Distinguished Delegates and Representatives
of Member States of the Human Rights Council,
The enforced disappearance of people is one of the most
heinous human rights violations and constitutes a crime
under international law. The victim, deprived of all of
his or her rights and placed thereby outside the protection
of the law, is relegated to a situation of total vulnerability
at the hands of the perpetrators of the crime. Enforced
disappearance constitutes a grave offence to human dignity.
Its practice inflicts severe suffering on the relatives
and friends of the disappeared person. Eternal waiting and
total uncertainty about his or her return, fate and whereabouts
constantly torture their loved ones. The abduction of children
of parents subjected to enforced disappearance, or born
during the captivity of their mothers is most shameful,
and constitutes a flagrant denial of human dignity. The
practice of enforced disappearance violates the basic principles
of the rule of law and the very concept of humanity itself.
Since 1981, associations of relatives of disappeared persons,
non-governmental organizations, governments and international
organizations have undertaken continuing and indefatigable
efforts for the adoption by the United Nations of an international
treaty against enforced disappearances in order to tackle
this heinous and inhuman affliction,. The first successful
step forward was the adoption in 1992 of the United Nations
Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance. In September 2005, an Open-Ended Working
Group, mandated by the Commission on Human Rights to draft
an international legally binding instrument against disappearances,
successfully concluded its negotiations and approved, by
consensus, the draft of the International Convention for
the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.
This project will now be under consideration by the United
Nations Human Rights Council.
This Convention fills an immense gap in the international
legal framework which is the lack of an international treaty
to prevent and suppress this international crime and most
serious violation of human rights. The Convention will not
only become an effective legal tool of the international
community in its struggle against enforced disappearances,
but also represents a basically political message that this
odious practice will no longer be tolerated and must be
suppressed.
We therefore call on all Member States of the Human Rights
Council to give the highest priority to the approval of
the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons
from Enforced Disappearance during the first session of
the Human Rights Council in June 2006 so that it can be
forwarded to the General Assembly for final adoption. The
Human Rights Council will, thereby, not only greatly contribute
to the struggle against enforced disappearances, but also
enhance its own mandate and show its firm determination
to promote and protect human rights.
Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND),
Philippines, Nilda L. Sevilla, Co-Chairperson;
Coalition Against Involuntary Disappearance (CAID), Philippines,
Raquel Santos, FIND-Lead Convenor;
Association of the Children of the Disappeared (SAD-FIND),
Philippines, Celia Sevilla, Coordinator;
Civil Initiative «We Remember», Belarus, Irina Krasovskaya,
president;
and the others
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