The
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment or punishment announces the new website of the Anti-Torture
Initiative, available at www.antitorture.org.
The
ATI is a project of the Special Rapporteur and the American University
Washington College of Law Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law to
expand the strategies used to support, monitor, and assess the implementation
of my mandate’s thematic and country-specific recommendations, and to develop
effective follow-up procedures to help eradicate torture around the world. As
part of this project, the Anti-Torture
Initiative’s website provides a dynamic platform for
outreach and advocacy, and serves as a comprehensive resource and research tool
for the work of my mandate and the Anti-Torture
Initiative. It contains a searchable database of
resources related to my mandate’s work, including all thematic, country visit,
and observations reports, as well as news updates, press releases, interviews,
conferences, hearings, op-eds, and other media coverage. Additionally, the Anti-Torture
Initiative
will be launching Facebook and Twitter accounts to create a broader network of
advocates working in the field. The website and social media efforts are
key components of a new coordinated outreach strategy which I am undertaking
with the Anti-Torture
Initiativeto truly globalize access and resources to the anti-torture work
of my mandate. This website is intended to complement the dissemination
of the work of the Rapporteurship that is done through the site of the Office
of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The
Special Rapporteur also says that his upcoming thematic report to the 68th
session of the General Assembly will focus on the United Nations Standard
Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners as they relate to various issues
of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. The
Standard Minimum Rules have become a vital standard in the context of criminal
justice and human rights law. However, the Special Rapporteur says that many of
these standards are out-dated and do not reflect the important developments in
international human rights law in the past decades. The Vienna-based UN Office
of Drug Control and Crime Prevention is currently engaged in a process of
reviewing the Standard Minimum Rules with broad and active participation by
many States and committed civil society organizations. The report will be
presented to the UN General Assembly in October 2013.
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