It will look at, in particular, the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) which is aimed at the prevention of torture through the establishment of national and international bodies with powers to visit places of detention.
The event is part of a three-year research project at the University of Bristol in the UK that aims to study the OPCAT and the effectiveness of national torture preventive mechanisms, and which is financed by the British-based Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Members of these international and national monitoring bodies as well as academics and representatives of various national and international human rights organisations will attend the conference, which will be a platform to debate various issues surrounding the prevention of torture.
The conference has been organised with the cooperation of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and its Follow-Up Committee on the Robben Island Guidelines on Torture, the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture and with the Association for the Prevention of Torture, and with local partners, the South African Human Rights Commission Office and the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. The event has the additional financial support of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the UK Ministry of Justice.
For more information about the conference or the project, please visit our website at http://bristol.ac.uk/law/research/centres-themes/opcat/index.html.