[prisoner-rights] Manfred Nowak appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

UNITED NATIONS
Press Release
24 November 2004

United Nations Commission on Human Rights Chairman Mike Smith has
appointed Manfred Nowak of Austria as Special Rapporteur on torture. The
appointment was made on 23 November in consultation with representatives
of the different regional groups in the Commission.

Prof. Nowak is Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the
University of Vienna and Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of
Human Rights (BIM). He has served as Judge at the Human Rights Chamber for
Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

Prof. Nowak was a member of the Austrian delegation to the Commission on
Human Rights for many years before being appointed in 1993 as expert
member of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary
Disappearances. During this term he also served as United Nations expert
on missing persons in the former Yugoslavia.  In 2001 he was appointed to
study legal issues relating to the drafting of a binding instrument on
enforced disappearances.

Prof. Nowak is a board member of various international and Austrian
non-governmental organizations and was appointed in 2000 chairperson of a
human rights commission at the Austrian Ministry of Interior with the task
of monitoring the police. In 1994, he was awarded a UNESCO prize for the
teaching of human rights. He has published more than 350 books and
articles in the fields of human rights, public law and politics. He has
been a member of the International Commission of Jurists since 1995.

Special Rapporteurs and other "mandate-holders" of the Commission are
independent from any government and serve in their individual capacity.
The Commission first decided to appoint a special rapporteur to examine
questions relevant to torture in 1985. The mandate covers all countries,
irrespective of whether a State has ratified the Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The
mandate comprises such activities as: gathering information from
governmental and non-governmental sources; making urgent appeals to States
to clarify the situation with regard to individuals reported to be at risk
of torture and transmitting to them communications on alleged cases of
torture; undertaking, with the consent of the Government concerned,
fact-finding country visits; and submitting annual reports on his
activities to the Commission and the General Assembly.

Prof. Nowak will take up his mandate as Special Rapporteur on 1 December.