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What is Enforced Disappearance?
What does the United Nations (UN) do about Enforced
Disappearances?
What is the 1992 UN Declaration for the Protection of
All Persons from Enforced Disappearance?
What is the UN Convention for the Protection of All
Persons from Enforced Disappearance?
What does the Convention mainly state about the issue
of enforced disappearance
Why is there a need for a Convention?
What will be the functions of the Committee on
Enforced Disappearances which is to be established by
the Convention?
What is the Conventions Importance to the Peoples of
Asia?
Why is it important for States to ratify the
Convention
and to ensure its immediate entry into force?
What is the practical importance of the Convention for
the victims and their families?
How can we lobby governments to recognize the
importance of the instrument by signing and ratifying
the Convention?
What is the International Coalition Against Enforced
Disappearance (ICAED)?
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INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF ALL
PERSONS FROM
ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE
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Respect the Right NOT to be DISAPPEARED!
A Primer on the United Nations Convention for the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
What is the 1992 UN Declaration for the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance?
This is a universal standard setting document unanimously adopted by the
UN General Assembly on 18 December 1992 under the Resolution 47/133. This
declaration, although non-binding, reproduces some generally recognized
customary rules and establishes the principles that shall guide and govern
all States in the prevention and suppression of the practice of enforced
disappearance. In particular:
Description of the practice of enforced disappearance
and the different human rights violated;
Repudiation of the practice of enforced disappearance under all
circumstances;
Need for each State to take effective legislative, administrative,
judicial or other measures to prevent and terminate acts of enforced
disappearance in any territory under its jurisdiction;
Each State shall make enforced disappearance an autonomous offense under
its criminal law and sanction it in accordance with its extreme
seriousness;
No order of any public authority, civilian, military or other, may be
invoked to justify an enforced disappearance;
All persons deprived of their liberty should be held in official
detention centers and information be given to families on detainees (right
to information);
The State is obliged to investigate all reported cases of enforced
disappearance (right to truth) and those denouncing cases should be
protected;
Enforced disappearance is a continuing offense and therefore, statutes
of limitation for criminal proceedings, where applicable, must be
substantial and commensurate to the extreme seriousness of the offense;
Enforced disappearances are to be considered crimes against humanity
when committed as part of a widespread and systematic practice and are
hence, imprescriptible;
Persons who have, or are alleged to have, committed an enforced
disappearance shall not benefit from any special amnesty law or similar
measures;
Only ordinary tribunals shall be competent to try persons alleged to
have committed an enforced disappearance;
The disappeared people and their family have the right to adequate
compensation, including the means for as complete a rehabilitation as
possible;
Children who are victims of enforced disappearance should receive
special protection and the abduction of children must be codified and
sanctioned as an autonomous and very serious offense. There shall be an
opportunity, in States which recognize a system of adoption, for a review
of the adoption of such children and, in particular, for annulment of any
adoption which originated in enforced disappearance.
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