Constitutional Provisions
Article 16(1) of the 1992 Constitution of Mongolia (as amended) guarantees to the citizens of Mongolia the right to life:
Deprivation of human life shall be strictly prohibited unless otherwise highest measure of punishment, as prescribed by the Criminal Code of Mongolia for the commission of most serious crimes, is sentenced by a final judgment of the court.
Article 16(13) of the Constitution provides that: "No one shall be subjected to torture, inhuman, cruel or degrading treatment."
Article 16(16) guarantees the freedom of peaceful assembly:
The rules of procedures for conduct of demonstrations and public meetings shall be determined by law.
The Constitution does not refer to the police or otherwise regulate the use of force in law enforcement.
Treaty Adherence
Global Treaties
| 1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) | State Party |
| ICCPR Optional Protocol 1 | State Party |
| 1984 Convention against Torture (CAT) | State Party |
| Competence of CAT Committee to receive individual complaints | No |
| CAT Optional Protocol 1 | State Party |
| 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court | State Party |
Regional Treaties
There is no regional human rights treaty to which East Asian states can adhere.
National Legislation
Police Use of Force
The 2013 Law on Police governs the National Police Agency, the primary law enforcement agency in Mongolia. Code 224 of the Regulations on Police Activities stipulates that:
It is prohibited for a police officer to treat a temporarily arrested person in a cruel, inhuman and degrading manner, to torture by intentionally inflicting physical and psychological acts and to do any wrongdoing.
National law is said to regulate police use of firearms on the basis of the 1990 United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials.
Police Oversight
There is no independent civilian police oversight body in Mongolia. In its 2017 Concluding Observations on Mongolia, the National Human Rights Commission stated that it remained "concerned about the lack of independence of the Investigative Division of the General Police Department". Under the Law on Police adopted by the government in 2013 the National Human Rights Commission was vested with power to exercise control over the activities of the police.
Caselaw
Global
Views and Concluding Observations of United Nations Treaty Bodies
In its 2025 Concluding Observations on Mongolia, the Human Rights Committee welcomed the establishment of a national torture prevention mechanism in 2022, but was concerned by "the reported persistence of acts of torture and ill-treatment by State agents, notably during police interrogations, the low rate of prosecutions and the leniency of the sanctions imposed in some cases". The Committee was also concerned about reports of the disproportionate use of force and arbitrary arrest and detention by law enforcement officials in order to disperse peaceful assemblies. In its 2017 Concluding Observations on Mongolia, the Committee had remained concerned "about reports that torture is still used to extract confessions and that impunity for allegations of torture persists."
In its 2024 Concluding Observations on Mongolia, the Committee against Torture remained concerned about
(a) The delays in the establishment of an independent body to investigate complaints of torture and ill-treatment made by persons deprived of their liberty, while noting the State party’s commitment to submit the draft law on the establishment of a special investigation unit in 2025. In the meantime, the Committee remain[ed] concerned about the potential conflict of interest and ineffectiveness of investigations into allegations of torture and ill-treatment carried out by the Investigation Division of the Anti-Corruption Agency and the Investigative Division of the General Police Department;
(b) Numerous allegations received of torture or ill-treatment committed by law enforcement officials, a high rate of dismissal of torture cases as time-barred, a low percentage of prosecutions, and the imposition of fines rather than appropriate sentences in several convictions.
In its 2016 Concluding Observations on Mongolia, the Committee had called on the authorities to:
Ensure that all reports of torture and ill-treatment by public officials, including the police, are investigated promptly, effectively and impartially by an independent mechanism, with no institutional or hierarchical connection between the investigators and the alleged perpetrators....
Regional
There is no regional human rights court with jurisdiction over Mongolia.