The Istanbul Protocol Implementation Project (IPIP)
Investigating and documenting torture
The Istanbul Protocol Implementation Project (IPIP) was a two-year project which aimed to raise awareness and national support and contribute to the implementation of the Istanbul Protocol in five pilot countries - Georgia, Mexico, Morocco, Sri Lanka and Uganda. One of the project's outcomes was a flexible framework that can be used in the gradual implementation of the Protocol on a global scale.
The Project was launched in 2003 by the IRCT in partnership with the World Medical Association (WMA) and was carried out in collaboration with the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT), Redress Trust, Physicians for Human Rights USA (PHR USA), besides a wide range of national partners.
The Istanbul Protocol is the first set of international guidelines for the investigation and documentation of torture. It contains detailed procedures and practical advice for medical and legal experts on how to recognise and document symptoms of torture so that the documentation may serve as valid evidence in court.
Unfortunately, awareness of the Protocol is still relatively limited. In many cases, medical and legal university curricula do not provide instruction on the examination and treatment of torture victims, or the consequences of torture. As a result, many health and legal professionals have little or no training in the investigation and documentation of torture.
To meet this need, training seminars for health and legal professionals on detecting evidence of torture were the core component of the Implementation Project. During autumn 2004, training seminars in Georgia, Mexico, Morocco, Sri Lanka and Uganda were implemented, reaching a total of 244 health professionals and 123 legal professionals.
The training seminars represented an important first step towards implementation of the Protocol in the five project countries by raising awareness of the relevance of effective investigation and documentation of torture, and by providing the relevant professional groups with practical tools to undertake this task.
During the course of the project a range of training materials was developed and adapted to the local context in the five target countries. You can download a selection of the materials here.
Learn more about the new phase of the Istanbul Protocol Implementation Project. Or get more information at Reference materials on the use of the Istanbul Protocol.
New phase
In the spring of 2005, the project went through a detailed evaluation intended to assess how activities should be best consolidated and strengthened in the current project countries as well as to examine the possible extension of the project to new countries.
As part of this process, evaluation missions were carried out in each of the five project countries and a set of recommendations for further and full implementation of the Protocol were presented to the respective national authorities.
