CPT: 16TH GENERAL REPORT 5 PREFACE 2006 saw an important step forward in the development of international co-operation on human rights, with the entry into force on 22 June of the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT). As a result of this, the long-awaited machinery of a universal character for the prevention of torture and other forms of ill-treatment will finally become a reality early next year. This is welcome news to the CPT. This achievement has its genesis in the inventiveness and tenacity of a former Swiss banker, Jean-Jacques Gautier. It was he who conceived of independent and internationally binding monitoring of places of deprivation of liberty as a crucial means of preventing torture, and founded the Comité suisse contre la torture (CSCT) in 1977 for the purpose of pursuing that goal. Initial attempts to launch this idea at United Nations level were not crowned with success. Consequently, in the early 1980s the CSCT and its close ally, the International Commission of Jurists, focused their attention on promoting the adoption of a regional instrument at European level, and they succeeded in mobilising strong political support from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The outcome was the adoption and opening for signature in 1987 of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the establishment some two years later of the CPT. For some, the main interest of setting up in Europe a treaty-based mechanism for on-site monitoring of places of detention was to test the viability and usefulness of such an approach prior to its implementation at universal level; the CPT will leave it to others to comment upon whether that test has been passed. In any event, almost twenty years later, a UNbased Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, with a mandate and powers similar to those of the CPT, is about to be established. The CPT salutes this development and pledges itself to work together with the global mechanism for the shared goal of preventing ill-treatment. The Committee is keen to develop concrete plans for co-operation between the two bodies, as envisaged in the OPCAT, which explicitly encourages the Subcommittee and regional bodies like the CPT “to consult and co-operate with a view to avoiding duplication”. This is plain common sense. One way to promote such co-operation and the effective use of resources would be to return to an idea mooted by the CPT as long ago as 1992 in its 3rd General Report. Fourteen European States are at present Parties to both the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture (ECPT) and the OPCAT. The CPT reiterates its proposal that States bound by the two treaties agree that visit reports drawn up by the CPT in respect of their countries, and their responses to such reports, be immediately and systematically forwarded to the Subcommittee on Prevention on a confidential basis. In this way, consultations between the Subcommittee and the CPT could be held in the light of all the relevant facts; this should greatly facilitate the desired co-ordination of activities as well as the maintenance of consistent standards. In the CPT’s view, implementation of the measure proposed should not require an amendment of the ECPT. Although there are similarities between the two treaties, the OPCAT is far from being a carbon copy of the ECPT. Most significantly, in addition to the Subcommittee on Prevention at international level, States adhering to the OPCAT are obliged to provide at the domestic level for national preventive mechanisms possessing extensive monitoring powers in relation to places of detention. This two-pillar system could prove to be one of the OPCAT’s greatest strengths and it is certainly fully in line with the standards developed by the CPT; the Committee has consistently advocated, as a fundamental safeguard against ill-treatment, that all places where persons are deprived of their liberty be subject to oversight by independent bodies at national level. In European States which are also Party to the OPCAT, the national preventive mechanisms operating under the Optional Protocol will be among the CPT’s most important interlocutors. With the entry into force of the OPCAT and the arrival on the international scene of the Subcommittee on Prevention, one might say that the CPT is finally being united with the next of kin it was denied at birth. Co-operation, complementarity and synergy must be the hallmarks of the relationship between these two bodies; the arduous task of upholding in today’s world (as in yesterday’s) the absolute prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment requires nothing less. Together they must strive to ensure that the prohibition remains truly absolute and that undertakings solemnly given to respect this fundamental rule are translated into deeds.