After 10 years of negotiations, it took only two minutes today for the General Assembly to adopt an international Convention on the Rights of the Child.

All the cases allegedly took place after September 1988 - the date when Britain adopted an international convention on torture, the Europa Press news agency reported today.

"There's a great deal of leeway," he said, "between adopting an international convention and actually applying it: that can lead to a lax approach, which can lead to accidents."

The Law Lords, in a decision in March, drastically reduced the number of cases and set the start of the relevant period at December 1988, the date Britain adopted an international convention making torture abroad punishable in Britain.