COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE DISCUSSES ISTANBUL PROTOCOL

The Committee against Torture this morning discussed the Istanbul Protocol, a set of international guidelines for the assessment of persons who allege torture and ill-treatment, for investigating cases of alleged torture, and for reporting such findings to the judiciary and any other investigative body.

Claudio Grossman, the Committee Chairperson, said the Istanbul Protocol, when in place, provided great assistance to doctors, lawyers and judges to identify torture and assist the victims of torture.

Onder Ozkalipci, Forensic Physician at the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, explaining the origin and background of the Istanbul Protocol, said the Protocol was the result of three years of work by 75 forensic doctors, physicians, psychologists, human rights professionals, and lawyers from 15 countries. Conceived after a 1996 international symposium by the Turkish Medical Association, the drafting process had culminated in a 1999 meeting in Istanbul. The Protocol had subsequently been translated into 15 languages and gained international recognition. It had notably been submitted to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, in 1999, had been used by the European Human Rights Court, the Inter American Court of Human Rights, and had been referred to by the Special Rapporteurs on torture Nigel Rodley and Manfred Nowak. The importance of the Istanbul Protocol was notably that it made it mandatory to write a detailed history and make a psychological evaluation of each torture survivor.

Felicitas Treue of the Colective Contra la Tortura y la Impunidad, Mexico, explaining the nature and consequences of torture, said torture aimed at destroying people’s will and identity, disintegrating their personality, manipulating their feelings and actions and profoundly damaging the individual and its surrounding social network. Whatever method of torture was applied, whether physical, psychological or both, the situation constituted a kind of “perverse interaction” that threatened the victim’s psychological integrity. Most victims say torture marked a changing point, a rupture in a person’s life, as the personal history was divided into before and after torture. This pointed to the importance of a psychological evaluation in cases of alleged torture or mistreatment. The Istanbul Protocol considered the psychological evaluation an indispensable element of investigation and documentation because many torture methods did not leave physical evidence, because injuries healed relatively fast, and because torturers used psychological torture and tended to apply methods that did not leave visible injuries.

Miriam Reventlow, Senior Legal Advisor at the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, speaking about lessons learned and recommendations with regards to implementing the Istanbul Protocol, said the main lessons learned were that targeted training was indispensable, that collaboration between Government and non-governmental organizations was essential, that a conducive environment - including a functional legal system, a stable political and security situation, and sufficient financial and staffing resources - was necessary, that collaboration between legal and health professionals needed to be furthered, and that the Istanbul Protocol reports made a difference in legal proceedings. Making recommendations to the Committee, Ms. Reventlow encouraged Experts to increasingly focus on institutionalizing the Istanbul Protocol as a torture documentation tool, to include proper examinations as an integral part of effective investigations, to base evidence assessment on the tenets of the Istanbul Protocol, to use medical and psychological examinations in assessing the scope of appropriate reparations for victims, and to apply the Istanbul Protocol in asylum proceedings.

In the ensuing discussion, a Committee member said there tended to be problems in differentiating between torture and other inhuman or degrading treatment. However, the Committee did make that difference and thus wished to know whether the Istanbul Protocol was useful regarding this differentiation. What was the experts’ view on this?

Also, could the experts speak about the degree of reliability of the Istanbul Protocol in terms of assessing post-traumatic syndromes of torture? In terms of the evolution of the Protocol, could the experts elaborate on whether it was planned that the Protocol account for technological advances or legal advances?

Another Committee member said the Committee strongly encouraged States parties to train personnel to make them as independent as possible, but the question remained when such personnel were insufficiently independent. Could guidelines be developed on how this could be best implemented, the Committee member asked.

Another Committee member noted that some people were concerned that before a person arrived in court, they had already spent lengthy days with the police or other competent authorities, underscoring the importance that actions relative to the Istanbul Protocol occurred early. When the assessment was done, it was sometimes too late to prove that torture had been carried out.

Committee members said the Committee often referred to the Istanbul Protocol, but did not reference the Minnesota Protocol in its work as a matter of routine. Should the Committee do this in the future? Also, while being in favour of institutionalizing the Istanbul Protocol, a member said that this required an adaptation to national standards and a country’s culture. Had the Experts therefore considered splitting the Protocol into several smaller Protocols which might be more adapted to national realities?

Committee members also suggested analyzing or inducing an expansion of the Istanbul Protocol into other areas and underscored the importance of ensuring that alleged victims of torture could freely choose an independent doctor.

Responding to some of these questions, Experts said, with regards to the independence of health and legal professionals, that this could be a solution for getting better levels of reports on torture allegations. The most important thing was to challenge the system. In Turkey, for example, a lawyer had said he would file a complaint if the corpse of a potential torture victim was not examined. Experts encouraged the Committee to make reference to the Istanbul Protocol as the medical component of investigations when recommending investigations on alleged torture cases.

Experts also encouraged the Committee to mention the Minnesota Protocol, saying that, although it had been in existence since many years, it still had value in it.

The Istanbul Protocol could be used directly after torture or several years after torture and could in both cases be able to provide very powerful results, although the Protocol could of course not be applied by every single person at every single time. Experts acknowledged that the Istanbul Protocol could need updating, but pointed out that many States parties were not yet even aware of the Protocol.

In terms of nationalizing the Istanbul Protocol, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims always focused on the particular country situation in its training activities and a comprehensive review of a country’s situation needed to be conducted to identify shortfalls on a case-by-case basis.

When the Committee reconvenes at 3 p.m. this afternoon, it will begin its consideration of the initial report of Ethiopia (CAT/C/ETH/1).


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CAT10/024E