UN TREATY BODIES 1 for precisely this purpose, it is clear that the conclusion of the Protocol does not lessen the existing obligation under UNCAT to monitor the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty, but rather provides more detailed mechanisms for its fulfilment.105 – ICCPR In its General Comment on Article 7, the HRC recognised the importance of keeping interrogation rules under review, and of training “Enforcement personnel, medical personnel, police officers and any other persons involved in the custody or treatment of any individual subjected to any form of arrest, detention or imprisonment,” and incorporating the prohibition of ill-treatment into the operational rules and ethical standards to be followed by such persons.106 The Committee further recognised that procedural guarantees can provide an effective means of preventing ill-treatment. It therefore stated that “provisions should be made for detainees to be held in places officially recognized as places of detention and for their names and places of detention, as well as for the names of persons responsible for their detention, to be kept in registers readily available and accessible to those concerned, including relatives and friends. To the same effect, the time and place of all interrogations should be recorded, together with the names of all those present and this information should also be available for purposes of judicial or administrative proceedings.”107 The Committee explained its expectations in more detail in its General Comment on Article 10(1), inviting States parties “to indicate in their reports to what extent they are applying the relevant United Nations standards applicable to the treatment of prisoners: the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (1957), the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment (1988), the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (1978) and the Principles of Medical Ethics relevant to the Role of Health 26 CAT, Concluding Observations on Russia, UN Doc. A/52/44, 1996, §43(d) (and UN Doc. CAT/C/CR/28/4, 2002, §8(f)). 105 This is made clear in the Preamble of the OPCAT. The CAT has also made it clear that the pre-existing obligation also applies, for example encouraging the Cambodian government to “establish a systematic and independent system to monitor the treatment in practice of persons arrested, detained or imprisoned [and i]n this connection,… consider signing and ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention.” (CAT, Concluding Observations on Cambodia, UN Doc. CAT/C/CR/30/2, 2003, §7(i)). See also, for example, CAT, Concluding Observations on Monaco, UN Doc. CAT/C/CR/32/1, 2004, §5(f)–(g)). 106 HRC, General Comment No. 20, 1992, §10. See also HRC, General Comment No. 21, 1992, §9. 107 HRC, General Comment No. 20, 1992, §11.

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