amounts to an enforced disappearance,124 and is considered to be arbitrary per se as well as a per se violation of the CAT.125 116 Ibid., para. 46. Ibid. See, also, UN CAT, General Comment No. 2, op. cit., note 76, para. 13; Pejic, “Procedural Principles and Safeguards”, op. cit., note 16, p. 388. 118 “Body of Principles”, op. cit., note 89, Principle 17. 119 UN HRC, General Comment No. 35, op. cit., note 92, paras. 34-35. 120 “Body of Principles”, op. cit., note 89, Principle 18; Human Rights in Counter-Terrorism Investigations: A Practical Manual for Law Enforcement Officers (Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR, 2013), p. 90, <http://www.osce.org/odihr/108930?download=true>. 121 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, New York, 20 December 2006, Art. 17, <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CED/Pages/ConventionCED.aspx >; UN HRC, General Comment No. 35, op. cit., note 92, para. 58; UN CAT, General Comment No. 2, op. cit., note 76, para. 13; OSCE Moscow Document, op. cit., note 90, para. 23.1(vi); “Body of Principles”, ibid., Principles 12, 16, and 24. For more details about the provision of medical care at Guantánamo, see Part 1-II-B of this report. 122 UN HRC, General Comment No. 29, op. cit., note 111, para. 13(b); UN Special Procedures, “Joint study on global practices in relation to secret detention”, op. cit., note 109, paras. 46-47. 123 For the purpose of this report, it is considered that a “person is kept in secret detention if state authorities acting in their official capacity, or persons acting under the orders thereof, with the authorization, consent, support or acquiescence of the State, or in any other situation where the action or omission of the detaining person is attributable to the State, deprive persons of their liberty; where the person is not permitted any contact with the outside world (‘incommunicado detention’); and when the detaining or otherwise competent authority denies, refuses to confirm or deny or actively conceals the fact that the person is deprived of his/her liberty hidden from the outside world, including, for example family, independent lawyers or nongovernmental organizations, or refuses to provide or actively conceals information about the fate or whereabouts of the detainee”. UN Special Procedures, “Joint study on global practices in relation to secret detention”, ibid., para. 8. 124 Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances defines enforced disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law”. “Customary International Humanitarian Law, Rule 98: Enforced Disappearance”, ICRC website, <https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_cha_chapter32_rule98>: While the United States is not a party to this Convention, the treaty is considered to codify binding customary international law. 125 UN CAT, Concluding observations on the combined third to fifth periodic reports of the United States of America, op. cit., note 107, para. 11; UN Special Procedures, “Joint study on global practices in relation to secret detention”, op. cit., note 109, paras. 20, 28. See, also, UN CAT, Conclusions and recommendations of the Committee against Torture, United States of America, CAT/C/USA/CO/2, op. cit., note 107, para. 17; Nowak, CCPR Commentary, op. cit., note 93, pp. 227-228. 117 54