The Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners were adopted by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1955 and approved by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) by its resolutions 663 C (XXIV) of 31 July 1957 and 2076 (LXII) of 13 May 1977. They are broadly considered to remain the universally acknowledged minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners.