Concluding consideration of Third Committee reports, General Assembly adopts convention on enforced disappearances.

December 20, 2006. The General Assembly adopted an International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and deferred action on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as it adopted the remaining seven resolutions and three decisions recommended by its Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural).

The Convention, which had been co-sponsored by more than 100 Member States and adopted by the newly-established Human Rights Council in June, would recognize the right of persons not to be subjected to enforced disappearance, regardless of circumstances, and the right of victims to justice and reparation. It would commit States party to it to criminalize enforced disappearance, to bring those responsible to justice and to take preventive measures.

The representative of Honduras called the day an historic and hopeful one, on which the Assembly had taken a meaningful step forward in international law. States and Governments were shouldering an important commitment with a full sense of responsibility, aiming to leave behind the days of horror that had been the scourge of so many countries. The adoption of the Convention was the dawn of a new age of actual implementation of human rights and the end of impunity.

The representative of France, which sponsored the draft, said that the new instrument was emblematic of United Nations action to benefit individuals. While the practice of enforced disappearances unfortunately remained a tangible reality, the Convention’s innovative follow-up mechanism of a Committee on Enforced Disappearances would assume a preventive function by making urgent appeals and conducting field visits, when necessary, even alerting the Secretary-General in the event of massive and systematic violations.

The representative of Argentina noted that today’s adoption of the Convention on Enforced Disappearances represented a marked departure from the 1970s, when the military dictatorship in his country had carried out the abhorrent practice and the former United Nations Human Rights Commission had offered no condemnation. He hoped that the adoption would not mark the end of the road, but the beginning of a new phase in the promotion and protection of human rights.

While the resolution was adopted by consensus, its consideration was not without controversy. As they had yesterday, the representatives of Japan and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea again traded accusations over allegations of abductions.

The representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea said that, despite Japan’s denials, that country had abducted citizens from his nation. As proof, he read out a letter written in 1992 by a young man who had reportedly been kidnapped and was being held inside Japan.

The representative of Japan insisted that his Government had never been involved in any such abductions. Meanwhile, there were at least 17 Japanese citizens that had been abducted, and his Government would like a sincere and honest response as to their whereabouts.

In other business, the Assembly adopted a resolution on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, by which it decided to defer consideration of and action on that document until sometime before the end of the current session. The deferment had been sought by delegations who had expressed concerns about the Declaration’s potential effects on national sovereignty and land rights, though several other Member States, mainly from Latin America, had noted during the Committee’s meetings that, after 24 years of drafting and revisions to address the concerns of many delegations, it was time to make the Declaration a reality.

That resolution was adopted by a recorded vote of 85 in favour to none against, with 89 abstentions.