Torture is torture everywhere, says UN rights expert
UNB
United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture Juan E Mndez has urged governments across the world not to allow a vacuum of human rights protection even when they act beyond their borders.
Torture is torture here, there and everywhere. Actions by States are increasingly transnational in nature which has a significant impact on the fundamental rights of individuals outside their borders, Mndez stated on Tuesday while presenting his latest report to the UN General Assembly.
He stressed that States must not undermine the absolute legal prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment by evading or limiting responsibility for extraterritorial acts or effects caused by their agents, according to a message received here from Geneva yesterday, reports UNB.
Extraterritorial practices include cross-border military operations or use of force, the occupation of foreign territories; anti-migration operations; peacekeeping; the detention of persons abroad; extraditions, rendition to justice, and extraordinary rendition; and the exercise of de facto control or influence over non-State actors operating in foreign territories.
The absolute and non-derogable prohibition against torture and other ill-treatment cannot be territorially limited and States must respect the rights of all persons, anywhere in the world, to be free from torture and other ill-treatment at all times, the expert emphasised.
States must implement safeguards to protect persons from torture and other ill-treatment when they are detained extraterritorially within their jurisdiction, he added.
The human rights expert noted that the exclusionary rule, which mandates that evidence obtained under torture cannot be invoked in any proceedings, is applicable no matter where the mistreatment took place.
States are obliged, to the extent possible, to fight wrongfulness and to ensure cooperation in efforts and proceedings designed to end, uncover, remedy or prosecute and punish torture and other ill-treatment the UN expert said, citing the international customary law obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish all acts of torture and other ill-treatment and to criminalize such acts wherever they occur.
He called upon States to exercise jurisdiction over acts of torture and ill-treatment, regardless of the locus where wrongfulness took place, and to provide civil remedies and rehabilitation for victims of acts of torture or other ill- treatment, regardless of who bears responsibility for mistreatment or where it took place.
