GENEVA - The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) has announced plans to conduct six country visits in 2026, including three that were deferred from this year due to the UN's ongoing liquidity constraints. The Subcommittee has confirmed that the postponed missions to Burundi, France, and Mexico will take place next year, alongside newly planned visits to Paraguay, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka.
The Subcommittee stated that its 2026 visit plan will begin with the mission to Mexico in January. In 2025, the SPT was able to carry out only four visits, namely to Mozambique, New Zealand, Peru, and Serbia, which represent half of its planned programme, due to the UN's liquidity situation.
The 2026 visit programme was decided during the SPT's latest session in November in Geneva, where members also reviewed their concluding visits of the year to Mozambique and New Zealand.
"While our resources remain strained, we are committed to fulfilling our visiting mandate, even if at a reduced pace," said María Luisa Romero, Chair of the Subcommittee. "Direct engagement with States and independent national monitoring bodies through our field visits and ongoing dialogue is essential to strengthening safeguards and advancing the global prevention of torture."
The SPT welcomed the recent ratifications of Bangladesh and Colombia to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), bringing the total number of States Parties to 96. The Subcommittee looks forward to supporting these two new States Parties in establishing their independent national preventive mechanisms (NPMs), the domestic anti-torture watchdogs that must be designated within one year of ratification.
"A defining feature of OPCAT is the work carried out at national level by NPMs, which continue to visit places of deprivation of liberty, including prisons and other detention facilities, even when the Subcommittee is unable to do so. Their regular monitoring is vital to the effectiveness of the system as a whole, and we will continue to strengthen our advisory and capacity-building support to help them fulfil this crucial role," added Romero.
During its last session, the SPT also adopted visit reports on Peru and Greece, which will soon be transmitted to the States together with an appeal to make them public. It also met with the Committee against Torture for its annual joint meeting to discuss torture prevention policies and other issues of mutual interest, and prepared for a series of drug policy webinars that will take place in the coming months with NPMs. The Subcommittee also noted its intention to advance its work on social reintegration, taking into account the recent OHCHR report.
Under OPCAT, the SPT monitors the treatment and conditions of people deprived of liberty through unannounced visits to police stations, prisons, psychiatric hospitals, immigration detention centres, and other custodial settings. The Subcommittee also works with NPMs, as well as human rights institutions, government authorities, and civil society, to strengthen measures that prevent torture and ill-treatment.
