Swiss UN torture rapporteur to leave mandate early

Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. © Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, Swiss citizen Nils Melzer, will step down from the role in March to start a new job at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Melzer, who took up the United Nations (UN) position in 2016, said on Thursday that the two positions were “incompatible”, which is why he will be leaving the UN on March 31, six months before his mandate was due to wrap up.

Whereas the UN role is public facing, mobilising, and demands straight-talking, the ICRC is an institution of confidentiality and long-term closed-door talks, he told the German press agency DPA.

Melzer also said on Twitter that his resignation was “in order to avoid any perceived conflict of interest or contradiction in terms of public position, advocacy, or confidentiality”.

Strong voice

During his time as torture rapporteur, Melzer was a sometimes outspoken figure in the media. In Switzerland, he has publicly criticised the “inhumane” detention conditions of “Brian K”, a violent repeat offender held in solitary confinement in canton Zurich. Melzer slammed the Swiss foreign ministry for not giving him an answer on the case.

Melzer also took a stance on Julian Assange, saying the treatment of the Wikileaks founder was politically motivated and persecutory. “The case is a huge scandal and represents the failure of Western rule of law,” he said in January 2020.

In summer 2021 he suggested that police violence against protestors at an unauthorised anti-Covid demonstration in Berlin might well have amounted to a violation of human rights.

Melzer will become Director of International Law, Policy and Humanitarian Diplomacy at the Geneva-based ICRC as of July 1 this year. He previously worked for the ICRC between 1999 and 2011.