CAT/C/USA/CO/3-5 introduction of the Law Enforcement Torture Prevention Act, which contains a definition of torture and specifically criminalizes acts of torture by law enforcement personnel and others under the colour of law. The State party should give further consideration to withdrawing its interpretative understandings and reservations to the Convention. In particular, it should ensure that acts of psychological torture are not qualified as “prolonged mental harm”. In that regard, the Committee draws attention to its general comment No. 2 (2007) on the implementation of article 2 of the Convention by State parties, in which it states that serious discrepancies between the Convention’s definition and that incorporated into domestic law create actual or potential loopholes for impunity (para. 9). Extraterritoriality 10. The Committee welcomes the State party’s unequivocal commitment to abide by the universal prohibition of torture and ill-treatment everywhere, including at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay detention facilities, as well as the assurances that United States personnel are legally prohibited under international and domestic law from engaging in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment at all times and in all places. The Committee notes that the State party has reviewed its position concerning the extraterritorial application of the Convention and stated that it applies to “certain areas beyond” its sovereign territory, and more specifically to “all places that the State party controls as a governmental authority”, noting that it currently exercises such control at “the United States Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and over all proceedings conducted there, and with respect to U.S.-registered ships and aircraft”. The Committee also values the statement made by the State party’s delegation that the reservation to article 16 of the Convention, whose intended purpose is to ensure that existing United States constitutional standards satisfy the State party’s obligations under article 16, “does not introduce any limitation to the geographic applicability of article 16”, and that “the obligations in article 16 apply beyond the sovereign territory of the United States to any territory under its jurisdiction” under the terms mentioned above. However, the Committee is dismayed that the State party’s reservation to article 16 of the Convention features in various declassified memoranda, which contain legal interpretations of the extraterritorial applicability of United States obligations under the Convention, issued by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel between 2001 and 2009, as part of deeply flawed legal arguments used to advise that interrogation techniques, which amounted to torture, could be authorized and used lawfully. While noting that those memoranda were revoked by Presidential Executive Order 13491 to the extent of their inconsistency with that order, the Committee remains concerned that the State party has not yet withdrawn its reservation to article 16 which could permit interpretations incompatible with the absolute prohibition of torture and ill-treatment. The Committee reiterates its recommendation (CAT/C/USA/CO/2, para. 15) that the State party should take effective measures to prevent acts of torture, not only in its sovereign territory, but also “in any territory under its jurisdiction”. In that respect, the Committee draws attention to its general comment No. 2 (2007), in which it recognizes that ‘any territory’ includes “all areas where the State party exercises, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, de jure or de facto effective control, in accordance with international law. The reference to ‘any territory’ in article 2, like that in articles 5, 11, 12, 13 and 16 [of the Convention], refers to prohibited acts committed not only on board a ship or aircraft registered by a State party, but also during military occupation or peacekeeping operations and in such places as embassies, military bases, detention facilities, or other areas over which a State party exercises factual or effective control” (para. 16). 3