La segunda edición de la Serie de Manuales de la OMCT fue presentada en Washington, D.C., con expertos eminentes del Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos
Geneva, 24 March2015. On 19 March 2015, eminent experts and practitioners including CommissionerJames L. Cavallaro, the original authors Diego Rodríguez and Claudia Martín,Alejandro Malambo, lawyer at the Colombian Commission of Jurists, and HelenaSolà Martín, legal advisor of the OMCT in charge of the update, participated inthe presentation at the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. The launch, which wasfollowed by a round-table discussion, was moderated by Frank La Rue, former UNSpecial Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression and Director of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights inEurope.
Commissioner James L. Cavallaro, Rapporteur on the Rights of PersonsDeprived of Liberty, praised the new edition, which described as “anindispensable tool for practitioners but also for the Inter-American System’soperators, such as Commissioners, Judges and lawyers”. He expressed concern over increasing reportsof reprisals being faced by persons deprived of liberty that denounce abusesand inadequate conditions of detention, highlighting that the new Handbook cameout in a timely moment to assist victims, their legal representatives and humanrights organisations to reverse this worrying trend.
Helena Solà, legal advisor of the OMCT, outlined the main achievementsof the Inter-American System in the fight against torture and ill-treatment,taking stock of the progresses made in the years elapsed since the first edition,and stressed “the importance of new training materials and capacity buildinginitiatives to tackle systemic challenges in domestic legal systems”.
Alejandro Malambo presented some of these challenges in the Colombiancontext, among them, the invisibility of acts of torture in criminalproceedings due to the use - at best - ofother generic criminal offenses instead, such as injuries and sexual abuse. TheHandbook “is a worthwhile tool for anti-torture litigators given the wide arrayof situations it covers under the material scope of Article 5.2 of the AmericanConvention on Human Rights”.
Finally, the authors of the first edition stressed the importance of compilingand systematizing procedural and substantive rules to successfully lodgecomplaints with the Inter-American Human Rights System and the fundamental roleof Law schools in building up the legal anti-torture expertise to addressfundamental concerns such as the implementation gap and the circle of impunity.
The new edition of the OMCT Handbook Series, that has been possible dueto the support of the European Commission, Hans Wilsdorf Foundation and OakFoundation, is available at: http://www.omct.org/monitoring-protection-mechanisms/reports-and-publications/2014/11/d22956/. To request aprinted copy, please send an e-mail message to Helena Solà (hs@omct.org) with thesubject “Handbook”, specifying which volume of the Series you would like toorder free of charge (1, 2, 3 or 4).
OMCT International Secretariat
For further information, please contact:
Helena Solà Martín: +41 22 809 4939 / hs@omct.org