Summary

The Secretariat has the honour to transmit to the Human Rights Council the report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on standards and public policies for an effective investigation of enforced disappearances.

In the report, the Working Group draws the attention of the international community to impunity as a distinctive trait of enforced disappearances. It continues to observe alarming patterns of impunity, both in relation to past acts of enforced disappearance and to new disappearances occurring in different parts of the world.

Impunity can have a multiplying effect, which causes additional suffering and anguish to the victims and their families. The Working Group believes that the international community should not stand neutral in the face of such suffering. Instead, it must strengthen cooperation efforts, increase the assistance available to victims and pursue judicial investigations and prosecutions both at the local and international levels.

The distinctive components of an enforced disappearance – in particular, the participation of State agents and the attempts to conceal information and cover up the crime – necessitate that investigations be carried out with the requisite independence and autonomy.

Delays in investigations are usually the result of multiple obstacles faced during judicial proceedings, including the destruction or loss of evidence and the passing of the perpetrators, victims and witnesses. Such obstacles may lead to de facto impunity.

The Working Group concludes that an effective investigation of enforced disappearances must include information about the whereabouts and the fates of the disappeared persons, the circumstances of their disappearance and the identity of the perpetrators. Such an investigation is not only required by the State’s international obligations, but it is also the best way to effectively combat impunity and to realize the right to truth, for both the victims and society as a whole.

The examples mentioned in the report are drawn from: cases received by the Working Group and included in its reports; other public reports by United Nations agencies or other international organizations; submissions received by the Working Group following a call for contributions and a questionnaire for States; and information received from experts participating in a meeting held on the sidelines of the Working Group’s 116th session, held in Geneva in September 2018.