A/HRC/40/59/Add.2
its Unit 3 for women, including pregnant women and women with children, and one of its
units for male inmates, Prison No. 9, and a community facing eviction from their settlement
in Juárez Celman. In the Province of Formosa, he visited Federal Prison Unit 10, Las Lomitas
Mixed Prison Unit 3 for male and female inmates, the Police Prison for Men (Alcaidía
Policial de Varones), Ibarreta police station and indigenous communities.
II. Legal framework
A.
International and regional levels
6.
Argentina is party to the most important international human rights instruments: the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its Optional Protocol,
the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, the Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and its
Optional Protocol, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol, the Convention on the
Rights of the Child and its three Optional Protocols, and the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol.
7.
Argentina is still not party to the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory
Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
8.
Argentina is a member of the Organization of American States. In 1984, it ratified the
American Convention on Human Rights and it has accepted the jurisdiction of the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights.
B.
Definition of torture
9.
The definition of the offence of torture is set out in article 144 ter of the Criminal
Code. The Special Rapporteur reiterates the concerns previously expressed by the Committee
against Torture regarding the lack of conformity of that definition with the provisions of
article 1 of the Convention against Torture (CAT/C/ARG/CO/5-6, para. 9). Most notably, the
provision does not include the criteria of intentionality and purposefulness as defining
elements of the offence, does not extend the criminalization to consent and acquiescence by
public officials and does not include other persons acting in an official capacity among the
possible perpetrators. The Special Rapporteur was informed about the ongoing initiative to
amend the Criminal Code and strongly encourages the authorities concerned to ensure that
the definition in the new provision is aligned with the definition contained in article 1 of the
Convention.
C.
Monitoring bodies
10.
The Special Rapporteur notes with serious concern that, 14 years after the ratification
by Argentina of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture in 2004, the
preventive monitoring system required by that instrument is still not fully effective in
practice. Indeed, it took until 2012 for the national preventive mechanism to be established
at the federal level, and its members were designated only five years later, in December 2017.
Even the funds allocated to the mechanism by law have reportedly still not been made fully
available. Of the 24 local mechanisms that are to assume the function of the national
preventive mechanism at the level of the provinces and the capital city, only five had been
established at the time of the visit, and only two were fully functional. There seems to be no
realistic prospect of the remaining ones becoming operational in the near future. The Special
Rapporteur would like to remind the authorities that the establishing and effective operation
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