A/60/316
Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Summary
In the present report, submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution
59/182 and Commission on Human Rights resolution 2005/39, the Special
Rapporteur refers to the report of his predecessor, Theo van Boven, to the
Commission at its sixty-first session (E/CN.4/2005/62 and Add.1-3) and to the
activities he himself has been carrying out since he assumed the mandate on
1 December 2004. He also addresses issues of special concern to him, in particular
overall trends and developments with respect to questions falling within his mandate.
The Special Rapporteur, as a follow-up to previous reports submitted to the
Assembly and the Commission on the issue of corporal punishment, draws attention
to continuing occurrences of the practice, surveys the jurisprudence of international
and regional human rights mechanisms, and concludes that any form of corporal
punishment is contrary to the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment. In the section that follows, in the context of
counter-terrorism measures and the absolute prohibition of torture, he examines the
principle of non-refoulement and the use of diplomatic assurances in light of
decisions of courts and international human rights mechanisms. In the opinion of the
Special Rapporteur, diplomatic assurances are unreliable and ineffective in the
protection against torture and ill-treatment, and States cannot resort to them.
Contents
Page
I.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1–17
3
II.
Corporal punishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
18–28
6
A.
United Nations human rights treaty bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
19–23
6
B.
Regional human rights mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
24–25
7
C.
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26–28
8
The principle of non-refoulement and diplomatic assurances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
29–52
9
The non-refoulement principle in the jurisprudence of international human
rights mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
30–37
9
B.
Jurisprudence of regional human rights mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
38–39
11
C.
Diplomatic assurances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
40–50
11
D.
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
51–52
13
III.
A.
2
Paragraphs