The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel,Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is an international human rights treaty under the review of the United Nations that aims to prevent torture and other acts of cruel,inhuman,or degrading treatment or punishment around the world.
The Manual on Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel,Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,commonly known as the Istanbul Protocol,is the first set of international guidelines for documentation of torture and its consequences. It became an official United Nations document in 1999;the most recent revision was in June 2022.
Non-refoulement is a fundamental principle of international law that forbids a country receiving asylum seekers from returning them to a country in which they would be in probable danger of persecution based on "race,religion,nationality,membership of a particular social group or political opinion". Unlike political asylum,which applies to those who can prove a well-grounded fear of persecution based on certain category of persons,non-refoulement refers to the generic repatriation of people,including refugees into war zones and other disaster locales. It is a principle of customary international law,as it applies even to states that are not parties to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol.
Fionnuala NíAoláin is an Irish academic lawyer specialising in human rights law. She was the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism for the United Nations Human Rights Council from August 1,2017 - November 2023.
Manfred Nowak is an Austrian human rights expert,who served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture from 2004 to 2010. He is Secretary General of the Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice,Italy,Professor of International Human Rights,and Scientific Director of the Vienna Master of Arts in Applied Human Rights at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He is also co-founder and former Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights and a former judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2016,he was appointed Independent Expert leading the United Nations Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty.
In law,sex characteristic refers to an attribute defined for the purposes of protecting individuals from discrimination due to their sexual features. The attribute of sex characteristics was first defined in national law in Malta in 2015. The legal term has since been adopted by United Nations,European,and Asia-Pacific institutions,and in a 2017 update to the Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation,gender identity,gender expression and sex characteristics.
The Yogyakarta Principles is a document about human rights in the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity that was published as the outcome of an international meeting of human rights groups in Yogyakarta,Indonesia,in November 2006. The principles were supplemented and expanded in 2017 to include new grounds of gender expression and sex characteristics and a number of new principles. However,the Principles have never been accepted by the United Nations (UN) and the attempt to make gender identity and sexual orientation new categories of non-discrimination has been repeatedly rejected by the General Assembly,the UN Human Rights Council and other UN bodies.
Sondra Crosby is an American medical doctor and Professor of Medicine at Boston University,specializing in internal medicine. She is also a faculty member of the Health Law,Bioethics and Human Rights department at the Boston University School of Public Health.
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor,publisher and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to wide international attention in 2010 when WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning:footage of a US airstrike in Baghdad,US military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars,and US diplomatic cables. Assange has won multiple awards for publishing and journalism.
Nils Melzer is a Swiss academic,author,and practitioner in the field of international law. From 2016 until 2022,Melzer was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel,Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. He is a professor of international law at the University of Glasgow. From 2011-2013,he was Swiss Chair of International Humanitarian Law at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. Melzer has criticised the governments of the U.S.,the U.K.,Ecuador and Sweden over their treatment of Julian Assange.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a population of 6.8 million,nearly half of which is under 18 years of age. Public trust in the justice system has been eroded,and the country’s significant crime problem exacerbated,by brutal responses from police against those they suspect of having committed offences,and the routine violence,abuse and rape carried out by police against persons,including children,within their custody. Many incidents are cases of opportunistic abuses of power by police instead of their following official processes. While a raft of measures have been assembled in order to improve conditions and processes for youths within the justice system,their success has been hampered by a severe lack of implementation,insufficient resources,and failure to impose appropriate penalties on authorities for failure to adhere to their provisions.
The Republic of Uruguay is located in South America,between Argentina,Brazil and the South Atlantic Ocean,with a population of 3,332,972. Uruguay gained independence and sovereignty from Spain in 1828 and has full control over its internal and external affairs. From 1973 to 1985 Uruguay was governed by a civil-military dictatorship which committed numerous human rights abuses.
Agnès Callamard is a French human rights activist who is the Secretary General of Amnesty International. She was previously the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,summary,or arbitrary executions appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council,and the former Director of the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression project.
Intersex people in South Africa have some of the same rights as other people,but with significant gaps in protection from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and protection from discrimination. The country was the first to explicitly include intersex people in anti-discrimination law.
Intersex people are born with natural variations in physical and sex characteristics including those of the chromosomes,gonads,sex hormones,or genitals that,according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,"do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". Such variations may involve genital ambiguity,and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female. Preimplantation genetic diagnosis allows the elimination of embryos and fetuses with intersex traits and thus has an impact on discrimination against intersex people.
Immigration detention of refugee and asylum seeking children in Thailand violates the rights of children under international law. The undocumented migrant children are detained for indefinite and prolonged periods without proper access to legal support. Thailand is key transit route,host and final destination for refugees seeking asylum in southeast Asia and Australia. During the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session in May 2016,various human rights issues including detention of refugee and asylum seeking children were reported. Currently,there are no effective alternatives to immigration detention and all sectors of population including children are subject to detention.
Portugal is generally considered as successful in upholding the civil liberties and protecting the human rights of its citizens. Portugal has proved to be determined in promoting and respecting human rights at an international and national level. The country's minister of Justice as of September 2018,Francisca Van Dunem,said that Portugal has had "a good track record" on human rights but violations still do persist.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel,Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is a United Nations special rapporteur. The office is currently filled by Alice Jill Edwards,since 1 August 2022. It was previously held by Nils Melzer,and before him,Juan E. Méndez.
The prohibition of torture is a peremptory norm in public international law—meaning that it is forbidden under all circumstances—as well as being forbidden by international treaties such as the United Nations Convention Against Torture.
During the 2023–24 Israel–Hamas war,Palestinian women and girls have reportedly faced wartime sexual violence from the Israeli Defense Forces soldiers. Two Palestinian women reported being raped by male Israeli soldiers while in prison.
