20 years of the CPT 7. As an assiduous reader of CPT visit reports and State responses will know, there are countless concrete examples of positive steps taken in reaction to the Committee’s recommendations and observations. Safeguards against ill-treatment have been introduced or strengthened, substandard inmate accommodation has been renovated or withdrawn from service, the quality of health care for persons detained has been improved and out-of-cell activities have been enhanced. In spite of that, torture and other deliberate forms of ill-treatment of persons deprived of their liberty still exist in the Council of Europe area, and conditions of detention remain wretched in numerous establishments of various types; many published CPT reports as well as judgments of the European Court of Human Rights attest to this state of affairs. 8. Successfully combating deliberate forms of ill-treatment requires that appropriate safeguards be both provided by law and applied in practice, that those given the heavy responsibility of dealing with persons deprived of their liberty be carefully selected and properly trained, and that vigorous action be taken when evidence of illtreatment emerges. Specific mention should be made of impunity, a problem encountered by the CPT in many countries and which was recently described by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe as “an issue of major concern”. The credibility of the prohibition of torture and other forms of severe ill-treatment is undermined each time officials responsible for such offences are not held to account for their actions. The CPT looks forward to contributing to the work on measures to address this problem which has recently begun within the Council of Europe. 9. As for the improvement of conditions of detention, this may well require a combination of additional material resources and appropriate legislative measures. As regards more particularly prison conditions, it is essential to get to grips with the phenomenon of overcrowding which continues to blight penitentiary systems across Europe. The various interrelated measures needed have already been identified, including through recommendations of the Committee of Ministers; simply building more prisons is not the solution. 10. For any body charged with preventing torture and other forms of severe illtreatment, the potential tension between a State’s obligation to protect its citizens (for example, against acts of terrorism) and the need to uphold basic values constitutes one of the greatest challenges. The CPT has experienced such tension in certain countries ever since the outset of its activities, but it became more pronounced – and more widespread – after the terrible events of September 11, 2001. This tension manifests itself in various ways, such as the extension of maximum periods of custody, limitations on the exercise of fundamental safeguards (the key requirement of access to a lawyer as from the outset of custody often being one of the first casualties), and the highly-debatable practice of seeking, in the context of deportation procedures, “diplomatic assurances” from States with a poor human rights record. 9