The International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances

Organizations of families of the disappeared, human rights NGOs, experts and a number of States worked for over 25 years to achieve the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. The road to the adoption of the Convention was long and arduous.

In 1981, the Human Rights Institute of the Paris Bar organized a symposium to discuss the promotion of an international convention on disappearances.

In the same spirit, in 1980-1983, families of the disappeared in Latin America drew up a draft text for a convention, which was presented to the UN. A first draft instrument was presented by the Sub-Commission on Human Rights in 1988. It was not until 1992 that the UN General Assembly finally adopted the Declaration for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. In 2001, the former Commission on Human Rights began negotiations on the text that would later become the Convention.

The process came to a successful conclusion on September 23, 2005 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. French ambassador Bernard Kessedjian, then Chairman/Rapporteur of the Working Group charged for three years with drafting a "legally binding instrument for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance", asked for approval of the text of the Convention. No State objected, and the text of the new Convention was approved. The text was subsequently unanimously approved by the Human Rights Council (June 2006), the Third Committee of the General Assembly (November 2006) and the General Assembly itself (December 20, 2006). The text was co-sponsored by 103 states at the General Assembly. Following adoption of the text by the General Assembly, the new objective became rapid ratification and implementation of the Convention in as many countries as possible. Indeed, despite the unanimous approval by the General Assembly and the high number of co-sponsors, the position of many States towards the Convention remains ambiguous.

For this reason, civil society organizations hoping for rapid ratification will need to unite their efforts to transform the Convention into an effective instrument against disappearances. All those with an interest in the Convention's success are aware that their power can grow with their numbers, and that the legitimacy and credibility of lobbying and campaigning activities can be greatly enhanced by a collective show of strength.

This is why the International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances was created (see photo of ICAED Steering Committee members at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, on the left). Its main immediate objective is to promote the rapid ratification and full and effective implementation of the Convention. In the future, the Coalition may decide to extend its action to other themes concerning the eradication of enforced disappearances.

FEMED is a member of the Steering Committee of the International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances: www.icaed.org

International Day against Enforced Disappearances

FEMED, in collaboration with its member associations (families of the "disappeared" from Morocco and Algeria), organized an informative event on a well-known Parisian square, Place de la Bastille, to mark the International Day in Memory of the "Disappeared" on August 30, 2008. (See photo at left of the International Day in Memory of the Disappeared, Place de la Bastille, Paris)

To mark the occasion, a number of activities were organized, including raising awareness of enforced disappearances in the Euro-Mediterranean basin through the provision of documentation, film screenings on disappearances in Morocco and Algeria, and photo exhibitions on disappearances in Morocco, Algeria and Turkey.

This event was part of the international campaign for ratification of the Convention, launched by ICAED, of which FEMED is a member. FEMED requested meetings with various ambassadors of the region's states, present in Paris, to raise their awareness of enforced disappearances in the Euro-Mediterranean basin and the need to put an end to this practice by ratifying the Convention.