UN Human Rights Council called upon to adopt convention to prevent disappearances

The newly established United Nations Human Rights Council was today called upon to adopt an international convention obliging Governments to prevent and punish the crime of enforced disappearances, estimated to amount to 40,000 cases from 60 countries.

“As the Secretary-General said at the opening day of the Council, approving the Convention will ‘bring hope to large groups of people who have lived in a dark shadow of fear’,” the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) said in a statement calling for the legislation, referring to Kofi Annan’s address at the opening of the strengthened human rights body on 19 June.

The Draft International Convention for the Protection of All Persons against Enforced Disappearances would also fill the gap in global legislation for the prevention of this crime, the Group said in a statement.

The Working Group was established by the now defunct UN Commission on Human Rights in 1980 to assist the relatives of disappeared persons in ascertaining their fate and whereabouts. At last’s years annual session, it said it was continuing work on 40,000 cases of disappearances from 60 countries.

Under its humanitarian mandate, the Working Group establishes a channel of communication between the disappeared person’s family and the allegedly responsible Government. It is composed of five independent experts: Professor Stephen J. Toope (Chairperson-Rapporteur), Professor J. 'Bayo Adekanye (Vice-Chairperson), Saied Rajaie Khorasani, Darko Göttlicher, and Santiago Corcuera.

The first session of the 47-member Human Rights Council, established to replace the much-criticized Human Rights Commission, opened on 19 June in Geneva and will run until Friday.