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Treatment or Punishment, including the following six States which became parties to the Convention
during the reporting period: Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Honduras, Iceland, Kenya and Malawi. The
Convention was adopted by the General Assembly in resolution 39/46 of 10 December 1984 and opened
for signature and ratification in New York on 4 February 1985. It entered into force on 26 June 1987 in
accordance with the provisions of its article 27. The States that have signed, ratified or acceded to the
Convention, and those that have made declarations under articles 21 and 22 of the Convention, are listed
in annex I.
2. The declarations, reservations or objections made by States parties with respect to the Convention are
reproduced in document CAT/C/2/Rev.4.
B. Opening and duration of the sessions of the Committee against Torture
3. The Committee against Torture held two sessions since the adoption of its report for 1996. The
seventeenth and eighteenth sessions of the Committee were held at the United Nations Office at Geneva
from 11 to 22 November 1996 and from 29 April to 9 May 1997.
4. At its seventeenth session the Committee held 19 meetings (262nd to 280th meeting) and at its
eighteenth session it held 18 meetings (281st to 298th meeting). An account of the deliberations of the
Committee at those sessions is contained in the relevant summary records (CAT/C/SR.262-298/Add.1).
C. Membership and attendance
5. The membership of the Committee remained the same as during 1996. The list of members, with their
terms of office, appears in annex II.
6. All the members attended the seventeenth and the eighteenth sessions of the Committee.
D. Officers
7. The following members of the Committee acted as officers during the reporting period:
Chairman: Mr. Alexis Dipanda Mouelle
Vice-Chairmen: Mr. Alejandro Gonzalez Poblete
Mr. Bent Sorensen
Mr. Alexander Yakovlev
Rapporteur: Mrs. Julia Iliopoulos-Strangas
E. Agendas
8. At its 262nd meeting, on 11 November 1996, the Committee adopted the following items listed in the
provisional agenda submitted by the Secretary-General in accordance with rule 6 of the rules of
procedure (CAT/C/36), as the agenda of its seventeenth session:
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