For the second time, members of the Tunisian and the prospective Moroccan National Preventive Mechanisms against torture (NPMs) gathered with their European counterparts in a consultation meeting at the Council of Europe Headquarters (Strasbourg) on 31 May-1 June 2017.
This time the consultation was to support an endeavour by government experts from Council of Europe member States to codify existing international and regional human rights standards in the field of migrant detention in a single comprehensive document.
The two-day meeting was organised jointly with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE-ODIHR). It allowed the representatives of the Moroccan National Council for Human Rights (CNDH) and the Tunisian National Authority for the Prevention of Torture (INPT) to examine, and to actively participate in debates over, the first full draft prepared by the government experts. The learning from the experience of well-established mechanisms was emphasised as the Tunisian and Moroccan partners took part in the discussions of the European NPMs' recommendations to the drafters of the instrument.
The session was concluded with an exchange of views with the new Independent NPM Observatory (NPM Obs) concerning its proposal for the effectiveness assessment of interested NPMs, without geographic restrictions.
