Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment

The Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) is an important addition to the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture. It establishes an international inspection system for places of detention modelled on the system which has existed in Europe since 1987 (the Committee for the Prevention of Torture).

The OPCAT was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 18 December 2002,

History

The idea for this scheme of torture prevention goes back to the Swiss Committee for the Prevention of Torture (today Association for the Prevention of Torture, APT), founded in 1977 by Jean-Jacques Gautier in Geneva. It envisaged the establishment of a worldwide system of inspection of places of detention, which later took the form of an Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984). For a long time, however, the necessary support for such an optional protocol was not forthcoming. As a consequence, the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) had at its disposal only relatively weak instruments: it could analyse and discuss the self-reports of the respective governments and create the institution of a Special Rapporteur on...
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