Committee on Enforced Disappearances holds eleventh session from 3 to 14 October 2016

BACKGROUND RELEASE
 
Committee to Consider Reports of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Colombia
 
GENEVA (29 September 2016) - The Committee on Enforced Disappearances will review how Bosnia and Herzegovina and Colombia implement the provisions of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance during its eleventh session from 3 to 14 October in Room XXIII of the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

At the opening of the session on Monday, 3 October, the Committee will meet in public at 10 a.m., to hear a statement from a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.  It will then adopt its agenda for the session, and hold a minute of silence in remembrance of victims of enforced disappearances.
 
The report of Bosnia and Herzegovina (CED/C/BIH/1) will be considered by the Committee on Tuesday, 4 October at 3 p.m. and on Wednesday, 5 October at 10 a.m.
The Committee will consider the report of Colombia (CED/C/COL/1) all day on Thursday, 6 October. 
 
Also during the session, the Committee will review communications, requests for urgent actions and information regarding alleged violations of the Convention.  It will examine and adopt lists of issues on the reports submitted by Cuba, Senegal and Ecuador, which will be considered in future sessions.

The Committee will also meet with relevant United Nations bodies, specialized agencies, national human rights institutions and non-governmental organizations on matters related to the implementation of the Convention.  It will discuss its methods of work, including a possible general comment.
 
Following the consideration of the country reports of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Colombia, the Committee will adopt concluding observations and recommendations with regard to their implementation of the Convention, which will be published at the end of the session and will be available here.
 
The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings will be available via the following link: http://www.treatybodywebcast.org.

Detailed meeting coverage can be found in English and French on the United Nations Information Service Geneva’s webpage and further information, including copies of the States parties’ reports, all related documentation and the programme of work, are available on the session’s webpage.

Background

The Committee on Enforced Disappearances is the monitory body which oversees the implementation of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which entered into force on 23 December 2010.  To date, 52 States have ratified or acceded to the Convention: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Lesotho, Lithuania, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mexico,  Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands,  Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Samoa, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Spain, Togo, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uruguay and Zambia.

The Convention states that no one shall be subjected to enforced disappearance.  No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for enforced disappearance.  The Convention contains a universally agreed definition of enforced disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law”.

The main goals of the Convention are to hold States responsible for the protection of persons from enforced disappearances by defeating impunity, to prevent new cases of enforced disappearances and to guarantee the right to the truth and to obtain reparation of both the disappeared and their families.

Committee Experts

The members of the Committee are: Mohammed Al-Obaidi (Iraq), Santiago Corcuera Cabezut (Mexico), Emmanuel Decaux (France), Maria Clara Galvis Patino (Colombia),  Daniel Figallo Rivadeneyra (Peru), Luciano Hazan (Argentina), Rainer Huhle (Germany), Suela Janina (Albania), Juan José Lopez Ortega (Spain), and Kimio Yakushiji (Japan).

Proposed Programme of Work

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For use of the information media; not an official record