Publications

This Policy Guidance Note follows a report published in March 2019 by REDRESS on the rights of victims of crimes in pre-trial and immigration detention in the Netherlands. Drawing from the report, from international and European standards identified by the project’s consortium of NGOs, cases, reports by international committees, and consultations with key stakeholders in the field, the Policy Guidance Note addresses policy recommendations to relevant authorities in the Netherlands.

A REDRESS report explores the effectiveness of the current legal system in the Netherlands in ensuring the rights of victims of violence in pre-trial and immigration detention.

This report sets out what REDRESS has achieved from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018. This has included addressing the need for effective consular protection for dual nationals detained abroad, and ongoing challenges to immunities for torture. In establishing international standards, we continued our work to highlight the problem of torture in the context of migration, sharing our ideas with various UN experts. Our post-conflict work in Kenya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic led to new cases and new structures for domestic trials, and our projects on SGBV enabled national NGOs to engage effectively on the issue. We advanced universal jurisdiction cases in several jurisdictions. We continued to monitor the operations of the ICC, and make suggestions for even greater participation of victims. We issued a number of influential reports, including on sexual abuse in the context of peace-keeping operations, and the criminalisation of women in Sudan. REDRESS also celebrated 25 years since it was founded, and we reflect on what has been achieved, and explore how we can have an even greater impact.

This report on our activities gives details of the many victims of torture for whom REDRESS has acted between 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019. It also sets out our impact over the last 12 months. This includes a timely report on reparations at the International Criminal Court, responding to the situation in Sudan, and organising a broad coalition of NGOs to prepare a report on torture and ill-treatment in the United Kingdom for the UN Committee against Torture.

In this letter, submitted ahead of the 42nd regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, REDRESS and other civil society organisations urge the Council to take action to address serious human rights violations and abuses that have been and continue to be committed in Sudan, and to support systemic reforms in the country.

This is a report of a Litigation Workshop that took place in Nairobi on 28-29 August 2019 involving lawyers and medical professionals from Kenya and Cameroon and the Gambia, led by REDRESS with the involvement of Trauma Centre International, the Independent-Medico-Legal Unit, the Human Rights Implementation Centre within the Law School of the University of Bristol, and Three Crowns. The workshop was designed to look in particular at the strategies and tactics for implementing judgments, and utilizing a collaborative approach between medical and legal professionals to seek justice for victims of torture.

In this bulletin, we draw attention to our most recent casework, including developments in the case of Necati Zontul, an asylum seeker from Turkey who was tortured by Greek coastguards, following a breakthrough ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, and the granting of diplomatic protection by the UK Foreign Office to our client Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the first such case in more than a hundred years. We also provide the latest updates on our advocacy campaigns, publications and policy work during January-June 2019, including our new report No Time to Wait: Realising Reparations for Victims before the International Criminal Court.

This report was submitted to the UN Committee against Torture as an alternative (or shadow) report to the UK's sixth periodic review taking place in May 2019. The report follows four consultation events and a call for evidence across England and Wales as part of the UK Torture Review project in which over 90 civil society organisations and individuals participated in the consultations or provided written evidence to inform the report.