A/66/268 16. On 20 June, he met with the Director General for Foreign Policy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, in Santiago. 17. From 27 June to 1 July, the Special Rapporteur participated in the eighteenth annual meeting of Special Rapporteurs in Geneva. He also met with representatives of the Governments of Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, the Russian Federation, Tunisia and the United States of America. 18. On 7 July 2011, he met in Brasilia with the Minister for Human Rights in the Government of Brazil. III. Solitary confinement A. Overview of work undertaken by the mandate 19. In his first report as Special Rapporteur (A/HRC/16/52, para. 70), he recognized that “the question as to whether ... prolonged solitary confinement” constituted “per se cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment has given rise to much debate and discussion in the Human Rights Council”, and believed that “the international community as a whole would greatly benefit from a dispassionate and rational discussion of the issues”. 20. The Special Rapporteur has received complaints that solitary confinement is used in some countries in the context of administrative detention for national security or as a method to fight organized crime, as well as in immigration detention. He undertook this study because he found the practice of solitary confinement to be global in nature and subject to widespread abuse. In particular, the social isolation and sensory deprivation that is imposed by some States does, in some circumstances, amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and even torture. 21. The Special Rapporteur’s predecessors have noted that prolonged solitary confinement may itself amount to prohibited ill-treatment or torture (E/CN.4/1999/61, para. 394, and E/CN.4/2003/68, para. 26 (m)). 22. The Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement was annexed to the former Special Rapporteur’s 2008 interim report to the General Assembly (A/63/175, annex). The report concluded that “prolonged isolation of detainees may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and, in certain instances, may amount to torture. ... [T]he use of solitary confinement should be kept to a minimum, used in very exceptional cases, for as short a time as possible, and only as a last resort. Regardless of the specific circumstances of its use, effort is required to raise the level of social contacts for prisoners: prisonerprison staff contact, allowing access to social activities with other prisoners, allowing more visits and providing access to mental health services” (A/63/175, paras. 77 and 83). B. History and current practice of solitary confinement 23. The history of the use of solitary confinement on detainees has been well documented. The practice can be traced to the 1820s in the United States of 11-44570 7