A/71/298 capacity or pursue other leads. Intentional misinformation also sends investigators on distracting wild goose chases. 21. Torture, ill-treatment and coercion have devastating long-term consequences for individuals, institutions and society as a whole, causing serious and long -lasting harm to victims and often injuring the humanity and mental health of pe rpetrators. Such practices corrupt the cultures of institutions that perpetrate, participate in, assist in or overlook them. They debase societies that endorse or accept their use, erode public trust in law enforcement and damage its relationships with communities, with negative consequences for future investigations. 22. Political decisions to resort to torture or ill-treatment and the failure to prevent its use jeopardize States’ international cooperation and harm their reputations, moral authority and legacies. Ultimately, torture only breeds more crime by fuelling hatred and a desire for vengeance against the perpetrators. Its use in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and during the so-called “war on terror” has served as a recruiting tool for the groups against which it was perpetrated. C. Universal protocol for non-coercive, ethically sound, evidence-based and empirically founded interviewing practices 23. Professional interviewers repeatedly emphasize that interviews are conducted much more effectively without resort to torture, ill-treatment or coercion. The Special Rapporteur welcomes strides made by some States in fashioning and implementing human rights-based standards and guidelines for investigations and non-coercive interviewing practices, but is concerned that mistreatment and coercive questioning remain prevalent in many jurisdictions. Some progress notwithstanding, State practice most often ignores the relevant normative frameworks and fails to heed key due process guarantees and procedural saf eguards designed to combat abuses committed during investigations and questioning that are codified in national legislation. 24. Noting the growing attention to and momentum around the issues of investigation, questioning and custody practices at the inter national, regional and national levels (see Human Rights Council resolution 31/31), the Special Rapporteur identifies an auspicious opportunity to promote the development of much-needed standards and guidelines on these fundamental practices, with the aim of assisting States to meet their fundamental legal obligations to prohibit and prevent torture and ill-treatment. He takes particular note of the successful recent revisions of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (now known as the Nelson Mandela Rules) and the Model Protocol for a Legal Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions (Minnesota Protocol) and suggests the organization of a broad public consultation by States and other relevant stakeholders to engage in dialogue on the development of a universal protocol for interviews that is grounded in fundamental principles of international human rights law, including the prohibition of torture, ill -treatment and coercion. 25. Because the principal safeguard against mistreatment during questioning is the interviewing methodology itself, the protocol must outline the guiding principles of an interviewing model that fully respects this prohibition. The protocol must design a model that is non-coercive, ethically sound, evidence-based and research-based and empirically founded. It should champion a culture of human rights compliance, 16-13568 7/25