A/HRC/10/3 page 18 1. Joint operations 51. The Special Rapporteur remains deeply troubled that the United States has created a comprehensive system of extraordinary renditions, prolonged and secret detention, and practices that violate the prohibition against torture and other forms of ill-treatment. This system required an international web of exchange of information and has created a corrupted body of information which was shared systematically with partners in the war on terror through intelligence cooperation, thereby corrupting the institutional culture of the legal and institutional systems of recipient States. 52. While this system was devised and put in place by the United States, it was only possible through collaboration from many other States. There exist consistent, credible reports suggesting that at least until May 2007 a number of States facilitated extraordinary renditions in various ways. States such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Pakistan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have provided intelligence or have conducted the initial seizure of an individual before he was transferred to (mostly unacknowledged) detention centres in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Thailand, Uzbekistan, or to one of the CIA covert detention centres, often referred to as “black sites”. In many cases, the receiving States reportedly engaged in torture and other forms of ill-treatment of these detainees. 53. The Special Rapporteur reminds States that they are responsible where they knowingly engage in, render aid to or assist in the commission of internationally wrongful acts, including violations of human rights.59 Accordingly, grave human rights violations by States such as torture, enforced disappearances or arbitrary detention should therefore place serious constraints on policies of cooperation by States, including by their intelligence agencies, with States that are known to violate human rights. The prohibition against torture is an absolute and peremptory norm of international law.60 States must not aid or assist in the commission of acts of torture, or 59 General Assembly resolution 56/83, annex, International Law Commission draft articles on responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts, arts. 4 and 16. See also Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 2001, vol. II, Part Two, p. 66, “In such a case, the assisting State will only be responsible to the extent that its own conduct has caused or contributed to the internationally wrongful act.” Article 16 reflects a rule of customary international law. See International Court of Justice (ICJ), Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Judgement of 26 February 2007, para. 420. 60 The obligation to protect against and sanction torture is an obligation erga omnes, an obligation owed to all States. See International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Prosecutor v. Furundzija (Case No. IT-95-17/1-T 1988); Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company Limited (Belgium v. Spain), ICJ reports 1970.