Chapter 1 Introduction | 17 8. 9. Commission to view the matter under consideration from multiple perspectives. The Commission would like to express its gratitude for the generous participation and the invaluable input on the part of the experts who attended the meeting. In the drafting of this report, the IACHR considered information received in the context of public hearings and working meetings held before the Commission and materials submitted in the processing of precautionary measures and individual petitions. The report also relies on official public information obtained from governmental sources, reports issued by UN bodies, academic research studies and information published by non-governmental organizations and media outlets. The IACHR regrets that it was not allowed to visit the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which would have permitted it to collect firsthand information for the preparation of the report. In fulfilling the mandate given by the OAS Member States, the IACHR conducts working visits to prisons and other places of detention throughout the region, through its Rapporteurship on the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty. These visits have the purpose of verifying the general situation of the prison systems and issuing concrete recommendations to the States. The IACHR requested the consent of the United States to conduct a visit to the detention facility at Guantanamo. The U.S. Government responded that it would allow the visit with the condition that the Commission did not communicate with the detainees, a limitation that is contrary to the IACHR’s Rules of Procedure and the necessary independence and autonomy with which the IACHR must work. C. Structure of the report 10. The present report follows a rights-based approach in which the IACHR examines three main areas of concern within the established framework of several core international human rights, in particular the rights to personal liberty and security, to humane treatment, to a fair trial and to judicial protection. The Commission starts with a brief overview of its initiatives regarding the human rights situation at Guantanamo and how it has addressed the issue through the use of its different mechanisms. Next, it assesses the conditions of detention, access to justice and the initiatives towards the closure of the detention center. Professor at Seton Hall Law School and member of the legal teams in Boumediene v. Bush and Rasul v. Rumsfeld), Stephanie Selg (Assistant to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), Rita Siemion (staff attorney at Human Rights First, advocacy counsel in the Law and Security Program), Ashika Singh (Attorney Adviser at the Office of Political Military Affairs, Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser), Clifford M. Sloan (Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure at the U.S. Department of State), Captain Edward S. White (Chief of Litigation at the Office of the Chief Prosecutor for Military Commissions), Major Jason Wright (Office of the Chief Defense Counsel for Military Commissions), and Brigadier General (Ret) Stephen N. Xenakis, M.D. (retired medical corps officer in the U.S. Army and psychiatric and medical expert in numerous cases involving detainees at Guantanamo). Inter-American Commission on Human Rights | IACHR