United States: Submission to UNCAT in relation to the United States of America’s One-Year Follow-up Response
1 March 2016.- The World Organisation against Torture (OMCT), the Redress Trust (REDRESS) and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) are making the
following submission in
response to the United States of America (State party)’s One-Year Follow-up response to the
Recommendations of this Committee (follow-up response). In advance of the 2014 State
examination, we submitted a report to this Committee expressing profound concern at the
fact that the State party had compounded far-reaching violations of international law by
constructing an unprecedented system of secrecy around certain detainees, including those
facing capital charges in military trials at Guantánamo Bay, thereby silencing a category of
victims of torture and other ill-treatment through detention, isolation and classification of
information.
This Committee identified four “principal subjects of concern and recommendations” for
follow up in its Concluding Observations.
In this submission we focus on two of these
subjects: “Inquiries into allegations of torture overseas” and “Guantánamo Bay detention
facilities”, which are most closely linked to the original submission we made jointly in
advance of the State party’s examination.