complexity of the work associated with regular visits to places of detention on different continents, the language barrier that might exist between experts and persons interviewed during such visits and the high financial cost of the preventive system envisaged by the draft optional protocol. Some members of the Committee observed that the establishment of a system of visits to places of detention at the universal level was perhaps premature and that it would be preferable for countries outside the Council of Europe to establish similar systems at the national or at the regional level~ The view was also expressed that the system envisaged under the draft optional protocol could have a negative effect on the possibility of creating regional systems and on their functioning but one member of the Committee was of the view that this objection had been taken into account by the authors of the draft optional protocol in its article 9 on relations with regional organizations. Members of the Committee acknowledge, however, that it was for States, and in particular States parties to the Convention, to study carefully the text of the optional protocol and express their opinion on it in the Commission on Human Rights. Some members of the Committee were of the view that, if a system of visits to places of detention at the universal level was to be adopted, the monitoring mechanism established under the Convention and that envisaged under the draft optional protocol should be independent. Other members of the Committee were of the view that a link should clearly subsist between the two mechanisms in order to avoid conflicts of competence and undue proliferation of organs dealing with the same issue. 20. The Committee agreed that the text of the draft optional protocol submitted by Costa Rica provided a valuable basis for discussion in the Commission on Human Rights and expressed support for the initiative as well as for the experts and representatives of non-governmental organizations who had participated in the elaboration of the text and had been following developments relating to this question in the Commission on Human Rights. -5-