Enforced disappearances appear to many of us to be a minor issue that occurs in the chaotic circumstances of civil wars or is a strategy used by authoritarian dictators. It is not something we talk about as a significant problem. We want to use this instalment of our Info Series to show why enforced disappearances are instead an extremely relevant issue that is not discussed enough. The invisibility of the victims that comes with enforced disappearances should not lead us to believe that this is not happening. On the contrary, we must pay even closer attention and call on politicians, scholars and journalists to do so as well. By paying attention to the issue of enforced disappearances and making these criminal acts apparent we can help prevent them.
The term enforced disappearance is used when people are covertly taken away from their communities by state actors – or with the tacit approval of the state. Relatives and friends are subsequently denied information about what happened and the forcibly disappeared persons are imprisoned indefinitely, tortured or killed. While this used to be a strategy of authoritarian regimes to stoke fear within the population, they are now a phenomenon of all kinds of governments, including democracies. Enforced disappearances violate several human rights, especially because victims are “missing” and are unaccounted for, thereby losing all protection under the law. Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) clarifies that enforced disappearances are: a) a deprivation of liberty by b) agents of the state or those acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the state that goes along with c) the refusal to acknowledge or concealment of the fact and whereabouts of the disappeared person that results in d) such persons being outside of the law.
The term enforced disappearance was coined well before international recognition of its criminality. However, without a legal structure to safeguard against a person’s disappearance, robust intra- and international watchdogs were limited. Slipping into the proverbial black-bag — while widely condemned by local communities, was not actually illegal under international law. After almost 30 years of deliberations within the United Nations, this changed in 2006 with the establishment of legal bodies and international instruments manifested through the adoption of The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) by the General Assembly resolution A/RES/61/177. As the name suggests, the Convention (agreement) states that that all parties (states) are legally bound to the protection against enforced disappearances and criminalises those guilty of its offence as a Crime Against Humanity. Additionally, this means States have the obligation to investigate any person or entity culpable of potential enforced disappearances, cover the financial costs of the investigation, inform persons connected to the case (e.g. family members) and make accessible all information connected thereto. While adopted in 2006, the agreement didn’t come into effect until 2010. Greece is party to the agreement, Bulgaria remains a signatory, while Turkey has no involvement with the treaty.
Several major European countries were not initial signatories of the Convention and even now not all countries in the European Union have ratified it. The United Kingdom has not signed the Convention at all. Yet, Europe has a long history of enforced disappearances. This includes not only some of the most prominent examples in Franco Spain and Hitler Germany, but also one of the most recent crises of enforced disappearances when war broke out in the former state of Yugoslavia. 34.700 people were reported to have become victims of enforced disappearances from 1991 to 2001 and even now 14.000 people remain unaccounted for. But enforced disappearances are also an ongoing problem in Europe as people are disappeared through organized crime and human trafficking schemes with or without the consent of state actors. Additionally, many states have not done enough to investigate enforced disappearance in their countries' pasts.
In recent years, enforced disappearances have become especially prevalent in the migration context. Because people on the move (POM) are particularly vulnerable, states have resorted to this strategy as a means to terrorize this community and for other political reasons. The annual Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances of the United Nations has highlighted this increasing problem throughout the last few years. This development has also appeared more frequently in Europe, as political rhetoric has stoked anti-immigrant sentiments. Especially at the external borders of the European Union, POM are being illegally arrested, detained and / or deported. States do not acknowledge that this is happening, and no formal, legal records are kept, despite these acts being carried out by agents of the state. This thus constitutes a case of enforced disappearance, which deprives people of legal protection, terrorizes them and their relatives, and is a crime under international law.
Pushbacks occur when POM are stopped at borders and forcibly returned to the countries they were trying to enter from, without being granted their legal right to claim protection. This violates the international law principle of non-refoulement that a person shall not be returned to a country where they would face persecution or threats to their life and well-being. However, pushbacks are also examples of enforced disappearances: people on the move are being detained illegally, stripped of their identification documents, and often left to die. All of this is being carried out by state officials and is only possible because it is carried out outside of the law. Therefore, the practice of pushbacks is more than just a violation of non-refoulement, but they also have all the characteristics of enforced disappearances and should be called out and held accountable as such. Pushbacks violate several articles of the ICPPED, including the principle of non-refoulement and the prohibition of collective expulsion that leads to the enforced disappearance of persons. Greece has ratified the ICPPED as well as other treaties of international law and is nevertheless acting against these principles. As a report of the Border Violence Monitoring Network makes clear: “Therefore we attest that the practice of illegal pushbacks and collective expulsion as carried out by the Greek State constitute crimes against humanity as defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court”.
With the recent increase of pushbacks by land and continued drift-backs at sea since early 2020, the violations of the ICPPED are clear. For POM, this often results in their own enforced disappearance through the illegitimate means of detention and removal from Europe to Turkey. While Turkish guards are often not directly responsible for the physical pushbacks, they undoubtedly work in concert with those admissible. On the Turkish side, people on the move face similar threats. A country with a history chock-full of enforced disappearances throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, Turkey continues to incriminate those who outwardly deplore the current government. These cases range from in-country disappearances to extraterritorial abductions. For POM, this often manifests in illegal, state-sponsored deportations back to their home countries and detention without means of communication to the outside. For POM who are detained by Turkish authorities and denied the right to legal services, it creates a vacuum of uncertainty - opening a greater “potential for refoulement as [people on the move] accept repatriation to avoid indefinite detention.” (BVMN).
With an increasing number of countries declaring Turkey as a ‘Safe Third Country’, subjection to potential disappearances, isolated detention, and clandestine deportations are clear indications of the politicians contorted understanding of current conditions in Turkey. With no promised safety on either side of the EU/Turkey borders, people on the move lack adequate protection that is legally and rightly allotted to them through international law.
For those subjected to enforced disappearances, Josoor can connect family members to legal services in Turkey or directly to partner organisations' legal teams. Indirect support is provided through the maintenance of a database housing missing persons’ information. In Greece and Turkey, Josoor continues to leverage the database — in collaboration with local partners, to search for those who have disappeared.
Direct and indirect support by Josoor and its partners continues to expose the gravity of pushbacks and enforced disappearances - highlighting the psychological impact and physical degradation of these occurrences against the backdrop of international inadmissibility and political paralysis.
On the ground, monitoring groups in the EU and Turkey bolster awareness of continued occurrence of illegal and violent disappearances throughout on-the-spot response work and investigative research. To move against the tide of repressive regimes and falsely democratic governments, we must demand the exposure to these often clandestine violations. If you have legal expertise, offer your services to organizations helping those affected (see below). For others, inform yourselves of the current situation in your country. Organise. Act.
Justice Beyond Borders | Global Action Legal Network
Trial International (TRIAL) - Enforced Disappearance
“I didn't Exist” Syrian Asylum-Seeker’s Case Reframes Migrant Abuses as Enforced Disappearances
BVMN Extended Report the 19th Session for the Committee on Enforced Disappearances
United Nations: International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, 30 August
Amnesty International: Enforced Disappearances
Disappeared migrants and refugees: How the ICPPED can help in their search and protection
Protection of migrants from enforced disappearance: A human rights perspective
Enforced disappearances appear to many of us to be a minor issue that occurs in the chaotic circumstances of civil wars or is a strategy used by authoritarian dictators. It is not something we talk about as a significant problem. We want to use this instalment of our Info Series to show why enforced disappearances are instead an extremely relevant issue that is not discussed enough. The invisibility of the victims that comes with enforced disappearances should not lead us to believe that this is not happening. On the contrary, we must pay even closer attention and call on politicians, scholars and journalists to do so as well. By paying attention to the issue of enforced disappearances and making these criminal acts apparent we can help prevent them.
The term enforced disappearance is used when people are covertly taken away from their communities by state actors – or with the tacit approval of the state. Relatives and friends are subsequently denied information about what happened and the forcibly disappeared persons are imprisoned indefinitely, tortured or killed. While this used to be a strategy of authoritarian regimes to stoke fear within the population, they are now a phenomenon of all kinds of governments, including democracies. Enforced disappearances violate several human rights, especially because victims are “missing” and are unaccounted for, thereby losing all protection under the law. Article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) clarifies that enforced disappearances are: a) a deprivation of liberty by b) agents of the state or those acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the state that goes along with c) the refusal to acknowledge or concealment of the fact and whereabouts of the disappeared person that results in d) such persons being outside of the law.
The term enforced disappearance was coined well before international recognition of its criminality. However, without a legal structure to safeguard against a person’s disappearance, robust intra- and international watchdogs were limited. Slipping into the proverbial black-bag — while widely condemned by local communities, was not actually illegal under international law. After almost 30 years of deliberations within the United Nations, this changed in 2006 with the establishment of legal bodies and international instruments manifested through the adoption of The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) by the General Assembly resolution A/RES/61/177. As the name suggests, the Convention (agreement) states that that all parties (states) are legally bound to the protection against enforced disappearances and criminalises those guilty of its offence as a Crime Against Humanity. Additionally, this means States have the obligation to investigate any person or entity culpable of potential enforced disappearances, cover the financial costs of the investigation, inform persons connected to the case (e.g. family members) and make accessible all information connected thereto. While adopted in 2006, the agreement didn’t come into effect until 2010. Greece is party to the agreement, Bulgaria remains a signatory, while Turkey has no involvement with the treaty.
Several major European countries were not initial signatories of the Convention and even now not all countries in the European Union have ratified it. The United Kingdom has not signed the Convention at all. Yet, Europe has a long history of enforced disappearances. This includes not only some of the most prominent examples in Franco Spain and Hitler Germany, but also one of the most recent crises of enforced disappearances when war broke out in the former state of Yugoslavia. 34.700 people were reported to have become victims of enforced disappearances from 1991 to 2001 and even now 14.000 people remain unaccounted for. But enforced disappearances are also an ongoing problem in Europe as people are disappeared through organized crime and human trafficking schemes with or without the consent of state actors. Additionally, many states have not done enough to investigate enforced disappearance in their countries' pasts.
In recent years, enforced disappearances have become especially prevalent in the migration context. Because people on the move (POM) are particularly vulnerable, states have resorted to this strategy as a means to terrorize this community and for other political reasons. The annual Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances of the United Nations has highlighted this increasing problem throughout the last few years. This development has also appeared more frequently in Europe, as political rhetoric has stoked anti-immigrant sentiments. Especially at the external borders of the European Union, POM are being illegally arrested, detained and / or deported. States do not acknowledge that this is happening, and no formal, legal records are kept, despite these acts being carried out by agents of the state. This thus constitutes a case of enforced disappearance, which deprives people of legal protection, terrorizes them and their relatives, and is a crime under international law.
Pushbacks occur when POM are stopped at borders and forcibly returned to the countries they were trying to enter from, without being granted their legal right to claim protection. This violates the international law principle of non-refoulement that a person shall not be returned to a country where they would face persecution or threats to their life and well-being. However, pushbacks are also examples of enforced disappearances: people on the move are being detained illegally, stripped of their identification documents, and often left to die. All of this is being carried out by state officials and is only possible because it is carried out outside of the law. Therefore, the practice of pushbacks is more than just a violation of non-refoulement, but they also have all the characteristics of enforced disappearances and should be called out and held accountable as such. Pushbacks violate several articles of the ICPPED, including the principle of non-refoulement and the prohibition of collective expulsion that leads to the enforced disappearance of persons. Greece has ratified the ICPPED as well as other treaties of international law and is nevertheless acting against these principles. As a report of the Border Violence Monitoring Network makes clear: “Therefore we attest that the practice of illegal pushbacks and collective expulsion as carried out by the Greek State constitute crimes against humanity as defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court”.
With the recent increase of pushbacks by land and continued drift-backs at sea since early 2020, the violations of the ICPPED are clear. For POM, this often results in their own enforced disappearance through the illegitimate means of detention and removal from Europe to Turkey. While Turkish guards are often not directly responsible for the physical pushbacks, they undoubtedly work in concert with those admissible. On the Turkish side, people on the move face similar threats. A country with a history chock-full of enforced disappearances throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s, Turkey continues to incriminate those who outwardly deplore the current government. These cases range from in-country disappearances to extraterritorial abductions. For POM, this often manifests in illegal, state-sponsored deportations back to their home countries and detention without means of communication to the outside. For POM who are detained by Turkish authorities and denied the right to legal services, it creates a vacuum of uncertainty - opening a greater “potential for refoulement as [people on the move] accept repatriation to avoid indefinite detention.” (BVMN).
With an increasing number of countries declaring Turkey as a ‘Safe Third Country’, subjection to potential disappearances, isolated detention, and clandestine deportations are clear indications of the politicians contorted understanding of current conditions in Turkey. With no promised safety on either side of the EU/Turkey borders, people on the move lack adequate protection that is legally and rightly allotted to them through international law.
For those subjected to enforced disappearances, Josoor can connect family members to legal services in Turkey or directly to partner organisations' legal teams. Indirect support is provided through the maintenance of a database housing missing persons’ information. In Greece and Turkey, Josoor continues to leverage the database — in collaboration with local partners, to search for those who have disappeared.
Direct and indirect support by Josoor and its partners continues to expose the gravity of pushbacks and enforced disappearances - highlighting the psychological impact and physical degradation of these occurrences against the backdrop of international inadmissibility and political paralysis.
On the ground, monitoring groups in the EU and Turkey bolster awareness of continued occurrence of illegal and violent disappearances throughout on-the-spot response work and investigative research. To move against the tide of repressive regimes and falsely democratic governments, we must demand the exposure to these often clandestine violations. If you have legal expertise, offer your services to organizations helping those affected (see below). For others, inform yourselves of the current situation in your country. Organise. Act.
Justice Beyond Borders | Global Action Legal Network
Trial International (TRIAL) - Enforced Disappearance
“I didn't Exist” Syrian Asylum-Seeker’s Case Reframes Migrant Abuses as Enforced Disappearances
BVMN Extended Report the 19th Session for the Committee on Enforced Disappearances
United Nations: International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, 30 August
Amnesty International: Enforced Disappearances
Disappeared migrants and refugees: How the ICPPED can help in their search and protection
Protection of migrants from enforced disappearance: A human rights perspective
