A/HRC/11/2 page 7 meet witnesses are decided. The actual implementation of such measures (for example, selection of meeting locations or travel arrangements for witnesses) is essentially the responsibility of the United Nations field presence, national human rights institution and civil society organizations, and of the witnesses themselves. The Special Rapporteur, however, retains moral responsibility for not subjecting witnesses to unjustified risks. Occasions have arisen when I have decided not to meet a potentially very valuable witness because I could not justify the risk involved for the witness. 19. Three factors complicate the choice, adoption and implementation of precautions designed to protect witnesses. First, the financial and logistical means available to a special rapporteur for such purposes are minimal, even with the support provided by the United Nations field presence, non-governmental organizations and civil society. Special rapporteurs have no resources to set up their own witness-protection programmes, unlike States and even the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and the International Criminal Court. Second, most witnesses are likely to overestimate the ability of a special rapporteur to protect them, and might as a consequence be less cautious than they would be in cooperating with a domestic investigator. Third, as the Government of the country concerned is the host and is responsible for the security of the special rapporteur, the basic details of my travel plans within the country must be shared with the Government. This in turn implies a serious limitation on the confidentiality of any arrangements that can be made to protect the identity of witnesses becoming known. 20. I inform witnesses who might be at risk that I have no concrete means at my disposal to assist them against retaliatory measures by the authorities once I leave the country. In some cases, it will be possible for a special procedures mandate holder to ask the Government concerned to include persons at risk in the domestic witness-protection programme. During a visit in 2003 to Brazil by my predecessor, a witness who had testified to her on police death squads was killed by unknown perpetrators (having already survived one attempt on his life by a police officer).6 The Government reacted immediately and offered to include all witnesses who spoke to the special rapporteur - and who agreed - to be included in a witness-protection programme.7 The Special Rapporteur subsequently submitted a list of witnesses to the Federal Government. 21. The possibility of entrusting witnesses at risk to the domestic witness-protection programme is, however, an exception. Generally, there is no witness-protection programme that would be effective under the circumstances. Where such programmes do exist, they are usually run by the same authorities responsible for taking or threatening the reprisals in the first place. 22. In the absence of an effective programme, my only option is to seek clarification and assurances from the Government concerned. For example, after my mission to Kenya, I sent an urgent appeal and issued public statements in response to continuing reprisals.8 Other 6 E/CN.4/2004/7/Add.3, para. 3. 7 See A/63/313, paras. 17, 19 and 45. 8 Documented in my public statement issued at the conclusion of the visit (“Independent expert on extrajudicial executions says police killings in Kenya are systematic, widespread and