      “[t]he obligation to prevent ill-treatment in practice overlaps with and is largely congruent with the obligation to prevent torture”;5 “Article 16, identifying the means of prevention of ill-treatment, emphasizes “in particular” the measures outlined in articles 10 to 13, but does not limit effective prevention to these articles”;6 “[t]he obligations to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment […] under article 16, paragraph 1, are indivisible, interdependent and interrelated”;7 “Articles 3 to 15 of the Convention constitute specific preventive measures that the States parties deemed essential to prevent torture and ill-treatment”;8 “articles 3 to 15 are likewise obligatory as applied to both torture and ill-treatment”;9 and “if a person is to be transferred or sent to the custody or control of an individual or institution known to have engaged in torture or ill-treatment, or has not implemented adequate safeguards, the State is responsible, and its officials subject to punishment for ordering, permitting or participating in this transfer contrary to the State’s obligation to take effective measures to prevent torture in accordance with article 2, paragraph 1. The Committee has expressed its concern when States parties send persons to such places without due process of law as required by articles 2 and 3.”10 10. Furthermore, a plain reading of the obligations under Article 16 of the Convention, namely that States shall undertake to prevent any acts of ill-treatment not amounting to torture, requires that States parties’ non-refoulement obligations under the Convention be triggered whenever an involuntary transfer would entail a real risk of such ill-treatment. Desisting from transferring people in circumstances where they would face a real risk of ill-treatment other than torture would be among the simplest and most straightforward means of preventing such acts.11 11. In light of the above, we recommend the insertion of the following text as a new paragraph, paragraph 8bis and concomitant deletion of paragraphs 15 and 16 of the current draft. Recommended textual addition (new paragraph 8bis) The Committee recalls that, as stated in its General Comment No. 2, paragraph 3, the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (hereinafter other “ill-treatment”) under the Convention is, like the prohibition of torture itself, absolute and non-derogable. The prohibition of refoulement with respect to a real risk of other ill-treatment is hence similarly absolute. In General Comment No. 2, the Committee further clarified that the obligation to prevent ill-treatment in practice overlaps with and is largely congruent with the obligation to prevent torture; that, in practice, the threshold between ill-treatment and torture is often difficult to establish; and that, since the conditions that give rise to ill-treatment frequently facilitate torture, States parties must apply the measures required to prevent torture, including effective compliance with the prohibition of refoulement, equally to prevent ill-treatment. [Footnote: “CAT, General Comment No. 2: Implementation of Article 2 by States Parties, 24 January 2008, UN Doc. CAT/C/GC/2, paragraphs 3, 6, 19 and 25.”] 5 Ibid. Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid, para. 25. 9 Ibid, para. 6. 10 Ibid, para. 19. 11 While Article 16 of the Convention refers to acts “in any territory under [the State Party’s] jurisdiction”, this Committee has previously held that jurisdiction extends extraterritorially when there is complicity or otherwise participation in an act on another territory, which refoulement arguably entails (see also additional comments about the extraterritorial application of non-refoulement obligations under the Convention below). 6 6 AI Index: IOR 40/6040/2017