Chapter 2 • The Major Universal Human Rights Instruments and the Mechanisms for Their Implementation v “each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made” – art. 15; and finally, v each State party also undertakes “to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article 1” of the Convention – art. 16. As is clear from this general description of the legal obligations incurred under this Convention, the question of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the State’s actual response thereto is highly relevant to judges, prosecutors and lawyers, who must at all times be prepared to look for signs of the existence of such unlawful acts. 2.6.3 The implementation mechanism The Committee against Torture, the independent ten-member expert body (art. 17(1)) set up to supervise the implementation of the Convention has, like all the other treaty Committees dealt with in this chapter, the task of considering the periodic reports submitted by the States parties, but can also, when the States parties have made declarations to this effect, receive and consider communications from States parties and individuals. Whilst, as will be seen below, the Convention authorizes the Committee to visit a country where torture is practised only with the consent of the State party concerned, efforts have been made since 1991 to draft an optional protocol to the Convention which would establish a preventive system of regular visits to places of detention. Although the participants in the World Conference on Human Rights unanimously called for the early adoption of this optional protocol,58 no agreement has yet been reached on the contents thereof.59 In general terms, the monitoring procedures can be described as follows: v the reporting procedure: the States parties are under an obligation to submit reports on the measures they have taken to give effect to their undertakings under the Convention within one year after its entry into force and thereafter every four years or when the Committee so requests (art. 19(1)). In order to facilitate the elaboration of the reports, the Committee has adopted general guidelines on the form and content of both the initial and periodic reports;60 v activities of the Committee under article 20: this article is specific to the Convention against Torture and provides that, “if the Committee receives reliable information which appears to it to contain well-founded indications that torture is being systematically practised in the territory of a State party”, it “shall invite that State Party to co-operate in the examination of the information and to this end to 58 UN doc. A/CONF.157/23, Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, p. 22, para. 61. 59 See resolution E/CN.4/RES/2000/35 adopted by the Commission on Human Rights on 20 April 2000 on Draft optional protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; an open-ended Working Group is attempting to draft the protocol. 60 UN docs. CAT/C/4/Rev.2 (as to the initial reports) and CAT/C/14/Rev.1 (as to the periodic reports). For more information about the initial reporting procedure under this Convention, see also Joseph Voyame, “The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”, in Manual on Human Rights Reporting, pp. 309-332. 56 Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers