Rabat – Morocco’s ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans living abroad announced on Monday, October 11, the election of Moroccan candidate Abderrazak Rouwane to one of the five vacant seats of the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT), for the 2022-2025 period.
According to Morocco’s state-owned news agency, Rouwane was competing against eleven other candidates, and the vote took place on Monday in Geneva during the 18th Meeting of States Parties to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The Moroccan candidate secured 93 votes, and will as a result be able to keep his seat for a period of four years, from 2022 to 2025.
The ministry’s press release also stated that Abderrazak Rouwane’s win attests to Morocco’s respectable and credible image among other countries, as well as its vital role in the protection, respect and promotion of Human Rights.
“Morocco has long been engaged in the strengthening and promotion of Human Rights, under the leadership of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, by initiating a long process aiming to update its legal arsenal, as well as to establish national institutions working towards the protection of Human Rights and the prevention of any form of torture or inhuman treatment,” said the statement.
The CAT is the body of ten experts “of high moral character and possessing recognized competence in the field of Human Rights” that monitors implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment by its State parties, which entered into force on December 10, 1984.
Abderrazak Rouwane, who holds a Master’s degree in International Human Rights law from the University of Essex in Great Britain, is considered by many a competent and skillful human rights expert with extensive knowledge of legal and universal systems.
In his professional career as a senior human rights expert, the Moroccan candidate held the post of Secretary General of the Interministerial Delegation for Human Rights. During a meeting on November 28, 2020, in Niamey, Niger, Rouwane was elected to be a member of the Permanent Independent Human Rights Commission of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Abderrazak Rouwane’s Moroccan election to a seat in the UN Committe against Torture is Morocco’s 7th election to the United Nations Human Rights Bodies in the past two years, making the country present in seven UN Human Rights treaty bodies.
