UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to Visit Tibet

Wednesday, 24 August 2005, 14:30

The Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on torture made the following statement on 22 August:

The Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak, will visit the People’s Republic of China from 21 November to 2 December 2005, at the invitation of the Government.

In order to gather first-hand information during the visit—which will include stops in Beijing, Jinan, Urumqi, Yining, and Lhasa—the Special Rapporteur will meet with Government officials and representatives of civil society, among others, and visit detention facilities.

The Special Rapporteur will submit a comprehensive written report on the visit to the Commission on Human Rights at its sixty-second session in 2006.

Mr. Nowak was appointed Special Rapporteur of the Commission on 1 December 2004. As Special Rapporteur, he is independent from any government and serves in his individual capacity. The Commission first decided to appoint a special rapporteur to examine questions relevant to torture in 1985. The mandate covers all countries, irrespective of whether or not a State has ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

He has previously served as a member of the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances; the UN expert on missing persons in the former Yugoslavia; the UN expert on legal questions on enforced disappearances; and as a judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna, and Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights.

Further information on the mandate of the Special Rapporteur
obtained from www.ohchr.org The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in resolution 1985/33, decided to appoint an expert, a special rapporteur, to examine questions relevant to torture. The mandate of the Special Rapporteur covers all countries, irrespective of whether a State has ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The mandate comprises three main activities: transmitting urgent appeals to States with regard to individuals reported to be at risk of torture, as well as communications on past alleged cases of torture; undertaking fact-finding country visits; and submitting annual reports on activities, the mandate and methods of work to the Commission and the General Assembly.

Unlike the complaints mechanisms of the human rights treaty monitoring bodies, the Special Rapporteur does not require the exhaustion of domestic remedies to act. When the facts in question come within the scope of more than one mandate of the Commission, the Special Rapporteur may decide to approach other thematic mechanisms and country rapporteurs with a view to sending joint communications or seeking joint missions.