Committee for the Prevention of Torture

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Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) is the anti-torture committee of the Council of Europe. It represents the most striking inroad into the usually well-preserved domaine of sovereign states.

The (CPT) was founded on the basis of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.(1987). It allows the CPT to visit all "places of detention" of the member states of the Council of Europe. Places of detention, as defined by the convention, are all places in which people are helf against their will.In the first place, this covers police cells, jails, prisons and closed psychiatric institutions, but also old peoples homes and the like. The unannounced visits are carried out by small teams of CPT members, who usually call in additional experts. After each visit,a report about the findings and recommendations is drawn up and sent to the respective government. The findings deal not so much with individual cases of torture but with the identification of situations at risk that may lead to torture. The CPT reports are confidential and will be published only if the government so requests. But political pressure on the govenments is strong to make the report public. Only in the rare case in which governments refuse to publish and the CPT has clear evidence of a practice of torture, the CPT may make a unilateral "public statement".

After 25 years of experience, this European model is about to be adapted and generalized by the United Nations through an Optional Protocol (OPCAT) to the UN Convention Against Torture (2006).