UN Committee against Torture’s Concluding Observations

UN Committee against Torture’s Concluding Observations on Sweden, Ukraine, Venezuela, Australia, Burundi, USA, Croatia and Kazakhstan

GENEVA (24 November 2014) – The UN Committee against Torture will be holding a news conference to discuss the concluding observations of its 53rd session on Friday 28 November at 14:00 in Press Room III, Palais des Nations in Geneva. The Committee will share with the UNOG-based press corps advance copies of its Concluding Observations

A good examination of UN treaty violations carried out by numerous nations you may be surprised to find on this list. Key violations seem to stem from the depraved conditions suffered in prisons and excessive brutality carried out by the mentioned states domestic police services, also numerous accounts of failures to adequately respond/investigate serious crimes such as slavery and child abuse.

CAT - Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 53 Session (03 Nov 2014 - 28 Nov 2014)

Was unsure where to post, but it seems more of a social issue rather than political.

a reply to: Dabrazzo

Wow, Kazakhstan made the list. Must be all the people from that particular religious denomination that they have thrown down a well.

a reply to: Dabrazzo

Evidently, there are so many member countries have such a bad opinion of the US that they saw to it that we made the list.
Is there any need to start listing the obvious countries that have escaped the list? I think not.

Compared to the majority of the countries in the world we are a virtual heaven/haven.

We are the bad boys that everybody wants a piece of and money from. Let us trim our gifts to other countries and spend that money at home.

(Don't even start to mention the numbers in US jails and prisons. Those numbers have to do with breakers of standard laws, in a word, individuals convicted of conventional crimes, not political prisoners, religious prisoners or ideological prisoners.)

a reply to: Aliensun

Sorry you feel that way. Knowledge is your friend.

Thanks heaps for post this, I know it is not easy stuff to talk about but it is links like these that help make ATS what it is. The violations from Australia do not appear as bad in some ways as many of the other nations. It does produce an interesting political picture of a nation when viewing its realistic standards on human rights.

As for our violence against women, maybe we are just better at reporting it and making it an issue. I do know domestic violence is a problem everywhere with violence against men also going on. The level of violence against children has improved a lot over the recent generations.

The indigenous issues have improved since the days of the White Australia policy back in the 1950's or so, more recently things are sliding a bit as with a lot of budget restrictions going on.

As for immigration issues, there has been a media blackout on the 'boat people' since the last election. Previously the government was very open and transparent about this matter, which does tend to generate a lot of discussion and debate. Now no one really know what is going on, kinda like a gitmo bay.

As for the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse, it was setup by the previous government also in the spirit of transparency. Now its funding has been cut and just another white wash, maybe pick at the sides a little but no one is expecting much with the polices of the current government at play.

Have they metioned ships yet?
THEN they have no idea,or are complicit.

The major concerns about the USA is that it declines to make torture a crime at Federal levels. There was a Bill introduced (2012) that sought to criminalise torture, but it wasn't enacted (link)

There's also a phrase in the existing anti-torture framework that they don't like, 'prolonged mental harm.' They feel it's too subjective. It's closer to 'how long is a piece of string?' It represents a 'reservation' that runs counter to International Law against torture.

There's a positive that the US has affirmed it won't continue to use loopholes to effectively torture people via proxy - extraordinary rendition. It will desist using foreign territories, ships and airplanes under US jurisdiction to torture others. However the statement of intent hasn't been enacted in Law which means that the historical torture reported in the Press can continue.

On the subject of extraordinary rendition...the report is 'dismayed' that the US failed to provide details of the secret network of prisons and places where torture has been used. Likewise, in both CIA and military contexts, neither group provided the report with statistics related to prisoner-abuse, torture, number of prosecutions against US military/CIA staff or the methods of investigation undertaken.

Altogether, it indicates that US policy on torture runs counter to International Law. The failure to be transparent and criminalise torture leaves a question mark over the extent of the use of torture.