Committee against Torture Opens Eighty-Third Session in Geneva
The Committee against Torture this morning opened its eighty-third session, which is being held in Geneva from 10 to 28 November, during which it will review efforts by Albania, Argentina, Bahrain and Israel to implement the provisions of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Dina Rossbacher, Director of the Petitions Section at the Human Rights Treaties Branch, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Representative of the Secretary-General, opening the session, congratulated members of the Committee who were recently re-elected for a four-year term: Liu Huawen (China), Maeda Naoko (Japan) and Abderrazak Rouwane (Morocco). Ms. Rossbacher said she looked forward to meeting the two newly elected members of the Committee, Lorena González Pinto (Guatemala) and Moulaye Abdallah Moulaye Abdallah (Mauritania), who would join the Committee at its April-May 2026 session.
Ms. Rossbacher also warmly thanked the members of the Committee who would be completing their terms at the end of this year: Todd Buchwald (United States), who currently served as rapporteur on new complaints and interim measures, and Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov (Russian Federation), who held the position of rapporteur for follow-up to concluding observations. Their significant contributions to the Committee’s work had been greatly valued, and their extensive expertise in public international law, international human rights law, and international criminal law had consistently enriched its deliberations, helping to maintain the legal consistency of its decisions and statements.
On 14 October 2025, the Chair of the Committee, Claude Heller, as well as the Chair of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and the Special Rapporteur on torture, held their annual interactive dialogue with Member States during the Third Committee on Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Issues in New York. During the plenary meeting, Mr. Heller presented the Committee’s annual report (A/80/44), which provided a comprehensive overview of its work from 11 May 2024 to 2 May 2025, including progress made under the various monitoring procedures. The plenary meeting also featured the presentation of the annual reports of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (CAT/C/82/2) and the annual overview by the Special Rapporteur on torture (A/80/137), which highlighted trends and developments in the global struggle to end torture and other ill-treatment.
Ms. Rossbacher said that the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, in his latest report (A/80/302) to the General Assembly, warned that measures that externalised asylum processing were often implemented alongside the securitisation and criminalisation of migration, which could lead to serious human rights violations, including breaches of the prohibitions against refoulement, collective expulsion, arbitrary detention, and torture or ill-treatment. The report stressed that States could not evade their international obligations by outsourcing migration control to other States or non-State actors. Ms. Rossbacher also presented the paper titled “Leveraging Regular Migration Pathways for Human Rights”,published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2025, which was designed to support efforts to scale up, diversify and improve regular migration pathways to prevent and address vulnerabilities in migration.
On 20 June, World Refugee Day, the Platform of Independent Experts on Refugee Rights, of which the Committee against Torture was part, called on States to reaffirm their commitment to protecting the human rights of refugees and asylum-seekers amid global challenges to the rule of law. In its public statement, the members of the Platform emphasised the need for due process, procedural safeguards, protection against arbitrary detention, and respect for the principle of non-refoulement. The Committee’s participation in the Platform since its inception was a clear example of its active efforts to strengthen cooperation with other international and regional human rights mechanisms. Ms. Rossbacher encouraged the Committee to continue this valuable practice and to explore opportunities for joint engagement on these matters with other bodies.
The Committee had built a significant body of jurisprudence on immigration and asylum-related matters. Around 80 per cent of the decisions adopted by the Committee on individual complaints concerned cases of deportation or expulsion. Over the years, the Committee had adopted a series of decisions which developed and deepened certain aspects of international and domestic law on the protection of refugees, addressing topics such as non-refoulement, investigation of torture, or “substantive” risk of torture. These promoted best practices by State authorities on questions such as the existence and proof of “well-founded fear of persecution”, the limits of extradition, and the usefulness of diplomatic assurances in the field of refugee law.
Ms. Rossbacher noted that the Committee received the second largest number of individual complaints submitted to the United Nations human rights treaty bodies – with 1,316 cases registered overall. This year alone, the Committee registered 78 new complaints, indicating a significant increase compared with last year, 66 of them with interim measures. The Human Rights Office’s Petitions Section was working with all Special Rapporteurs and treaty bodies to streamline intake and registration procedures for individual communications to preserve capacity and ensure timely processing, in light of staffing constraints and rising case volumes.
The difficult financial situation of the Organization had had a significant impact on the work of the United Nations human rights machinery, including the treaty body system, Ms. Rossbacher said. This year, there had been deep and painful reductions in meeting time and in situ visits as both staff and non-staff resources to support treaty bodies had been seriously reduced. Unfortunately, the funding situation was unlikely to improve in 2026. These constraints were affecting the ability of the Committee and other treaty bodies to carry out their mandates effectively and in a timely manner. The High Commissioner for Human Rights continued to impress upon Member States the concrete negative impact that these constraints had on the human rights treaty body system and the entire human rights ecosystem.
However, there were some promising developments under the Secretary-General’s UN80 Initiative, Ms. Rossbacher reported, including the recent report “Shifting Paradigms: United to Deliver”, which set out proposals to strengthen the United Nations’s delivery across all three pillars of its work. Notably, it established a new system-wide Human Rights Group to coordinate human rights systematically across all United Nations activities, to be led by the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
In closing, Ms. Rossbacher reiterated her Office’s strong commitment to supporting the treaty body system as it carried out its critical mandate, thanked the Committee for its continued collaboration and support, and wished it a successful session. In these challenging times, the Committee’s steadfast commitment and engagement were more crucial than ever. Its efforts remained vital to ensuring the integrity and effectiveness of the international human rights protection system.
Claude Heller, Committee Chairperson, in his opening remarks, said that it was a pleasure for the Committee to be meeting again in Geneva in the context of the complex circumstances currently being faced by the United Nations.
During the session, Mr. Heller said, in addition to conducting in-person dialogues to review the reports of Albania, Argentina, Bahrain and Israel, the Committee would also prepare and adopt lists of issues for Australia, Chad, El Salvador, Malawi, Nigeria, Somalia and Uganda. Further, it would consider 21 individual complaints, considering 17 cases on the merits and admissibility, and four cases for discontinuance. On Monday, 24 November, follow-up reports would be presented by the Committee’s rapporteurs for follow-up to individual complaints, concluding observations, and allegations of reprisals.
In closing, Mr. Heller thanked States, national human rights organizations, civil society organizations, particularly the World Organization against Torture, and the Secretariat for their support of the Committee.
During the meeting, the Committee adopted its provisional agenda for the session.
Documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties, will be available on the session’s webpage. Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, and webcasts of the public meetings can be found here.
The Committee will next meet in public on Tuesday, 11 November at 10 a.m. to consider the sixth periodic report of Israel (CAT/C/ISR/6).
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