The Changing Nature of the Relationship between the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and National Preventive Mechanisms: In Search for Equilibrium

Abstract

The unique aspect of the mandate of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) lies in the relationship that the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT) puts in place between the SPT and National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) established by State Parties at their national levels. However, at least initially, the SPT struggled to find its feet in its engagement with NPMs: faced with crippling budgetary problems and uncertainty over the best ways for interaction with NPMs, the SPT spent its initial five years nearly side-lining its national counterparts. The Fifth Annual Report of the SPT indicates a turning point in the way it intends to engage with NPMs. Introducing new type of visits, changing its attitude towards engagement with NPMs outside its visiting mandate and reshuffling its internal structure are all signs of the change in the nature of the relationship between the SPT and NPMs. After five years, the SPT is finally signalling its readiness to embrace the relationship with its colleagues at national levels and this is a relationship that all those engaged with the prevention of torture have every right to have high expectations of. This article will examine the relationship between the SPT and NPMs to date and the way it has been changing over the past year. It will argue that the changes introduced by the SPT vis-à-vis NPMs are promising signs of the Subcommittee finally establishing some equilibrium in its relationship with its national counterparts, NPMs. It is submitted here that without such equilibrium the premise of torture prevention encapsulated in OPCAT cannot be achieved.