Seeking Remedies for Torture Victims: A Handbook on the Individual Complaints Procedures of the UN Tready Bodies Conference on the Abolition of Torture, convened by Amnesty International.44 At this conference: Three hundred delegates declared that the use of torture is a violation of freedom, life and dignity [and] urged governments to recognize that torture is a crime against human rights [and] to respect, implement and improve the national and international laws prohibiting torture.45 The Conference was successful in bringing global attention to the disturbing fact that torture had not disappeared since medieval times, but was in fact a modern day human rights problem. In the following years, Amnesty International continued to keep torture on the international agenda.46 The next major development in the global campaign against torture was the adoption in 1975 by the UN General Assembly of the Declaration Against Torture. This Declaration was not binding but it was of crucial significance, representing the “first [targeted] international condemnation of torture”.47 In spite of this international condemnation, acts of torture continued to occur in States around the world, as evidenced in the reports of different groups monitoring and documenting these acts.48 These reports clearly highlighted that further action needed to be taken to mount an effective fight against torture. In particular Amnesty’s second report argued that there was a need to adopt a legally binding treaty in order to address many of the gaps in the Declaration.49 As a result of the growing recognition of the continued existence of the global scourge of torture, the UN General Assembly adopted the CAT on 10 December 1984. The CAT entered into force in June 1987 and by 1 October 2013 there were 154 States parties to the treaty.50 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 36 Amnesty International, Conference for the Abolition of Torture: Final Report (1973). Lippman, M., “The Development and Drafting of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”, 17 Boston College International and Comparative Law Review 275 (1994), p. 296. One of the major achievements of Amnesty International during this period was the development of Codes of Conduct. The aim of these Codes was to ensure that certain professional groups would not be involved in any practice of torture, including doctors, law enforcement personnel and members of the legal profession. Ibid., p. 296. Ibid., p. 303. For example, Amnesty International “Report on Allegations of Torture in Brazil” (1976) 3; Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared, Nunca Más, Writers and Scholars International Ltd. Trans. (1986); Amnesty International, “Political Imprisonment in South Africa” (1978), pp. 18–19, 22–23, 36, 56–57; Amnesty International’s second report on torture was released in 1984 and reflected the continued practice of torture, containing allegations of torture and ill-treatment against 98 countries, see Amnesty International, “Torture in the Eighties” (1984). See Lippman (1994), p. 308. For further information on the background of the CAT, see J. H. Burgers and H. Danelius, The United Nations Convention against Torture: a Handbook on the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Kluwer Academic Publishers (1988).