A/66/268
• On 1 July 2011 — urging the Government of the United States to stop the
scheduled execution of Humberto Leal García in Texas.
Highlights of key presentations/consultations/training courses
8.
From 8 to 9 February 2011, the Special Rapporteur participated in a meeting
sponsored by Amnesty International in London to discuss “Developing International
Best Practice for Inquiries and Investigations into Torture”. He also spoke at the All
Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition.
9.
On 22 February, he delivered a statement to the American Academy of
Forensic Sciences at its 63rd annual meeting on “International framework and
mechanisms for documenting conditions of detention, torture and ill-treatment”.
10. On 28 February, he met with high-ranking officials from the Department of
State and the Department of Defense of the United States of America in Washington,
D.C., and again with the Department of Defense on 22 April to discuss issues of
mutual concern.
11. From 6 to 10 March 2011, the Special Rapporteur was in Geneva for the
sixteenth session of the Human Rights Council and met with the Ambassadors of
Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Thailand and the United States. He also met with all the
Human Rights Council regional groups except for the Africa Group, which
unfortunately could not be scheduled.
12. On 16 and 17 March, in Washington, D.C., he participated in a meeting with
the Chair of the Committee against Torture, the Vice-Chair of the Subcommittee on
Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, the Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty of the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a representative of the European
Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Special Rapporteur on Detained
Persons of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The meeting
was organized jointly by the Washington College of Law of American University
and the Association for the Prevention of Torture to discuss ways to strengthen the
working relations of those mechanisms.
13. From 18 to 20 March, the Special Rapporteur made two presentations to the
annual General Meeting and the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the United
States Section of Amnesty International in San Francisco.
14. On 1 June 2011, he was the keynote speaker at an event in Washington, D.C.,
organized by several faith-based groups and entitled “Accountability Today:
Preventing Torture Tomorrow”.
15. From 15 to 17 June, the Special Rapporteur chaired, with the support of the
Government of the Netherlands, a regional consultation on torture for the Americas
in Santiago, Chile. The regional consultation was organized in partnership with the
Association for the Prevention of Torture, the Centro de Estudios Legales y
Sociales, Corporación Humanas — Centro Regional de Derechos Humanos y
Justicia de Género and Conectas Direitos Humanos, and was an opportunity for
governments, national institutions and organizations of civil society from
12 countries to discuss follow-up to recommendations of country visits and to
strengthen local and regional protection mechanisms against torture and illtreatment.
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