A/HRC/8/3 page 30 88. The gravity and importance of the problem of prisoner-run prisons is one reason why the Human Rights Council should give urgent consideration to the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on the rights of detainees. This area constitutes a major gap in the existing coverage of the special procedures system and is one that should be remedied as soon as possible.98 III. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 89. This section is not designed to summarize the foregoing analysis. In addition to the measures recommended above, the Special Rapporteur makes three other recommendations. 90. The Council should appoint a Special Rapporteur on the rights of detainees. 91. In recent months, the situation in Darfur has deteriorated yet again. During 2007, the Special Rapporteur was a member of the Group of Experts on Darfur, appointed by the Human Rights Council. The Council’s action in not renewing the mandate of the Group in December 2007, despite its conclusion that the Sudan had failed to meet many of the benchmarks that had been set, represented the triumph of politics over human rights and brought no credit to the Council. That step should be reconsidered. 92. The Council should acknowledge the vacuum that is created as a result of the ability of States in which serious concerns over extrajudicial executions have been identified to refuse to respond to requests to visit by the Special Rapporteur. The Council should look very closely at the failure in this regard of the countries named in paragraph 11 above. ----- 98 While the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment has done excellent work on those aspects of prison conditions which fall within his mandate, this covers only a limited area of the much broader range of problems that need to be addressed. In addition, it is unreasonable to expect a single mandate-holder to cover the entirety of two such broad-ranging and critically important sets of issues.