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 inresponse to the United States of America (State party)’s One-Year Follow-up response to theRecommendations of this Committee (follow-up response). In advance of the 2014 Stateexamination, we submitted a report to this Committee expressing profound concern at thefact that the State party had compounded far-reaching violations of international law byconstructing an unprecedented system of secrecy around certain detainees, including thosefacing capital charges in military trials at Guantánamo Bay, thereby silencing a category ofvictims of torture and other ill-treatment through detention, isolation and classification ofinformation.

This Committee identified four “principal subjects of concern and recommendations” forfollow up in its Concluding Observations. In this submission we focus on two of thesesubjects: “Inquiries into allegations of torture overseas” and “Guantánamo Bay detentionfacilities”, which are most closely linked to the original submission we made jointly inadvance of the State party’s examination.