A/58/120
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the question of torture
and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, in accordance with Assembly resolution 57/200
of 18 December 2002
Summary
In the present report, submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution
57/200 and Commission on Human Rights resolution 2003/32, the Special
Rapporteur refers to his main report to the fifty-ninth session of the Commission on
Human Rights and its two addenda and to the activities he has been carrying out
since the submission of the latter. He further addresses issues of special concern to
him, in particular overall trends and developments with respect to questions falling
within his mandate.
As a follow-up to the report submitted to the previous session of the General
Assembly, the Special Rapporteur first draws the attention to a number of recent
conclusions, recommendations and other findings issued by international and
regional human rights monitoring bodies on the issue of the prohibition of torture and
other forms of ill-treatment in the context of anti-terrorism measures. In a second
part, he introduces his preliminary study on the situation of trade in and production
of equipment which is specifically designed to inflict torture or other cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment. The study was presented to the fifty-ninth session of the
Commission on Human Rights. Thirdly, as a follow-up to the views on the issue of
reparation for torture submitted by his predecessor in his report to the fifty-fifth
session of the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur gives stroke of a project of
the non-governmental organization Redress Trust. This project examines domestic
law and practice on the right to reparation for torture victims with a view to
establishing to what extent torture victims have been able to exercise their right to
reparation. Finally, the Special Rapporteur examines the question of the prevention
of torture and other forms of ill-treatment in psychiatric institutions in the light of
existing international norms, principles and guidelines. In particular, the Special
Rapporteur pays attention to the legal safeguards related to the internment procedure,
the treatment to be received by persons held in such institutions, the use of seclusion
and other forms of restraint and the monitoring of psychiatric institutions.
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