Enforced disappearance

An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the intent of placing the victim outside the protection of the law.^[1][2] Often, forced disappearance implies murder whereby a victim is abducted, may be illegally detained, and is often tortured during interrogation, ultimately killed, and the body disposed of secretly. The party committing the murder has plausible deniability as there is no evidence of the victim's death.

Enforced disappearance was first recognized as a human rights issue in the 1970s as a result of its use by military dictatorships in Latin America during the dirty wars. However, it has occurred all over the world.^[3]

According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which came into force on July 1, 2002, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population, enforced disappearance qualifies as a crime against humanity, not subject to a statute of limitations, in international criminal law. On December 20, 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.