The United States has suffered a defeat at the United Nations in its attempt to rewrite a draft anti-torture treaty that has been a decade in the making.
Washington had asked that talks on the pact be reopened, arguing that as it stood it would infringe on US states' rights and had procedural flaws.
But US officials privately admitted they had been stung by the recent international outcry over the treatment of alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees at a US base in Guantanamo, Cuba.
The US proposal was defeated 15-29, with eight abstentions, in the UN Economic and Social Council. The convention's backers said approval would have been tantamount to killing the measure after 10 years of drafting.
The 54-member council then went on to embrace the draft treaty itself by a vote of 35-8, with 10 abstentions, sending it on to the 189-member UN General Assembly, which will take it up later in the year.
To come into force, the pact must then be signed and ratified by at least 20 governments, a number set by the treaty itself. It would set up an international system of inspections for all sites where prisoners are held, to ensure that torture was not taking place.
Among those supporting the United States were China, Cuba and Sudan, among the top targets of past US human rights criticisms. Others backing Washington included Australia, Egypt, India, Japan, Libya, Pakistan and Russia. The campaign against the anti-torture pact was the latest in a wave of actions that have infuriated many of Washington's closest allies, including rejection of the Kyoto pact on global warming and the new International Criminal Court aimed at combating genocide and war crimes.