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Missing Persons

At its 14th Session, the Council adopted decision 14/118 (draft A/HRC/14/L.6) on Missing Persons, which welcomed the progress report of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee on best practices on the issue of missing persons (A/HRC/14/42), and requested the Advisory Committee to finalize the study on best practices and to submit it the Council at its sixteenth session (March 2010). At its sixth session the Advisory Committee endorsed its finalized report and transmitted it to the Council for the latter consideration at its 16th session (A/HRC/16/70).

Background:

At its seventh session (March 2008), the Council adopted resolution 7/28, in which it decided to hold a panel discussion on the question of missing persons at its ninth session (September 2008) with the participation of experts of the ICRC, delegates of Governments and NGOs as well as NHRIs and international organizations.

OHCHR prepared a summary of the panel’s deliberations (document with reference A/HRC/10/10). At its ninth session, the Council adopted decision decision 9/101, which requested the Advisory Committee to prepare a study on best practices on the issue of missing persons and to submit it to the Council at its twelfth session (September 2009).

The Advisory Committee set up a drafting group consisting of Mr. Burney, Ms. Chung, Mr. Heinz, Mr. Hüseynov and Mr. Mudho, with the task of preparing the aforementioned study.

At its twelfth session, the Council adopted decision 12/117, which took note of Advisory Committee recommendation 3/2, and requested Advisory Committee to submit the study to the Council at its fourteenth session (June 2010). In order to continue its work on the above-mentioned study, the drafting group of the Advisory Committee elaborated a questionnaire addressed to Governments, which was transmitted by note verbale on 2 November 2009 by the Secretariat.

  • The Secretariat’s note verbale and the comments received are available on the AC extranet page.

At its fourth session (January 2010), the Committee also held an exchange of views with a representative of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.