Section one Context About the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) The Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) is an international human rights treaty designed to strengthen the protection of people deprived of their liberty. Its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly in 2002 reflected a consensus among the international community that people deprived of their liberty are particularly vulnerable to ill-treatment and that efforts to combat ill-treatment should focus on its prevention. OPCAT embodies the idea that prevention of ill-treatment in detention can best be achieved through a system of independent, regular visits to all places of detention. Such visits monitor the treatment of and conditions for detainees. OPCAT entered into force in June 2006. States that ratify OPCAT are required to designate a ‘national preventive mechanism’ (NPM). This is a body or group of bodies that regularly examines conditions of detention and the treatment of detainees, makes recommendations for improvement and comments on existing or draft legislation with the aim of improving treatment and conditions in detention. To carry out its monitoring role effectively, the NPM must: • be sufficiently resourced to perform its role; and • have personnel with the necessary expertise and who are sufficiently diverse to represent the community in which it operates. Additionally, the NPM must have the power to: • access all places of detention (including those operated by private providers); • conduct interviews in private with detainees and other relevant people; • choose which places it wants to visit and who it wishes to interview; • access information about the number of people deprived of their liberty, the number of places of detention and their location; and • access information about the treatment of and conditions for detainees. The NPM must also liaise with the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT), an international body established by OPCAT with both operational functions (visiting places of detention in states parties and making recommendations regarding the protection of detainees from ill-treatment) and advisory functions (providing assistance and training to states parties and NPMs). The SPT comprises 25 independent and impartial experts from around the world and publishes an annual report on its activities.2 As of November 2020, there were 90 states parties to OPCAT and 76 designated NPMs.3 • be independent of government and the institutions it monitors; 2 3 All annual reports, including the most recent Annual Report which covers the work carried out by the SPT in 2016, are available on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/ treatybodyexternal/TBSearch.aspx?Lang=en&TreatyID=12&DocTypeID=27 [accessed 08/01/2020]. United Nations Treaty Collection, ‘Chapter IV: 9. b Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment’, status as at 08/01/2020, https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails. aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-9-b&chapter=4&clang=_en [accessed 08/01/2020]; Association for the Prevention of Torture, OPCAT database, available at: http://www.apt.ch/en/opcat-database/ [accessed 01/12/2019]. 7