New Pact Allows Visits To Detention Centres
New Pact Allowing Surprise Visits To Detention Centres Hailed By Un Official
New York, Nov 6 2006 1:00PM
A landmark pact allowing experts to visit detention centres unannounced in a bid to protect against torture and a forthcoming draft convention protecting disabled persons both highlight recent outstanding human rights achievements, a senior United Nations official told an international meeting in Geneva today.
The protocol marks a “historic
milestone in the fight against torture,” and the draft
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
signals “an outstanding accomplishment in the field of
human rights,” Bacre Waly Ndiaye, Director of the Human
Rights Procedures Division of the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told the Committee
against Tortures opening
session.
Mr. Ndiaye said the Optional
Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which took
effect in June, will provide signatories with an
unprecedented new monitoring mechanism to establish a system
of regular visits to detention centres by international and
national independent expert bodies.
States accepting the
pact will also be required to set up national preventive
systems including access to places of detention and
prisoners held there.
To date, 142 countries have
ratified the convention, and 28 have signed the optional
protocol.
Mr. Ndiaye also said the draft International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol, slated for adoption by the General Assembly at its current session, will provide a framework to address the previously neglected rights of the world’s estimated 650 million disabled persons.
In related news, High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour on Saturday lauded great strides made in the field of human rights but cautioned that challenges remain great and the world needs to practice what it preaches.
“Despite the progress in institution building, standard setting and norm creation, the actual implementation of rights is still severely lagging,” Ms. Arbour said as she accepted the Canadian Global Citizen Extraordinaire Award at the International Development and Relief Foundation in Toronto.
“Filling
the gap between pledges and practice represents the main
challenge that the human rights movement confronts
today.”
Ends