A/HRC/10/44 page 10 compared to capital punishment in the sense that, even apart from the physical pain and suffering it might cause, over the last decades it has evolved to be considered a direct assault on the dignity of a person and therefore prohibited by international law. When the European Convention was adopted in 1950, corporal punishment, as capital punishment, was widely accepted in European societies, in particular as chastisement in the family and as disciplinary punishment in schools, prisons, the military and similar institutions. In other words, these comparatively lenient forms of corporal punishment were not regarded as cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment by most European States. This attitude significantly changed, however, during the 1960s and 1970s. Consequently, the European Court of Human Rights, in the landmark judgement of Tyrer v. UK, decided in 1978 by a dynamic interpretation of article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights that birching of a juvenile, a traditional punishment on the Isle of Man, was no longer compatible with a modern understanding of human rights in Europe. Referring to the European Convention as a “living instrument” that needed to be “interpreted in light of present-day conditions”, the Court considered birching degrading punishment.7 Only four years later, the Human Rights Committee, in its general comment on the prohibition of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, expressed the unanimous opinion that the prohibition in article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights must extend to corporal punishment, including excessive chastisement as an educational or disciplinary measure (para. 2). In 2000, this opinion was confirmed in the individual case of Osbourne v. Jamaica, which concerned the judicial sentence of 10 strokes with a tamarind switch on naked buttocks in the presence of 25 prison warders. In a unanimous decision, the Committee stated that, irrespective of the nature of the crime to be punished, however brutal it might be, corporal punishment constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment contrary to article 7 of the Covenant.8 This constant case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Committee has also been confirmed by the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,9 the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and national courts,10 as well as by the practice of other monitoring bodies, including the Committee against Torture11 and the Special Rapporteur on torture.12 7 Judgement of 25 April 1978 in Tyrer v. UK, Series A.26, para. 31. 8 Decision of 15 March 2000 in Osborne v. Jamaica, communication No. 759/1997, para. 3.3. 9 Decision of 11 March 2005 in Winston Caesar v. Trinidad and Tobago, Series C No. 123. 10 See for example the judgement of the Constitutional Court of Uganda, in Kyamanywa v. Uganda, Reference No. 10/2000, 1 December 2001, where the Constitutional Court in its ruling on a reference from the Supreme Court decided that corporal punishment was inconsistent with article 24 of the Constitution (and therefore void under article 2 of the Constitution) as being cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. 11 See the concluding observations on the State reports of Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Qatar in CAT/C/CR/28/5, paras. 4 (b), 8 (b), CAT/C/CR/31/4, para. 6 (b), and CAT/C/QAT/CO/1, para. 12. 12 See E/CN.4/1993/26, para. 593, E/CN.4/1997/7, para. 8 and A/60/316, para. 28.