 Well, it falls to me this morning to welcome you to the United States Institute of Peace. And I'm particularly pleased to welcome you here today to discuss a topic which has anchored my own interest and passion in rule of law work both in my own country and internationally, prisons and detention. It's not every day in this particular field that we have something to celebrate. Sometimes it can feel a little bit bleak to do prisons work. But that's what we have today. We're here to celebrate, to discuss and assess the implementation of and talk about the future of the new standard of minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners. Their revision took over four years to negotiate. Many of the people in here today involved in that difficult process, a long process, and was greeted with spontaneous applause upon their agreement in May in Vienna. They will now move to the UN General Assembly in New York in September for hopeful adoption and they will do so bearing a new name, the Mandela Rules. And this is in recognition of a man who spent 27 years of his life held in harsh prison conditions, denounced as a terrorist and a criminal, but also led his country to dismantle the apartheid and inspired the world. And sometimes I feel that in my own prison's work that it's almost taken me through every shade of humanity and inhumanity from a prison in eastern Congo that I visited where they'd had no water in their tankers for almost a week because the governor left town and there was no gas in the trucks to fill the tanks. Where prisoners slept in shifts because there wasn't enough space for them all to lie down at the same time. Then to a rural prison in Liberia where I met a Ghanaian UN corrections officer who had not only been dipping into his own pocket when he first started in order to feed the detainees in his care but actually then started a prison farm system. That years later when I went back to visit is not only making that prison self sufficient but is actually feeding a number of the other prisons and its goods being sold at market. And then to another darker case where I visited a female block in a prison already not ideal to have that situation but it had no proper gate blocking the main prison population from entering and where almost everyone of the 60 female detainees was either pregnant or carrying a small child. But through every visit and through every project and through every piece of work one thing is constant and that's the SMR is the standard minimum rules. I reread them every time I start a new project. They're always with me. They're folded up. They're a neat little thing. You can fold in your back pocket. They're crumpled in the bottom of my handbag but they're there because they are the touchstone in this work. And that's why gathering this group here today to discuss them is so relevant. And so I want to introduce the panel. We have a great mixture of both national and international prisons work here today. Firstly, David Fathy, director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union who has worked and dedicated his career to addressing challenges of conditions of confinement in prisons, jails and other detention facilities and works to end policies that have given the United States the highest incarceration rate in the world. He's worked as a staff lawyer at the project for more than ten years and then became the director in 2010. Also having worked as the director of the US program at Human Rights Watch and participated in the negotiation process with the new standard minimum rules. Next we'll have Mark Linning. Mark is the protection coordinator of the International Committee on the Red Cross for the regional delegation of the United States and Canada. And in his capacity he's in charge of coordinating ICRC's visits to Guantanamo Bay as well as issues related to the detention operations, the protection of civilian population in Afghanistan and other relevant contexts. And Mark will talk a lot about the work also of ICRC on the ground. And ICRC I think has a very special role and a very important role. They are working every day in prisons around the world in nearly a hundred countries, visiting prisoners, checking conditions, speaking to detainees, helping detainees to communicate with their families in the outside world. And they are so vital to giving us a flavor and a picture of what detention really looks like and conditions really look like. And finally today we'll have Pat Prue, attorney advisor at the US State Department. Also working at Georgetown University as an adjunct professor of law. And Pat has served as an expert on the United Nations working groups focusing on extradition, the standard minimum rules for treatment of prisoners, killing of women and children. And she served on US delegations of the UN Convention against transnational organized crime, UN Convention against corruption, commission on crime prevention and criminal justice, and the list goes on and on. But first I'll turn to David Pahou to begin. Thank you Fiona. I'd like to thank the United States Institute of Peace and the Department of State for organizing this important event to promote and publicize the Mandela rules. I'd also like to acknowledge the person in whose memory we gather here today. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years by the apartheid regime during which time he endured hunger, physical abuse, and solitary confinement. He emerged unbroken as a towering figure of national reconciliation and the first president of a democratic and non-racial South Africa. And so today, on the eve of what would have been his 97th birthday, we remember him and we honor his sacrifice and his legacy. The standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners or SMRs are the leading international body of principles on the treatment of detained persons. In many countries they are virtually the only standards available to prisoners and to prison staff regarding treatment and detention. In other countries they form the blueprint or the basis for national prison rules and regulations. Here in the United States we have a considerable body of domestic law on conditions of confinement that's been developed by our federal courts, but the SMRs are still important. They've been cited by the Supreme Court as well as lower federal courts. The State Department uses them in assessing prison conditions in other countries, calling them the most important set of guidelines for evaluating prison conditions. And at least one Department of Corrections in the state of Connecticut at one point actually adopted the SMRs as part of its administrative regulations. But the SMRs had become outdated since they were first promulgated in 1955. They used archaic terminology, for example, referring to mentally disordered persons. They failed to take into account recent technological developments. And probably most importantly they simply failed to address a number of very significant issues such as, for example, the needs of prisoners with disabilities. And so in 2010 the United Nations General Assembly asked the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice to establish an open-ended intergovernmental expert group to revise the SMRs. At its first meeting in 2012 the expert group decided on a targeted approach and identified nine specific areas of the rules for revision. The expert group also agreed that any changes to the rules should not lower any existing standards but should instead reflect recent advances in correctional science and best practices. The expert group met four times between 2012 and 2015. NGOs from around the world including the ACLU were actively involved in the latter three meetings. I represented the ACLU at the second and fourth meetings in Buenos Aires and Cape Town. Our goal in the NGO community was a progressive revision of the rules that would take into account the many developments in international standards since 1955 including the many human rights treaties that have come into force since then. To coordinate and present our recommendations in an organized fashion we convened two expert meetings at the University of Essex in the UK in 2012 and 2013. These expert meetings resulted in a document known as the Essex Paper which laid out current international norms and standards in the areas that were proposed for revision and recommended specific changes to the rules in those areas. In addition to the NGOs there was active participation from various UN human rights bodies including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The final meeting of the expert group was held in Cape Town in March of this year. At this meeting the experts reached consensus on revised rules in all of the designated areas. And meeting just a few miles from the infamous Robin Island prison where Nelson Mandela was held for so many years the expert group recommended that the revised SMRs be known as the Mandela Rules and that July 18th Mandela's birthday henceforth be known as Mandela Prisoner Rights Day. The expert group's recommendations were unanimously approved by the UN Crime Commission being in Vienna this last May. Now it probably goes without saying that the final text of the rules is the result of many compromises and not all of the NGO suggestions proposals were accepted. But the NGO group strongly supports the Mandela Rules as a major step forward providing greater protection for persons deprived of their liberty and recognition of their rights as well as more up-to-date guidance for prison staff. We think it's particularly significant that the rules, the revisions bring to the rules a human rights focus that was previously lacking and they successfully reconcile criminal justice standards and human rights standards in a single instrument. I'm very glad to be here today with Pat Prue because I would particularly like to acknowledge the progressive and constructive role that the US delegation played in this process. The US has been a strong supporter and proponent of the Mandela Rules and fought back successfully against proposals to reopen the agreed text and water down various important standards. Let me give just a couple of examples of significant changes made by the Mandela Rules. Solitary confinement is a human rights issue that is receiving increasing attention. As you may know in just the last few weeks, President Obama and three US Supreme Court justices have all denounced solitary confinement. Mandela himself called it the most forbidding aspect of prison life. And in 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture released a global report on solitary confinement concluding that in some circumstances it can constitute cruel inhuman and degrading treatment and even torture. Since 2010, we at the ACLU have led a national and increasingly international campaign against solitary confinement so this issue was of particular importance to us. The original SMRs were silent on solitary confinement. By contrast, the Mandela Rules provide that solitary confinement shall be used only in exceptional cases as a last resort for as short a time as possible and subject to independent review. Indefinite solitary confinement and prolonged solitary confinement defined as more than 15 consecutive days are prohibited. Solitary confinement is not to be imposed simply by virtue of a prisoner's sentence. So for example, simply because a prisoner is sentenced to death or to life imprisonment. Solitary confinement is also prohibited in the case of persons with mental or physical disabilities when their condition would be exacerbated by such confinement. Healthcare is an area of great concern to prisoners. Prisoners as a class had greater health needs than the general population and obviously if the prison doesn't provide healthcare, prisoners will not receive it. The Mandela Rules significantly expand and strengthen the provisions on healthcare for prisoners. They make clear that healthcare in prison is a state responsibility. It must be provided free of charge and that prisoners should enjoy the same standards of healthcare as exist in the community. Prison health staff have a mandatory duty to report any signs of torture or ill treatment or any indication that a prisoner's mental or physical health is being adversely affected by conditions of confinement. Now, words on paper by themselves don't change the world. And the real work, ensuring that the Mandela Rules will make a difference in the lives of the millions of prisoners in the United States and around the world begins now. We and other NGOs are planning trainings and other events and this is a top priority for those of us in the NGO community that participated and took part in this long process of bringing the Mandela Rules to completion. The U.S. delegation in Vienna included the heads of two state prison systems, Colorado and the state of Washington and I know that they are working as we speak to publicize and promote the SMRs among their fellow corrections administrators. Much work remains to be done but today's event is an important first step and so I thank all of you for your participation and I thank you for your kind attention. Well, thanks Fiona. Thank you very much USIP for inviting the International Committee of the Red Cross here today and the opportunity to share some remarks not only on the SMRs and the process and how the religion came by but also how we the ICRC uses the SMRs and tends to use the SMRs, the revised version of it also in the future. The ICRC works worldwide in more than 90 countries. Last year alone we visited more than 800,000 detainees of different categories. To look at conditions of prisons, you look at the treatment, to look at other aspects maybe linked to judicial guarantees, to the outside contact of detainees with their families, etc. So giving you a little bit of an operational perspective how also the ICRC intends to use this vital document on the ground is something I'd like to share some remarks today on. Maybe before that though of course also I'd like to on behalf of the ICRC express the appreciation for having been invited to be part of the revision process of the SMR from day one to be able to contribute its perspectives especially on topics of focus of the ICRC looking at prevention of ill treatment, torture, looking at solitary confinement as you mentioned, family contact but also looking at aspects that sometimes go a little bit under the radar in terms of focus like medical ethics, medical care in prison. The ICRC also would like to really express its appreciation of the role of the US government and its support throughout the process to get where we are today and we hope that that positive attitude of course will also help the formal adoption at the United Nations General Assembly later on this year. Again once this revised version has been adopted it's going to be part and parcel of our work when it comes to our protection delegates, our legal delegates working in prisons worldwide and we really like to use this as soon as possible. The way we see at the ICRC the SMR is rather as an impractical guidance tool that should be aimed at the prison administrations, at the prison wardens, at the stakeholders on the ground and of course also then looking at the problems and the many humanitarian consequences sometimes we see in prisons today at the wider echelons of stakeholders in different contexts that affect prison conditions. Of course there are many issues that can be tackled in prisons themselves but sometimes of course it's more systemic issues and root causes that lie outside the prison system itself that affect the lives of detainees and then one has to talk on different levels with different ministries, different stakeholders to try to effect change. So again the implementation part of it of course, the contextualization of those rules in the different contexts, how to operationalize them, how to integrate them in prison systems that exist in different cultures in different countries that's of course lays at the crux here of this issue and of course the SMRs provide a great first step but it is only a first step. Unlike my co-panelists I didn't have the privilege to be part of that revision process but again when we look at what the ICRC does worldwide I'd like to give you some examples for example how this can be applied how the SMRs can be used when negotiating with the different stakeholders on the ground. One of the main issues but it's just an example is just one looking at overcrowding for example in prisons and how to effect the issue of overcrowding. Oftentimes the sheer knowledge of having baselines in terms of how much space a detainee needs what systemic effects need to be tackled in order to provide detainees with more space when it comes to the use of preventive detention when it comes to keeping people waiting for trial for excessive periods of time because the legal system is flawed or because the coordination between different ministries is flawed and then the effects of that on the ground. Those kind of realizations might seem obvious now to us here on paper it's easy to discuss this but oftentimes the mere existence of such standards ratified or formalized or adopted is something that is not known to people on the ground. So when we visit prisons worldwide the sheer dissemination, the sheer awareness raising of the SMRs is a vital first step and then to bring the people together and oftentimes they really want to do something about it but they just don't know how and that's where the practical side then comes in and we as the ICRC visit prisons in a certain way that should help then also those different authorities to make moves and to try and find solutions. Of course we conduct prison visits speaking with detainees in private speaking confidentially with the different prison authorities provide then recommendations, finding space on our own observations as well and of course on our expertise in general about prisons and to try to bring that together with the different insights of the prison authorities on the ground. Sometimes the notion of the need to have access to families when you are in prison it sounds pretty straightforward looking at the situations in many places of the world however it is actually much less straightforward. So finding creative solutions for example via video telephone conferencing where prison visits cannot be done by the families themselves. When we look at a situation like in Yemen for example right now families are on the move in Yemen, it's a war-torn country but maybe they have relatives that are detained in a prison in the US, in a prison in Europe, in a prison I don't know where. How to reach those families, how to then be able to appease the minds of the detainees who are obviously very worried about those families trying to get in touch, creating, recording sorry Satan well messages getting in touch on the phone with families and then bringing those into the prisons having the prison authorities realize also the benefit it has for them when they are able to then deliver and quickly clear those messages to have a calmer prison environment with less mental stress and emotional stress for the detainees. We have other issues in terms of medical ethics that sometimes are not just not featuring on the radar of detention authorities an example could be for example the use of interpreters in prisons and there's a dual use of interpreters for example for interrogators and for medical care all of a sudden you have detainees of course who are not anymore at ease to even speak with the doctors via the interpreters because that the same interpreters might be used for interrogation and then medical care is affected and of course the humanitarian consequences are obvious. It goes without saying that I think also beyond the mere humanitarian consequences I think for society in general is it important to have humane prison conditions I mean some key words that come to mind are recidivism costs are radicalization, prison etc. So there too I mean beyond the main the pure humanitarian objectives there are other objectives that are worthwhile to look at here. Maybe to give you a couple of insights again how the ICRC is currently looking at the prison landscape worldwide in addition to unfortunately the continued disrespect in many contexts of blatant violations, blatant notions of humanity in terms of summary executions in prison, arbitrary detention, torture or treatment we see a lot of systemic issues again I mentioned overcrowding but also lacking infrastructure inadequate management of prisons and inadequate training of guards I mean guards too have to be really mentioned here because without them achieving obtaining adequate training how can you expect them to work in sometimes very challenging conditions the use of force even inside a prison by the guards this is something that is not obvious but how to escalate force is complicated in general in a prison setting how to use certain devices to try and maintain the calm is even more complicated and therefore training of guards cannot be overstated enough in terms of also leading to positive effects for detainees having said that we also still of course see problems in terms of the high security prison model it's still something that has been on the increase overall globally something that we see with concern on the flip side there is still in our view less emphasis or not enough emphasis on also looking at alternatives to detention thereby tackling overcrowding for example for let's say migrants were purely detained because they migrated without documents or let's say minor drug cases whereby the whole prison system is suffering as a result because of the effects of that and there are more and more quite creative ideas about alternatives to detention to look at remedies there last but not least maybe let me just give one more example from the ICRC perspective whereby the respect of the SMRs and the need to disseminate and implement and adopt them of course cannot be overstated enough as well and that's when we have also of course the ambitions to not only look at detention places that are run by states but more and more often also by non-state actors globally of course they more or less, not often, not always but also look at practices by state in terms of detention so the adoption of those rules is then also a tool and a vector to also discuss, sit down and try to convince non-state actors to adhere to the rules, the vital rules, the positive rules of those SMRs when it comes to treating their own detainees they have I'll leave it at that for the time being, thank you Thank you so much Mark, Pat, what do you say? Thank you very much and again to USIP thank you for the opportunity for us to showcase this very important issue and Mark it's very nice to meet you and David it's great to see you again we frequently were sparring partners during the last four years but I do want to clarify one thing, you know for some reason there seems to be a bit of surprise that the US was so supportive of the SMRs we actually are very committed to upholding human rights that is something that is part of our national character what I think people don't realize is that we are so fortunate in this country because we have a constitution and that constitution embodies basic rights in it other countries don't have the benefit of that and so other countries tend to look more to the framework of the United Nations and the United Nations framework of human rights as a way of incorporating those principles into their domestic practice so I think from the outset that it's the different vision that the US has from many other countries that at times it may look as though we're somewhat in opposition to human rights principles but it's more the way they are articulated and perhaps I should put myself in between the two of you because I think the role of the US throughout these negotiations was to acknowledge the foundation of human rights which frankly is what everything that we do in Vienna in the anti-crime world is based on that's our foundation so for us it almost goes without saying human rights is our starting point but it's not our end point because we strive to address administration of justice issues across the board the SMRs of course is our flagship if you will it's the seminal achievement that was provided in 1955 and when we at the crime congress in El Salvador considered the issue of revising the SMRs I have to say the US was very hesitant and we were hesitant because this was a system that works and we knew that it had resonated worldwide down to the lowest levels which is exactly where this is supposed to be the SMRs is not the gold standard it is the lowest standard so it is to apply not only in upstate New York but also it's to apply in Liberia and in places where they are challenged by resources and in other ways to implement the SMRs so that's our main focus to have simple pragmatic rules that incorporate human rights and respect for human rights but articulate it in a way that that prison guard sitting in Zaire or wherever he happens to be understands it in unequivocal unambiguous terms so that is why we were very hesitant in the beginning and we agreed with some reluctance but the reluctance was we have to look to correctional science we want this driven by science we want it driven by best practices of member states so those were our sort of conditions for agreeing to allow the SMRs to be updated now what distinguished this series of negotiations from other groups that at least I've been involved in in the UN was the tremendous groundwork that was done before the expert group actually got together on the part of NGOs on the part of the UN office on drugs and crime to assemble, to assess, to get an idea not just of where the SMRs need to be revised but where in the administration of justice are their issues and how can we update the SMRs to deal with that so Mark you mentioned overcrowding in prison I mean we recognize that that is a significant issue and in the crime congress and the crime commission we try to address the issue of overcrowding of prisons but we also recognize that the individual manager of a prison has very little say so about how he handles that issue so we want to give them the basic guideline on this is what you do and so we tried and I have to, you know, a little inside baseball we weren't completely successful in articulating what we wanted in all cases there's some language in one of the rules that addresses the principles of proportionality, legality and necessity and it says in conducting searches there must be respect for human rights but there must also be respect for these three principles so we asked our practitioner who was accompanying us what does that mean for you in practical terms and he said I don't know I have to Google it so we want these rules to be understood without having to have access to the internet and so while we were not able to get that term out of the SMRs we were able to go back, sort of circle around to the other rules and if you look closely at rules 50, 51 and 52 you'll see that we actually do describe what the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality are with respect to searches and seizures now looking at what we achieved over the nearly five years that we were negotiating this I have to say I'll pitch myself because I don't know what the expectations of civil society were for an outcome but as far as the United States we got so much more in this than we ever thought possible perhaps it was timing I mean who knows what actually contributed to this I really personally I think it was that we had such a great balance in the room and when I say balance I mean a balance not just of NGOs but NGOs that had the perspective of working in prisons NGOs that had the perspective of defending people's rights in courts with respect to human rights NGOs who were looking at other issues maybe it was women in children in prison or children in prison so we had lots of different stakeholders lots of different viewpoints and then we had governments we had governments who were very fearful of anything that looked like a commitment you know it had to be political will was what we were going for and then we had the practitioners and I think this is where our meetings were so rich because we recognized all of these participants are stakeholders we weren't drafting this for just one body but our main focus was those people in the field and as David said the U.S. did invite Bernie Warner and Rick Ramos who are respectively the head of corrections for the state of Washington and the head of corrections for the state of Colorado to join us they were not part of our delegation in South Africa intentionally so because we wanted them to participate as practitioners and we didn't want there to be any suggestion of a government filter over the message that they were delivering we wanted them there as experts in the field and to the extent we were able to achieve significant changes particularly in the area of solitary confinement I think we have to look to those two practitioners as well as to Lucky I'm going to mispronounce his name our director of corrections from the state of South Africa who was also so instrumental this was a very interesting part of the negotiations where the practitioners were discussing among themselves how various countries refer to solitary confinement and this led us to a kind of a definition and the premise of our practitioners was don't let them hide don't let them say, oh well this isn't solitary confinement this is restrictive housing and they were very forceful about this we need to get this terminology in there so that the practitioners in the field will understand it doesn't matter how you describe it if it's more than 22 hours in a day solitary confinement if it's more than 15 days in a row it's prolonged solitary confinement and we will not tolerate that as an international standard we will not accept that and that's the message that needs to be carried now there were other areas where we had huge successes that I think may not get the same attention that solitary confinement does but we got reference to state responsibility where you have vulnerable individuals who have vulnerabilities in the prison population what you don't see there is reference to the LGBT community but that is where we in the United States and other delegations what we were pushing for we weren't successful there have to be compromises but that's what we were thinking of if you see in Rule 2 and Rule 7a I think there are references to this so for us it's a huge gain that we at least have a mention of vulnerabilities and in 7a we have the inclusion of self-gender identification in the intake files of prisoners when they come into prisons this was probably down to the wire the most contentious thing we talked about because there are many countries who any mention of gender issues was a non-starter for them and we have to say we're grateful to the government of Iran for conceding on that issue and allowing us to go forward because in our context in Vienna in these negotiations our premise has always been everything has to be agreed by everybody this has to be a consensus document in order for us to get the global buy-in that is so necessary to make these successful so it took many countries ourselves and others agreeing to language that maybe would not have been not only our starting point but our concluding point in order to get these rules forward now what do we do from here well in the State Department I think our mission is to keep the focus going not only on the rules themselves but implementing the rules and using the rules as a tool to help identify those areas where countries need assistance what we do in Vienna what the State Department does in large measure is identifying areas where other countries need assistance and seeking ways to provide that foreign assistance so the rules can be a very helpful and useful tool for us I think there's room for us in Vienna to talk about how we meaningfully follow up to the rules from the very beginning since 1955 there has been a provision in the rules themselves that requires member states to periodically update and we do that through the crime commission I think we need to look at that again and see if perhaps that mechanism needs to be adjusted in some way we need to make sure however we do this that we continue this very rich and broad dialogue between academia, civil society member states and all of the practitioners in the field so that we get all of the concerns addressed we're not going to solve this problem individually you know some say it takes a village I think it takes a global community really to address a lot of these issues but we've made a great start I thank you all for your recognition of the role that the US played but I have to say a hands off to you all too because we wouldn't have gotten there if it had not been civil society constantly pushing us to accept more than perhaps we would have done and then your tolerance when we told you we found as far as we can go so again it's an excellent document we want to see it adopted in the UN I don't think there's any doubt that the General Assembly will adopt it but then the next mission is to the practitioners in the field and you all to make sure that we implement this again thank you very much it was a wonderful experience and an enriching one thank you thank you so much Pat join me in thanking the panel I think that the panel has taken us both sort of inside the negotiation process and inside the world of prisons in a very nice way and now it's over to you for questions and answers session and what I thought I might do is ask you to identify yourself and your affiliation when you ask your question and then what we'll do is we'll finish with some closing remarks as well good morning my name is Marcia Wong I'm with USAID and I want to thank all the panelists for having this conversation today and helping us understand the behind the scenes negotiation environment and all the inputs that we receive it does indeed take a very broad audience of willing people to tackle some of these challenges my tendency though when I hear the unpacking of the big abstract and rules and frameworks excuse me is to go immediately to the micro and Pat I think you refer to the political will that will be needed from member countries can you describe a little bit of what kind of incentive structure that we can provide for that or other outside of just influence and diplomatic overtures but how else can we look at it in a more granular way that would be very helpful thank you the question to all the panelists maybe if I could start so one simple way that we in the State Department already use the rules and serve as an incentive is when we are identifying domestic institutions that we would like to tap into to use as implementers to help us with training our foreign counterparts and partners we insist that they must be able to establish that they meet the standards of the SMRs so for us that's rule number one for us you can't be an implementer for us unless you do that we also try to make sure that member states get as much support as they can when they identify issues with implementing the SMRs we also have been working very closely as I said with Bernie and Rick and they are conduits to professional organizations because one thing to remember here is when we have binding documents you have an agreement that becomes an obligation of the state forces it down we don't have that structure here so instead this is more a bottom up kind of structure where you encourage the practitioner in the field because this is what the professional in the field will strive to do so if you are a corrections specialist you want to be part of the professional community and so that's one very effective way we think of working globally to raise these standards we certainly would be open to any other suggestions of ways that we might stimulate more adherence to and implementation and support for the rules but the perspective is as someone who works primarily indeed almost exclusively in the United States and so let me answer the question in that context I think Pat is exactly right these rules are not it's not a treaty it's not a binding obligation and so it really is about changing norms and culture and creating the perception that the leading edge the progressive edge of your profession this is where it's at these are the minimum standards that you need to apply in the United States we already have accreditation by the American Correctional Association that has become a standard that many if not most or all prisons and jails aspire to and so I think that we can do a similar thing with the Mandela rules to make it really the standard in the profession that responsible and reputable corrections professionals adhere to we just add a bit of a global perspective to that as well but also compel of what you just said often times we experience it not to be the issue of having the willingness or lack of incentive it's just the matter of practically being able to implement things having best practices guidelines available and then being able to find ways to implement them with other stakeholders as well with people with expertise to get to the place that are stipulated in those guidelines often times you know I mean it's clear to governments or to other stakeholders where the benefits lie to have human detention that they don't see it's something that they maybe don't put enough attention on maybe they don't put enough resources on it but there are often ways to get there by just making people aware having those guidelines disseminated and then finding practical solutions Hi my name is Rousa Sear and I've run programs in a number of prisons and I've done criminal justice scholarship so I am a little bit skeptical and these norms seem to me to be very inspirational so in the history of criminal justice scholarship typically prisons are seen to be needing to have less eligibility so to speak that whatever the norm is in the general culture standards should be lower not higher than what's in the general culture in many ways these standards maybe if implemented would be you know have a higher standard of services and then available to the general populace so how in countries that are very poor how do you expect prisons to be able to implement these standards when the general population is poor and destitute that is not an argument that's limited to countries where people are poor and destitute we hear this in the United States all the time what they get free healthcare I don't get free healthcare and you're right that these rules are aspirational I mean I don't think there's a single country in the world even those with the most progressive prison systems that complies with all of the rules but I think having it out there as a norm is important in and of itself as we've described and as for the why do prisoners get this argument the response is that when the state takes you into custody and disables you from providing for your own needs the state takes on a corresponding obligation to provide for your needs some people don't find that persuasive but that's as far as I know that's the best answer we've got maybe just to add to that I mean in practice from our side we expect certain countries from trying to come to a certain level of services and care that maybe we expected in other countries there have to be localized adoptions and adaptions to whatever the rules stipulate but of course still bearing in mind respecting the basic norms of humanity in prison as well but yes in the prison we mentioned IRC Southern Katanga or something we wouldn't expect the same kind provisions of services as maybe in prison in Europe or something Good morning my name is Mary Greer I was at the American Bar Association Thanks to the panelists and the USIP and it is a good way to end the week to hear this good news I wondered if you had any advice for us we do a lot of technical assistance mostly at the pretrial stages in detention facilities not so much correctional facilities but do any of the panelists have any advice or any guidance on technical assistance generally given the new mandates of the Mandela rules Well I would start by looking at the provisions in the rules that address the pretrial confines and you know if it's in terms of a technical guide we're hoping at some point that we will see a document that basically reduces the rules to a checklist not for an outside assessment so much as for an internal self assessment so that the institution itself can say this is the standard, the minimum standard we want to achieve, we're deficient here we've made it here and so forth so with respect to the issue you're looking at, I think we've made some changes that deal specifically with pretrial detainees and access to legal assistance that sort of thing we'll look at those and perhaps see if you can come up with some limited kind of technical blurb that you could then have available when you go to various institutions to say are you aware the new guidelines this is what this is what the global community has said they've agreed to as a minimum standard My name is Charles Sullivan and I'm a director of an organization called International Cure my response and let me say David is a very dear friend and one of my heroes my response is very much the opposite of this lady I'm very disappointed I don't see that much of a change a good example if we're serious about using human rights Article 21 of universal declaration which is also Article 25 of the Covenant on civil and political rights talks about voting I don't see voting as a right an absolute right maybe there was discussion of voting but I don't see anything there there is a big change in regard to I agree with this in regard to people in jail we have 13 million people in and out of jails every year in this country so being able to have some way of being different from they use typically in uniforms etc and receive everything that a sentence prisoner would receive so that is a good change but the responsibility to me of the whole process should be the responsibility of the states not just healthcare it's the responsibility of the state when you lock someone up and take away their freedom you have an obligation not only to maintain their healthcare but to maintain their books whatever it is so I would see at the beginning that in all four categories it is the responsibility of the state to provide the expense not this whole idea to me scratching doing it on your own expense to me the problem I see even internationally and certainly here in this country as well is we have so many pre-trial detainees if they are going to pay for their pre-trial detaineeship if they are going to pay for it what is the incentive to release them what we have to do is provide 80% of countries having their people in pre-trial detainees we ought to make the system financially responsible for every single concern they have oh we are never going to have a release or substantial reduction in pre-trial detainees and by taking and providing that you can do it out of your own let me just quickly just one more point and then we will let them come back let's track community standards and I realize when you open up windows and you have air there may not be air conditioning or climate control we call it cold being cold in the winter as well but if it is like right now in Texas air conditioning is something that everyone is considered a way of living and yet the prisons in Texas are not air conditioned and people are dying every year with the whole thing going on now with climate control well it seems to me that there should be some type of community where the community is there should be a concern translated into the prisons and jails now I am not saying higher than the community but at least the minimum standards operational in the community and let me just end with this and that would be with regard to communications phones and email why don't we, was that discussed I am not saying that in the middle of Africa where there is no phones or email for some people there is no time in that community but where there is there should be also an outreach and now we are talking about reasonable phones we have a situation in this country that is unbelievable in regard to corporations charging phones which David and all of us know about okay so that's it thank you Mr. Charles and I actually think that this is not just an opinion of yours this is definitely one of the criticism what do you think panelists I think one thing I think the question itself underscores the importance of civil society bringing these kinds of issues to the forefront not everything that you raised actually was considered by the experts I don't think we address the issue of voting when we talked about revisions to the rules when we left Vienna I must say I got together with experts and said looking back on this process what did we miss because I assume we did miss some things and what they said to us was well you never touched race relations which is a major issue in prison administration and David and I had a brief conversation about this perhaps there is language that we could look to where we did in fact address this but we didn't do it head on so this then leads to a conclusion that there has to be a continuing dialogue if we come away with one lesson for those of us in the diplomatic community it's that we can't wait another 60 years to revise the rules we have to have a better process for meeting with civil society meeting with all the various stakeholders and finding out within the industry the areas of concern what are the issues that we should be looking at now the last thing when you talk about telephones I believe we intentionally circumvented that issue because not all countries have the same telecommunications system so I think we talk in terms of contact if you look carefully at the rules we talk about the ability of prisoners to have contact with the outside contact with the family we specifically address the instruments of contact and maybe that's something we should in the future but at least we thought we were addressing it by being more generalized and focusing on the reason that we allow communication Mark? The last part is to add fully agree that different contacts require and can be expected to have different solutions from the family contact side of things because if that's not possible maybe then there's other means of measures I mean speaking of Africa my experience cell phones are almost global now globally available even when there's no electricity and no running water but cell phones somehow still need a future so that's one way one can also rely on visits are not possible or in addition to visits and then there are other measures of course the good old snail males still exist somewhere as well of family link communication avenues that needs to be looked at in order to have that I don't know I guess I said I wasn't part of the vision process but having that notion of the importance of family contact in there and then of course contextualize it and try to find local solutions to implement it that's the key step we take Well of course you're right that the rules aren't perfect and could have gone further but as I mentioned it was they are the result of many many compromises taking into account the varying conditions in various parts of the world I will point out that temperature and ventilation are addressed in rules 13 and 42 and communication is addressed in rule 58 where it says and Pat pointed this out corresponding and writing and using where available telecommunication, electronic digital and other means so it's in there and I would just take this opportunity to encourage everyone to read this document it is it is an amazingly comprehensive document I've read it I don't know how many times and every time I read it I see something new that I hadn't noticed before so I encourage you all to read it often so turn it back here Hi Paul Wright I'm the Minister of Justice and legal news one of the things is so it's become abundantly clear this is an aspirational document and there's no means for enforcement and I think one of the things to the extent that we report mostly on prison conditions here in the United States we also have international coverage but it's one of those things when we see for example the United States is holding this up as an aspirational document yet we know that at the New York Times recently about federal prisoners being kept in prolonged confinement for decades on end at the ADX Supermax held by the Federal Bureau of Prisons on any given day we've got 80,000 prisoners being held in long term solitary confinement here our organization routinely challenges things like bands on books and letters we're fighting to uphold the right for a 15th century means of communication so at what point does this trickle down and I think that one of the things that we've seen is that especially at the local level prisons and jails at least in this country have been remarkably resistant to any type of change and any type of oversight or anything that limits their discretion or their desire to run things the way they see fit has you know that's been pretty much the way it's been for several hundred years now at what point does this trickle down if there's no enforcement mechanism well since you're talking primarily about the United States let me take the first crack at answering and it trickles down the answer is I think it depends it trickles down differently in different places I mean the United States government is a strong supporter of these rules so I assume in the Federal Bureau of Prisons we will see some deliberate effort to comply with them prison systems obviously are independent and there's a lot of variation in the philosophy and outlook of the people who run them so I think you know the Bernie Warners and the Rick Ramishes the two people who are part of the U.S. delegation are going to be paying more attention to this than people in other states and as you said the place where it's probably going to be slowest and most intermittent is going to be local jails again largely independent and some of them really quite cut off from the mainstream of correctional thoughts so I don't know it's probably not a satisfying answer but I do think that it's going to depend on the extent to which this becomes a norm that's accepted by the people who run these facilities If I may you know the issue you raise is one that we discussed when we were talking about the revision of the rules and it is really sort of the fundamental difference between having an aspirational document as you call it or what we call soft law and the more hard law treaties the value of soft law for us is that what we have what we achieved in the SMRs we would never get in a binding agreement because we would have to go to the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice at least on the US side would look at this and say all we can agree to is what the Constitution of the United States mandates and so we would be limited we wouldn't have had perhaps the same language on search and seizure we wouldn't have had the same language on LGBT, we wouldn't have had the same language on even ventilation you know so the lesson here and I suppose it's a philosophical one is do you try to get more through the soft law approach and recognize you're not going to have an enforcement mechanism but you will have a desire to implement it's a standard and people want to be part of the professional association so we're pushing from the bottom my view these are more achievable this way than if we tried to do it through hard law you know as I look through the various things that the UN has achieved and now I was remiss in not mentioning this earlier and there goes my stupid thing again sorry this is the compendium that is put out by the UN office on drugs and crime and this contains all of the various standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice that have been agreed to in Vienna and they cover not just the SMRs but they talk about the deprivation of children deprivation of liberty of children they talk about women in confinement they talk about alternatives to to confinement so lots of good information in here and these are the result of member states, practitioners everybody getting together and identifying what should we be doing, what can we be doing not what is the limit that we as governments can agree to so I know I'm sort of getting on the soapbox but between the two we've seen results albeit slow in a more significant way than I think we have achieved through some of our binding documents and let me just add that you know in some cases soft law can sort of bleed into an influence hard law in the United States Supreme Court in a case called Estelle versus Gamble which is the seminal case on prisoners right to health care cites the SMRs lower federal courts have cited the SMRs on things like restraint of pregnant women in prison on the practice of requiring prisoners to sleep on the floor without adequate bedding now in no case did the court you know rest its decision on the SMRs as binding law because they're not but it did cite them as informing its analysis and its decision under US domestic law so the line between soft law and enforceable law is not always as clear as one might think Hi my name is Emily I'm a student at American University studying justice and human rights I'm also a reporter for law street media so my question is about private prisons so something like 8.5% of the US prison population is currently detained in private prisons and so as you said this is not mandated law this is not a treaty that must be ratified these are basically just suggestions for minimum human treatment of prisoners that are basically backed by prestigious groups who say this is how you should treat our prisoners and with the hopes that these prisons in our country and elsewhere will abide by those minimum rules but you also express that these will hopefully be abide by because there is a benefit in treating prisoners like human beings but the correction corporation of America specifically the largest private prison industry in the country is universities and companies across the country invest in this corporation and reap benefits from having people detained in private prisons so my question is how do we ensure that these minimum rules will be followed when the benefits do not lie in having a humane detention specifically in the private prison industry well full disclosure the ACLU has as a matter of policy opposes private prisons because we believe that incarceration is a core governmental function that if it is to be done must be carried out by a democratically accountable state so that's our view on private prisons we believe that the model of private incarceration sets up problematic incentive structures that can lead to to bad outcomes but with regard to your specific question as a matter of US law it's clear that the custodian of the prisoner is always the state the state can contract with a private company to provide various services if I can use that word but there's no question it's absolutely uncontroversial that legally that prisoner isn't the custody of the state so the obligation I mean it's not an obligation because these rules aren't binding but the desirability of complying with the SMR with Mandela rules isn't affected by the fact that the state contracts certain functions to private corporations if I may I would add I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the description of these as just being the suggestion of some practitioners in the field these were a product of the United Nations program on crime prevention and criminal justice that program consists of United Nations crime Congress which meets once every five years and is open to all member states of the United Nations, 198 of them plus observers and NGOs, practitioners acquisitions, a whole array of people are invited to and encouraged to and do participate in the crime of Congress the policy making body of the UN with respect to law enforcement issues is the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice which is the body that adopted these there are 40 member states that are appointed to the crime commission they have to be elected by the other member states they represent the interests of the 198 these rules were adopted by the commission and sent forward to the General Assembly unanimously that means all 40 members of the crime commission agreed to these rules and now they'll go to the UN in the UN I suspect they will be adopted again by acclimation probably by consensus probably 190 I would say seven would vote you know there's always one or two that won't support and some of the issues we talked about today may in fact cause some to issue explanations of position or something of that sort that is tremendous weight that is the opinion of the world not just a few countries or a few NGOs it is both governments practitioners NGOs we're all in this together obviously I can't you know as a representative of the U.S. say how other states or you know entities should apply the SMRs to their contracts but one would think that if the United States government has supported these we would support them throughout the entire array and ask the question of the contractors who are again acting for the state why they're not using the rules I think it's a very valid question and one that should be raised so I would think that would be an area for further attention just to generally mark maybe to add independent of whether the prison systems may be run by a private company or by the state of course the inspecting mechanisms the compliance oversight mechanisms have to be clear they have to be independent bodies they have to be done regularly and those questions maybe it's more valid even if it's run by a private sector company who of course has profits and minds maybe a priori then other things but in general that's the inspections the compliance mechanisms this is something that makes or breaks rules like this of course Jenny Tumis from the National Democratic Institute I just want to thank everyone for speaking my question is something that Mark you already addressed briefly but I'm wondering how much the changing nature and global nature of detainment went into your discussion you mentioned for example prisoners in Yemen being detained in the United States or other places in Europe and I'm just wondering how this changing nature an increasingly global nature of detainment where people are not necessarily detained in their home country because of things like the war on terror went into this discussion thank you I can briefly address how it went into our discussions because the mandate to revise the rules came from the crime commission and the crime commission deals with anti-crime issues we don't deal with extraordinary law issues or with non-judicial issues so we were focused on prisons and prison administration there is a provision in the rules though that says that they can be applied more broadly it was not our task at this revision to revise those rules so as the revision takes place it also applies member states can apply them to other categories of detainees they also reflect best practices and so as such best practices would apply to individuals detained whatever the basis for the reason is just generally maybe to add what I mentioned before in that respect yes globalization people moving around having then connections that span the globe and of course one can imagine situations where somebody ends up in prison independent of war on terror and other circumstances but more generally and of a sudden many of the rules that we see here the high value of them become even more complex and implement because of that nature of having global connections and family members all over the place for example and then of course the adaption of the rules to those circumstances it's not easy so there again you have means like technology and other means to maybe help but it's even more complex as Pat said it was not a big part of the discussion I mean it was in the background and you know you'll see in the rules a couple of places where there was mentions of there are provisions made for prisoners who don't speak the predominant language they have the right to interpreter and I believe there's something in here about like to access to your consular officials for prisoners who are not not citizens or nationals of the place where they're incarcerated so it's acknowledged in that way but it wasn't a huge part of the discussion. Questions over here perhaps and then we'll take some. Thank you all so much for talking to us my name is Josh Aik and I'm with Human Rights Watch I'm also a student who does graduate research on LGBT populations in prisons and so I wanted to ask specifically about 7A and what the conversation was to have prison files include gender self-perception and what the power you see in including that and maybe this draft of the Medellah Rules is and then what you might see down the road and kind of the limitations of just including that in the prison file but not necessarily having any teeth to for instance have a trans woman be put in a women's facility and so kind of what the conversation was like. Well it was an interesting conversation because you know we we have a lot of views from the Western world and then a lot of views that were from other countries particularly in Africa where even discussion of this kind of issue is not acceptable and so getting the issue on the table was probably as difficult as getting any language in the SMRs. As I mentioned I thought we were very fortunate to get some mention and it was largely due to interventions where our practitioners were able to say that this is a major problem when somebody comes into a prison and the prison officials decide what their gender is that is going to impact that individual for the rest of their prison time and you know again it's about respect and dignity of the prisoners so it's important to allow those individuals to be able to self identify and that should go in their file but their file and this is another issue we address the file is to be confidential it is not it's to be available only to those people in the prison system and in the administration of justice who have a reason an official reason to know what's in there. Hi my name is I'm an intern at the Syrian American Medical Society and my question is on the topic of health care providing health care in the prison facilities how would you go about or how would you can you talk a little more about how IMGOs and NGOs can offer prison states that can't provide their prisoners health care how they can do it how NGOs can provide this. Speaking generally of course we do if circumstances require it life saving circumstances or infrastructures otherwise not able we do try and support prison systems via the ICRC medical support systems that are available we have detention doctors we have surgeons but of course we normally look more at systems systems in terms of how the prison system is able to cater to the health needs of the detainees and therefore make recommendations if things are so dire thinking maybe Rwanda in the 90's etc that the state is basically totally incapable to still cater to those needs then of course substitution can be another way of addressing issues but it's otherwise more the idea to support the system with our expertise and then find sustainable solutions because you know it's one thing to support and substitute for a short time but then of course long term it's the state taking charge of the detainees and having those obligations to cater for the basic needs in terms of health care Hi, Mike Barber, Office of Military Commissions with so I have a I guess a larger question she was asking before what's the applicability and compliance with the old standards for the RDI program and what would be the applicability and compliance with I guess both set of standards at Guantanamo Bay You first look as I said before we consider those guidelines really as a practical guidance for prison administrations at large looking at Guantanamo of course there's also other guidelines, other rules that are applying I think you know looking at the comprehensiveness of these rules giving food for thought, best practices wouldn't it stood that there's something also for Gitmo to be used but a priori there's a lot of other rules and systems that can be used and that we are also using I will leave it at that regarding Gitmo Well I'll point out that the very last rule 122 persons arrested or detained without charge says that such persons are to be accorded the same protection as that accorded in part 1 part 1 is the rules that apply generally and part 2 section C which is prisoners under arrest or awaiting trial so this seems to say that they would apply We'll take one more question and then have some closing remarks That's an interesting question I know that these two corrections officials obviously have discussions with the ACA in fact I'm on a panel with one of them at the ACA national conference next month that's an interesting idea I don't know if those discussions have happened but they probably should because it's a very similar while ACA does provide a formal accreditation that has a formal sort of review process they're the standards are very similar in that they're both voluntary aspirational so I will raise that question with some people thank you And now thanking the panel it is my pleasure to introduce to you Ambassador Luis Arriaga who is the principal deputy assistant secretary of the bureau of international narcotics enforcement affairs the lead US entity in the negotiations of the standard minimum rules Luis Arriaga is a career member of the foreign service had a celebrated career recently as ambassador to the Republic of Iceland also serving in missions in Panama in Canada in Geneva, Spain, Peru El Salvador, Honduras and indeed that Ambassador Arriaga is originally from and raised in Guatemala before immigrating to the United States welcome and thank you for joining us Thank you very much and don't let that introduction fool you I'm just a regular guy Campesino from Guatemala delighted to be here and to thank USIP for organizing this wonderful event and providing an opportunity to discuss this very important issue Nelson Mandela once stated that no one truly knows a nation until one has seen its jails a nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones we heard and said this many times in Vienna where the international community came together to debate the question of whether to adopt the revised SMRs and whether to call them the Mandela Rules the United States devoted a tremendous amount of effort to get to that point the standard rules had not been updated since 1955, something that I'm sure you all know our goal was fairly simple we wanted to develop universal guidelines to make corrections systems safe secure, humane and transparent our journey to Vienna drew on unique expertise and experience from throughout the United States the US contingent included experts from federal, state local prison agencies as well as NGOs with expertise in criminal justice matters in other words the revised rules are not the product of conversations between striped hand diplomats in Vienna they actually reflect the collective expertise of corrections from professionals from around the world as well as guidance from civil society groups such as the ACLU and Penal Reform International their representatives participated in many of the discussions over the past five years and this was most evident recently during the last round of expert discussions in Cape Town this past March when we worked alongside officials from the Colorado and Washington departments of corrections these officials provided some very compelling lessons learned in prisons management and corrections for us the success of this effort reinforced the importance of working closely with civil society and other experts in future efforts to shape criminal justice so while gaining agreement on the revised rules is a major achievement we must come together again and bring them into practice now like all challenges that will be easier said than done we will need a judicious blend of diplomacy advocacy legal reform and technical assistance the office that I represent State Department's Bureau of International Alcoholics and Law Enforcement Affairs is already working on this we are incorporating the revised rules into the corrections training curricula that we use around the world we are incorporating the revised rules anytime a partnered nation wants our views on draft legislation on prisons and we are continuing to look for other opportunities to make practical use of these revised rules and we certainly are open to your suggestions now before leaving you let me suggest that we take time tomorrow when we celebrate Mandela Day to reflect on how we can work together in his shoes and continue our efforts to effect change for those who are most vulnerable and needed the most let's put the revised SMR into action thank you very much thank you very much for joining us here at USIP today and thank you very much to Ambassador Ariaga for those closing remarks and to the panel for discussing so intelligently and in depth today there are copies if you haven't picked one up please write it on the table and I would encourage you all to read them, reread them pop them in your back pocket stick them in your handbag and thank you very much