A/HRC/16/52/Add.5 II. Legal framework A. International level 9. Papua New Guinea is party to several of the core United Nations human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women . 10. Papua New Guinea is not yet party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment or the Optional Protocol thereto. It is also not party to the Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance or the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In addition, Papua New Guinea has not ratified or acceded to any of the optional protocols to the abovementioned core treaties, or made declarations recognizing the competence of the respective committees to receive and consider individual complaints. It has not acceded to or ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.1 11. Papua New Guinea is party to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. It is not, however, party to the Additional Protocols to the Conventions of 1977 or to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. B. National level 1. Constitutional and legislative provisions criminalizing torture 12. The Constitution of Papua New Guinea provides for the protection of “fundamental rights” and “qualified rights”. The first set of rights comprises the right to life (sect. 35), protection of the law (sect. 37) and the prohibition of “torture, or treatment or punishment that is cruel or otherwise inhuman, or inconsistent with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person” (sect. 36 (1)). The second set of rights includes those that may be restricted for, inter alia, the purpose of giving effect to the public interest and to “the extent reasonably justifiable in a democratic society”. These rights include the liberty of the person (sect. 42) and freedom from forced labour (sect. 43). 13. The prominent position of the prohibition of torture in the Constitution is not reflected in ordinary law, which contains no explicit definition of the crime of torture. Indeed, the term “torture” appears only once in the Criminal Code Act as an aggravating circumstance in the case of sexual assault (sect. 349 (A)). Instead, the code outlaws several offences, including some, but not all, of the elements of the crime of torture as understood in the Convention against Torture, such as various forms of assault (division 5), including attempts or threats to apply force (sect. 243), excessive use of force (sect. 281), acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm and assaults causing bodily harm (sect. 315). The Criminal Code Act also outlaws threats to do any injury or cause any detriment to another person with the intent to compelling that person to do an act that he or she is lawfully entitled to abstain from doing (sect. 359). 1 Papua New Guinea is considered de facto abolitionist, despite its abstention from the adoption of General Assembly resolution 63/168 on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty . The death penalty for wilful murder was reintroduced in 1991, after having been abolished in 1970. The last known execution took place in 1954. 5