A/HRC/16/52 He considers it an essential prerequisite for him to effectively carry out his mandate of assessing the situation of torture worldwide, through country visits, and formulating relevant recommendations to eradicate torture and ill-treatment. IV. A. Thematic issues Victim-centred approach to torture 47. The Special Rapporteur notes, with deep regret, the long-term physical and psychological damage that torture inflicts on its victims. Such long-term physical and psychological trauma requires concerted efforts by States, civil society and other actors to address the need for justice and rehabilitation of victims of torture. 48. The Special Rapporteur is encouraged by the efforts of various organizations to ensure appropriate remedies and reparation for victims. He commends the adoption of the “Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law” by the General Assembly as an important step towards fulfilling minimum standards for victims. However, he remains dissatisfied by the lack of progress in institutionalizing these basic principles and guidelines in most States. He notes that victims have only been awarded formal rights, including at the national level, but that these rights are often modest and peripheral to the justice systems. 49. The Special Rapporteur reiterates that efforts to combat torture require a more victim-centred perspective that seeks an integrated long-term approach to adequate redress and reparation, including compensation and rehabilitation for victims of torture and their families. He recommends that the perspectives of victims of torture be included in the development of programmes and policies aimed at addressing torture. In that respect, the Special Rapporteur reiterates the importance of a victim-centred approach to dealing with victims and survivors of torture. Similarly, he believes that victims have an important role to play as interested parties in holding torturers accountable for their actions. Indeed, the criminal procedures of some States are more hospitable than others to this engagement by victims; nevertheless, without undermining defendants’ rights to all guarantees of a fair trial, victims should be allowed to participate actively in attempts to hold torturers accountable. Efforts to provide assistance to victims must seek to recognize and validate the traumatising experience of torture they have suffered, prevent further isolation by reintegrating them into society, and address the fundamental aim of torture which is, often, to isolate and engender fear in victims in order to break their will. B. Expanding the exclusionary rule 50. The Special Rapporteur observes that acts of torture and ill-treatment remain a widespread phenomenon in today’s world. In the last decade, State practices and approaches to torture, particularly in view of the ongoing security threats associated with the war on terror, responses to immigration concerns, citizen security and organized crime have tended to weaken or reinterpret the absolute prohibition on torture. While civil society organizations and members of the judiciaries of those countries where such practices have taken place have condemned them, a net effect in some sectors of public opinion has been a tendency to countenance torture as a “necessary evil.” The Special Rapporteur believes it is his duty to confront this debate in all its legal, political, ethical and practical dimensions, and demonstrate that embarking on a path that permits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is not only immoral and illegal, but also counter- 11