10 November 2011
At the conclusion of the three-day conference of the
International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED) in
Geneva, the Coalition underscored the crucial role the United Nations
Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has played in
the global campaign to end enforced disappearances.
It is lamentable that despite the ICAED’s active and
steadfast lobby both in the national and international levels for the
ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All
Persons from Enforced Disappearances, a significant number of its
member-organizations come from countries that have not yet signed much
less ratified the Convention.
In this light, the United Nations Working Group on
Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) remains the principal
venue where families of the disappeared and organizations dealing with
the subject of enforced disappearance can make their voices heard, more
particularly concerning individual petitions and general allegations.
Accordingly, the ICAED calls on the WGEID to continue discharging its
functions even as it strongly urges the United Nations to provide the
WGEID with the necessary staffing and resources.
The ICAED encourages the WGEID to closely cooperate
with the newly established Committee on Enforced Disappearances and
share its 30-year experience and expertise with this new monitoring body
for it to adopt best practices that can effectively protect human
rights.
The ICAED expresses its appreciation for the recent
country visit made by the WGEID to the Republic of the Congo, which now
brings the Working Group back to the African continent. Concomitantly,
the ICAED stresses that attention to the African continent is most
needed, as the rising number of enforced disappearances throughout the
continent has become alarming. Under-reporting remains a problem amidst
harassments, threats and attacks directed against associations of
relatives of the disappeared. Hence, the ongoing monitoring by the WGEID
is imperative.
The ICAED encourages the WGEID to continue conducting
country-visits which should be announced as promptly as possible, in
order to enable the widest possible participation of civil society
organizations (CSOs). Moreover, the ICAED stresses the fundamental
importance of a regular system of follow through on the conclusions and
recommendations issued at the end of each mission.
The ICAED calls on the WGEID to sustain its
accessibility to the relatives of the disappeared from all over the
world, ensure flexibility of its procedures and take into account the
difficulties experienced in the field.
In the light of the overriding importance of the
country missions, the ICAED proposes that the WGEID consider modifying
formal country visits and working missions. The visit of experts to
different countries, even if not in the framework of official country
missions, would enable them to formulate meaningful recommendations to
governments and pursue fruitful dialogues with local civil society
organizations.
The ICAED calls on the WGEID to continue close
monitoring of the replies received from governments and to ensure that
families of the disappeared, representatives of civil society, and
sources of information have the opportunity to express their views on
these replies.
The ICAED draws the attention of the WGEID to the
specific phenomenon of the enforced disappearance of children, which has
its own peculiarities and proposes that the Working Group elaborates on
this in a general comment, identifying existing best practices and the
responsibilities of governments.
The ICAED congratulates the WGEID for its recent
study on the best practices concerning the crime of enforced
disappearance in domestic criminal legislation. In this light, the ICAED
calls on the WGEID to continue monitoring the enactment of domestic laws
that criminalize enforced disappearance as an autonomous offence, in
order to ensure compliance with international standards. In the event of
non-observance of such norms, it behooves the WGEID to issue concrete
recommendations to concerned governments.
The ICAED reiterates its gratitude for the Working
Group’s unwavering support to the global struggle to eradicate enforced
disappearance even as the Coalition pledges its support to the Working
Group in carrying out its mandate.
Participating Organizations to the ICAED International Conference on
Enforced Disappearances
November 7-9, 2011
Geneva Switzerland
Asian Federation Against Enforced Disappearances (AFAD)
Al-Ata’a for Human Rights Support-Iraq
Amnesty International
