Professional Documents
Culture Documents
I N T E R N AT ION A L L AW
General Editors: Professor Philip Alston, Professor of International Law
at New York University, and Professor Vaughan Lowe, Chichele Professor
of Public International Law in the University of Oxford and Fellow of
All Souls College, Oxford.
A Commentary
M A N FR E D NOWA K
E L I Z A BE T H Mc A RT H U R
4. Issues of interpretation
4.1 Right of Victims of Torture and Ill-Treatment to Complain
to a Competent Authority
27 The formulation of Article 13 indicates that any individual who alleges
that he or she has been subjected to torture (or ill-treatment) has an independ-
ent right to complain to a competent authority. A mere allegation of torture
or ill-treatment should, therefore, suffice, i.e. the form of the complaint is not
important.²⁹ In the early case of Parot v. Spain, the Committee noted that ‘in
principle, article 13 of the Convention does not require the formal submission
of a complaint of torture. It is sufficient for torture only to have been alleged
by the victim for the state to be under an obligation promptly and impartially
to examine the allegation.’³⁰
28 This interpretation was further elaborated in the leading case of Blanco
Abad v. Spain, in which the Committee stated as follows: ‘The Committee
observes that article 13 of the Convention does not require either the formal
lodging of a complaint of torture under the procedure laid down in national
law or an express statement of intent to institute and sustain a criminal action
arising from the offence, and that it is enough for the victim simply to bring the
facts to the attention of an authority of the State for the latter to be obliged to
consider it as tacit but unequivocal expression of the victim’s wish that the facts
should be promptly and impartially investigated, as prescribed by this provi-
sion of the Convention’.³¹ This liberal interpretation, which clearly conforms
to the object and purpose of this provision, was confirmed in later cases against
Tunisia³² and Serbia and Montenegro.³³
29 In the State reporting procedure, the Committee expressed concern
about undue restrictions of the right to complain.³⁴ In its concluding obser-
vations on the third periodic report of France, it criticized, for example, the
³⁵ CAT/C/FRAU/CO/3, § 22.
³⁶ CAT/C/NPL/CO/2, § 28. Cf. also the obiter dictum in the Argentine Punto Final cases, Nos. 1,
2 and 3/1988, § 9: ‘The Committee observes, however, that even if the Convention against Torture
does not apply to the facts of these communications, the State of Argentina is morally bound to pro-
vide a remedy to victims of torture and to their dependants’. See also below, Art.14, 3.2.
³⁷ Cf. Ingelse, 367.
³⁸ Cf. Burgers/Danelius, 145.
³⁹ See also A/56/44, § 82(c).