This week, the UK is facing UN scrutiny for its record on torture and ill-treatment at home and abroad. The UN Committee against Torture, the expert body that monitors implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, will meet in Geneva to examine the UK’s record.
This review could not be more timely. This will be the first such UN review since the Intelligence and Security Committee’s reports exposed shocking new details of UK complicity in torture and rendition abroad, with UK agencies more deeply and systematically involved in the US “extraordinary rendition” programme than had previously been publicly known. It will also be the first review since the introduction of the “hostile environment” policy, whose cruel effects on the most vulnerable members of our society were laid bare during the Windrush scandal last year.
The UN review only takes place every four years, and is an unusual opportunity to hold the UK government to account for its record across the whole of government.
