reforms, amending its Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) and abolishing one of its controversial administrative detention systems, the Re-education Through Labour (RTL) system, in December 2013. However, many structural weaknesses remain.53 Legislative reform still falls short of international human rights law. In a briefing on the CPL, Amnesty International concluded that the new legislation “significantly expands the powers of the police and public security organs without introducing corresponding and necessary mechanisms for oversight, monitoring, and restraint”.54 Despite the numerous allegations of torture and other ill-treatment in the now abolished RTL system, it remains unclear whether these will ever be adequately investigated. Early evidence suggests that the police are making increasing use of other forms of arbitrary detention and the criminal detention system to target groups previously held in RTL centres, and that those who were released from RTL centres following its abolition are unable to access effective remedies for alleged torture.55 Torture In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed an unequivocal prohibition on torture. This has been strengthened over the decades through various international instruments including the 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture), which contains a definition of torture that is widely accepted internationally: “[T]orture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”56 “Each State Party shall undertake to prevent… other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which do not amount to torture as defined in article 1 [see above], when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”57 As a state party to the UN Convention against Torture, China is obliged to: refrain from torturing or otherwise ill-treating anyone under any circumstances; take “effective legislative administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction”; try or extradite for trials alleged perpetrators of torture; and investigate all reports and complaints of torture or other ill-treatment and to provide remedy to victims. A statement or evidence obtained through torture must not be admissible as evidence in court or any other proceedings (except against those accused of torture as evidence that the statement was taken).58 The prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment in international law is absolute and goes beyond the confines of treaties, prohibiting “every act of torture or ill-treatment, no matter where, when, or against whom…”59 Places of detention in China include prisons, pre-trial detention facilities, several forms of administrative detention and “black jails” – unofficial, unregulated and illegal detention centres set up in ad hoc locations, such as hotels, psychiatric facilities, government premises or even residential buildings.60 Up until its abolition in 2013, the RTL system was China’s largest formal institution of administrative detention. The number of people detained under RTL is not known as China generally does not make such data public. However, according to the Chinese delegation to the UN Universal Periodic Review on China, there were 190,000 inmates held in 320 centres across China in 2009.61 In its assessment of China’s implementation of recommendations from the 2009 Universal Periodic Review, Amnesty International concluded that “hundreds of thousands continue to be held in illegal and arbitrary forms of detention and subjected to physical and mental torture and other ill-treatment, including forced labour.”62 In a subsequent report which included over 60 interviews with detainees, 18 China’s Trade in Tools of Torture and Repression Amnesty International – Index: ASA 17/042/2014