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As of 1 November, Russia has officially ceased to be a party to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. This was reported by the press service of the Council of Europe.
The way it was before
Russia had been party to the Convention since 1998. Up to 2021, representatives of the CPT visited the country 30 times and inspected more than 450 places of detention. After such visits, the committee prepared reports with findings and recommendations.
At the same time, Russia was the only state party to the convention that officially followed a policy of not permitting the publication of CPT reports on visits and the authorities’ responses to them. Only four reports were allowed to be published. The unpublished materials included both regular and ad hoc visit reports, including ten missions to Chechnya and the North Caucasus from 2000 to 2017.
But even with the restricted public release of reports, CPT inspections led to concrete changes: the authorities addressed issues with overcrowded cells and repaired prison colonies. The committee also had rare access to psychiatric institutions, which independent monitors find especially difficult to enter. In some cases, following such visits, it was possible to secure the release of detainees.
What has changed
The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) will now no longer be able to visit Russian remand centres, penal colonies or other places of detention and carry out inspections there. The Council of Europe notes that, in practice, Russian authorities stopped cooperating with the committee after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Despite this, the CPT continued to receive numerous reports of alleged torture and ill-treatment in detention facilities both in Russia and in occupied areas of Ukraine. On the other hand, the Ukrainian authorities continued to allow CPT representatives to visit any place of detention in Ukraine-controlled territory as the committee chose. Ukraine also continued to automatically publish CPT reports.
CPT President Alan Mitchell stated that Russia’s withdrawal means “an end to any independent monitoring of places of detention in the Russian Federation.” He stressed that such inspections remain one of the key safeguards against torture and ill-treatment.
As an OVD-Info lawyer explained, leaving the Convention will not immediately change detention conditions: in practice, Russia had already stopped cooperating with the CPT earlier. However, now the end of international oversight is enshrined in law.
“The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture could visit places of detention, hold confidential conversations with detainees, check conditions, and identify violations. Now it no longer has legal grounds to demand access to Russian institutions. As a result, the possibilities for external oversight of detainee treatment and for detecting torture have become even more limited,” the lawyer said.
What protection mechanisms remain
However, withdrawal from the Convention does not mean that international mechanisms against torture have disappeared completely, the lawyer explained. Russia remains a party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Victims of torture can still file individual complaints to UN committees if their applications meet the established requirements. But such complaints are no substitute for regular, independent inspections of remand centres, colonies, and other institutions.