Prosecution of Enforced Disappearance

Abstract

In the nine years since the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court (ICC) came into force no one has been successfully prosecuted or even charged with enforced disappearance in front of the ICC, despite the strong news and scholarly claims that enforced disappearance has happened at large scale during these years. On August 31, 2011 “the UN called on all States to end the “heinous crime” of enforced disappearances which has seen countless people vanish into secret prisons or worse, often never to be seen again, in cases of conflict and internal unrest.” The UN went on to say “It is (enforced disappearance) the first and foremost human tragedy, the problem of a profound pain, the pain that does not differentiate, that has no nationality, no religion, has no race or age.”