The British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has reiterated his call for a major new initiative from the rich industrialised nations aimed at tackling poverty. His call for a $50 billion fund to improve the lot of poorer countries, published in a Treasury pamphlet this week, echoes the call he made in a speech to the Washington Press Club last December. Hardly reported at the time this speech was clearly an attempt to put flesh on the bones of the plea heard frequently from sources as diverse as World Bank President, James Wolfensohn and European Commissioner Poul Neilson that when it comes to fighting poverty there is an frightening gap between aspirations and resources.

This manual is intended to serve as international guidelines for the assessment of persons who allege torture and ill-treatment, for investigating cases of alleged torture and for reporting findings to the judiciary or any other investigative body. The documentation methods contained in this manual are also applicable to other contexts, including human rights investigations and monitoring, political asylum evaluations, the defence of individuals who "confess "to crimes during torture and needs assessments for the care of torture victims, among others.