Training session on the prohibition of torture in Nepal.
National Standards and Practice
REDRESS works to ensure that international standards relating to the prohibition of torture and reparation for survivors of torture and related international crimes are applied at the national level. Part of this work is focused on informing and influencing new laws and practices at the domestic level. Other aspects include advocating and building the capacity of national level institutions to ensure compliance with existing standards.
Some of the typical challenges we face in this area include:
- Inadequate laws, such as a law that puts an unrealistic timeframe on victims' ability to raise complaints of torture or a law that states that certain high officials are immune from prosecution.
- Absence of law, where there is no law providing for compensation of torture, or no definition of torture in the criminal code.
- Institutional barriers, often national police forces in countries where torture is endemic have insufficient training on standards to prevent and prohibit torture and/or poor track records in the investigation of torture allegations. At times prosecutors are unaware of the best practice of other countries with a similar legal framework or of recent cases at the international level.
