The International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance

The particularly disturbing blend of human rights violations and criminal conduct that have resulted in enforced disappearances has finally been recognised in a UN treaty: the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (‘Convention’). 1 The adoption of the Convention, long awaited by those families who have endured the distress of uncertainty over the fate of their relatives, for some seems overdue. Yet, casting an eye at recent troubling trends that have arisen, its adoption offers a timely reminder of the need for extreme diligence in every aspect of dealing with detention or any other deprivation of liberty along with the means to help prevent conditions allowing for enforced disappearance to occur without detection. For some, enforced disappearances remain synonymous with dark deeds carried out decades ago by now-deposed powers. It is less widely appreciated that the practice of enforced disappearance remains contemporary and has a global dimension. 2 At the General Assembly the adoption of the Convention was heralded by the representative of Honduras as ‘the dawn of a new age and a day of hope for all’. 3 However, none of the promise of the new Convention can be fulfilled if states do not ratify it and bring it into force, and enable it thus to have some chance of succeeding in its twin aims of ‘prevention and justice’.