Convention establishing the CPT and Rules of Procedure

The European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment provides for the setting up of an international committee empowered to visit all places where persons are deprived of their liberty by a public authority. The committee, composed of independent experts, may make recommendations and suggest improvements in order to strengthen, if necessary, the protection of persons visited from torture and from inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

This preventive, non-judicial machinery is an important addition to the system of protection already existing under the European Convention on Human Rights.

• Text of the Convention establishing the CPT and Explanatory Report
  • For translations of the Convention click here
• Signatures and Ratifications
• Declarations

The Rules of Procedure are provided for in Article 6 of the Convention.

• Rules of procedure

Kosovo*

Kosovo* is subject to special monitoring arrangements on the basis of an agreement between the Council of Europe and UNMIK (2004) and an exchange of letters between the Council of Europe and NATO (2006).

International Criminal Court (ICC)

Exchange of letters between the International Criminal Court and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Exchange of letters between the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the CPT concerning the monitoring of the conditions of imprisonment and treatment of certain persons convicted by the Tribunal 

* All reference to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.