INTRODUCTION / WORK WITH INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
12 Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. This will bring its membership to 53, effective from 1992. The resolution also authorized the Commission to meet exceptionally between its regular sessions if a majority of its members agrees, and recommended that the mandates of its "theme mechanisms" - including those on torture, "disappearances" and summary or arbitrary executions be increased from two to three years.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 1991
As noted above, at its 42nd session in August the Sub-Commission took stronger action on Iraq. The resolution adopted expressed concern about the human rights situation there and called on the Commission to consider appoint- ing a Special Rapporteur. In addition, the Sub-Commission again adopted resol- utions on East Timor, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iran, Israel and the Occupied Territories and South Africa. With the exception of El Salvador, Guatemala and South Africa, which were adopted by consensus, these country resolutions were adopted by a secret ballot vote. This is an exceptional measure to which the Sub- Commission also resorted in 1989; at the 1990 session it decided to request the Commission to recommend to ECOSOC an amendment to the rules of procedure to allow for secret ballot voting in the Sub-Commission as a matter of course when resolutions concerning violations in individual countries are under
consideration.
There was also progress on an important standard-setting exercise in the UN when the Sub-Commission approved at its August session the text of the draft Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance (see Amnesty International Report 1990, Introduction/Work with International Organizations). The draft Declaration was transmitted to the Commission with the recommendation that it be approved and eventually sent on to the General Assembly for adoption.
In addition, further progress was made at the Sub-Commission on a number of issues of interest to Amnesty International. The Special Rapporteur completed his study of administrative detention; his recommendations were endorsed by the Sub-Commission, which transmitted his various proposals for the establish- ment of a new "theme mechanism" on detention to the Commission for a deci- sion at its 1991 session. Amnesty International made an oral statement on its concerns regarding the practice of administrative detention, citing examples from Chad, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Mauritania, South Africa and Sri Lanka. A preliminary report was presented by the two Special Rapporteurs of the Sub-Commission studying free- dom of opinion and expression. In another of its oral statements Amnesty International had highlighted the plight of prisoners of conscience, giving exam- ples from China, Cuba, Iraq, Malawi, Sudan, Syria, Turkey and Viet Nam. It also named the following 11 countries where such prisoners were being held: Albania, Cameroon, Indonesia, Iran, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Kenya, the Republic of Korea, Morocco, Myanmar, Tunisia and Yugoslavia. The Sub- Commission also requested the Commission (and ECOSOC) to approve its decision to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the independence of the judiciary, who would study measures to strengthen the legal profession and investigate