61 International cooperation The past year has brought the important international dimension of preventive work to light. In April, the UN Committee against Torture evaluated Norway’s follow-up of the UN Convention against Torture at a hearing in Geneva, and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) visited Norway in June. The Parliamentary Ombudsman's National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) contributed with its findings and ­experience to both these processes. We also ­continued international ­cooperation with several other stakeholders. Committee against Torture (CAT) reviewed the 8th periodic report of Norway In 2018, the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) reviewed Norway’s implementation of its obligations under the UN Convention against Torture for the eighth time since Norway endorsed the convention in 1986. The CAT comprises ten independent experts tasked with evaluating how the states follow up their obligations under the convention. The oral dialogue between the committee and the Norwegian authorities took place in Geneva on 24–25 April. By invitation from the CAT, the NPM attended along with Norway’s National Human Rights Institution (NIM) and several Norwegian civil society organisations. The NPM also criticised the mental health care services’ use of segregation with conditions similar to isolation, where patients had little meaningful social contact. It also pointed out that certain child welfare institutions routinely subject children to invasive use of force that, among other things, entails isolation from the company of other children. The NPM underlined the unlawfulness of using electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) without the patient’s consent, and made reference to major challenges with prolonged use of restraints in the mental health care services. Concerns around the conditions at the police immigration detention centre at Trandum were also raised. The committee organised a separate meeting with the NPM and other stakeholders in Geneva before the actual dialogue with the Norwegian authorities took place. Here, the NPM presented selected findings from visits under its prevention mandate in the period 2014–2018, based on written input that was sent to the committee in March.1 The NPM shared its concern at the meeting for, among other things, the use of solitary confinement and isolation, particularly of inmates in Norwegian prisons with serious mental health conditions and risk of suicide. 1 The complete version of the written submission is available here: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CAT/Shared%20Documents/NOR/INT_CAT_INP_NOR_30711_E.pdf