Judicial Body: UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED)

Each year, thousands of migrants from Central America disappear in Mexico, adding to the already staggering number of disappeared Mexican nationals. With a new government voted in and a growing international focus on migrations in Latin America, can Mexico effectively tackle this crime?

 

TRIAL International and the Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democrático de Derecho are filing a report to the UN on enforced disappearances in Mexico. In which context does this submission occur?

Gabriella Citroni, Senior Legal Advisor at TRIAL International: The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) is examining the situation of Mexico for the second time since its creation. The State presents its report to the CED, and civil society organizations may file additional reports to provide an alternative viewpoint. The particularity of our joint report is that it focuses on the enforced disappearance of migrants in Mexico.

 

How has the situation evolved since Mexico’s last examination in 2015?

Ana Lorena Delgadillo, Executive Director of the Fundación para la Justicia: In the last years, we have witnessed an increase in enforced disappearances, prompting us to assert that Mexico is failing to its international obligations. This is paradoxical, because in 2017 the country passed extremely progressive legislative measures (known as the General Law) to fight enforced disappearances. But these improvements have remained dead letter so far: the victims’ families are still lacking effective mechanisms to search for their love ones, and access to truth and justice.

 

Can you give examples?

Gabriella Citroni: The General Law could be one of the most comprehensive legal tools on enforced disappearance in the world. Two other measures, created under the advocacy of families and of the Fundación para la Justicia, are particularly progressive. The first was the creation of an interdisciplinary Forensic Commission specifically mandated to identify the mortal remains of the victims of three massacres that took place between 2010 and 2012, many of them migrants. The second was the Transnational Mechanism for access to justice, a provision for families in Central American States to seize Mexican authorities via its embassies and consulates – a crucial point given how difficult it can be for migrants’ families to access Mexican justice.

Ana Lorena Delgadillo: The problem is that some of these improvements remain theoretical. The new National Commission for searching the disappeared – created under the General Law – lacks sufficient financial or human resources. The families of the victims are still doing this work.

Access to justice for families outside the country has also stalled. The Transnational Mechanism for justice has been created but Mexico has no permanent staff dedicated to enforced disappearance in the Central American States the migrants are from (mainly Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala). The families’ requests must therefore go through visiting officials, who only come a few times each year. In the meantime, families are suffering daily from uncertainty about their relatives’ fate and whereabouts.

 

What do you hope the report will change?

Gabriella Citroni: On the positive side, I think there is growing awareness on enforced disappearance in Mexico, especially involving migrants. Another encouraging factor is that Mexico does have the legal arsenal to effectively prevent and eradicate enforced disappearance, and our report gives a very concrete roadmap to put it into practice. So if the political will is there, the authorities are well-equipped to initiate change.

Ana Lorena Delgadillo: There is also a political momentum: Mexico has just voted in a new government. We have met with its representatives and hope that they will take the crime of enforced disappearance seriously. Victims’ relatives are highly organized and incredibly courageous. They have always been at the forefront of the fight against impunity, often taking investigations into their own hands when the authorities failed them. The new government must pay head to the expertise they have developed, respect and improve the good practices such as the Forensic Commission and the Transnational Mechanism for access to justice, and lean on the international community for assistance. Given the scale of impunity in Mexico, only a joint effort has a chance to bring improvements.

 

Read the full report to the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (in Spanish)

Read the report’s executive summary (in English)

Learn more on enforced disappearances

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The journalist and critic of the government disappeared in July 2016. In the face of his family’s distress and the government’s inaction, TRIAL International has seized the United Nations.

In July 2016, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein spoke about a “strong increase of enforced disappearances” in Burundi, “one of the latest worrying trends” in the country.

The report from the UN Independent Investigation on Burundi (UNIIB) paints the same picture. Since the outbreak of the crisis in 2015, hundreds of persons have reportedly disappeared.

 

The relatives’ suffering

It is within this context that Jean Bigirimana disappeared. He was a journalist at IWACU, one of the main independent Burundian medias and one of the few still active in the country. A father of two children aged eight and three, he was abducted on 22 July 2016 by men aboard a pick-up that apparently belonged to the Burundian National Intelligence Service. Jean Bigirimana has never been seen since.

Nearly nine months have passed and his fate is still unknown, as well as the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. This situation causes serious suffering among his family, friends and colleagues.

“Enforced disappearances are a form of psychological torture for the victim’s relatives. They oscillate between hope and discouragement, without any means to turn the page” explains Pamela Capizzi, Legal Advisor and Head of the Burundi program. “Jean Bigirimana’s relatives have the right to know what has happened to him.”

 

Insufficient investigation and prevalent impunity

The Burundian authorities have the obligation to undertake an investigation in regards to this disappearance. But this hasn’t been the case. In view of a deficient investigation and the climate of impunity prevailing in Burundi, the path of international justice imposed itself.

In collaboration with the press group IWACU (fr), TRIAL International brought the case to the attention of the United Nations’ Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) in August 2016. The purpose of this procedure is to help the family ascertain what has happened to their relative.

“The Burundian justice has the duty to tell the truth to the family, to Iwacu, to the Burundian people. Its honor is at stake“, concludes Antoine Kaburahe (fr), Director of the Groupe de Presse Iwacu. “The truth would put an end to the relatives’ wait and allow them to extricate themselves from this terrible doubt. To this day, our colleague’s children are still waiting for ‘Daddy who went to work’. It’s atrocious.”

 

Scarce progress was made by Mexico since the Committee on Enforced Disappearances issued its recommendations in 2015.  

Time passes and relatives of disappeared persons cannot count on effective mechanisms to establish the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones. In February 2015, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) formulated a list of recommendations to tackle what it defined “a situation of widespread disappearances in much of the State”. As of today, the level of implementation is far from satisfying.

The CED identified as priorities the establishment of a unified national register of disappeared persons; the establishment of an effective transnational mechanism to prevent and eradicate the disappearance of migrants; the adoption of adequate measures to search for, locate and release disappeared persons; and in the event of death, locate, respect and return their mortal remains to their families.

One year later, TRIAL International and its partners had already raised the alarm on the lack of implementation of CED recommendations. Following its findings, the CED considered Mexico’s action to fight enforced disappearances insufficient.

 

Two years on, little has changed

On 15 February 2017, TRIAL International and two Mexican NGOs submitted an updated follow-up report to the CED. The conclusions are grim and mirror last year’s findings: no updated unified national register of disappeared persons has been set up yet; the mechanisms created to deal with the disappearance of migrants struggle with practical obstacles; and the search of disappeared persons remains flawed and extremely slow.

There is little chance that Mexico will address the existing crisis soon, its lack of political will being evident. The onus also lies on the CED: in the face of Mexico’s inertia, it should look into innovative means to prompt the government into action – a country visit or a referral to the UN General Assembly, for instance.

Read the full follow-up report (in Spanish)

Read the executive summary (in English)

 

 

An Op-Ed by Gabriella Citroni

40 years of struggle against enforced disappearances have resulted in meaningful progress, but the phenomenon remains on the rise.

In the late seventies, the relatives of disappeared people in Latin America started a campaign to prevent and eradicate this crime. In this context, the Argentinean National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons gave them reason in 1984 when it published its final report, entitled “Never again!”, highlighting the imperative to avoid any repetition of such a tragedy – whereby thousands were subjected to enforced disappearance. Since then, several truth commissions across the world used the same title for their final reports and “Never again!” became the rallying cry of civil society against enforced disappearance.

As we celebrate the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances today, exactly how far have we gone to prevent and eradicate this practice?

 

Encouraging signs from States and international bodies

Undeniable progress have recently been witnessed, such as States strengthening their domestic legal framework: Peru enacted its Law on the Search of Disappeared Persons, to finally make light on the fate and whereabouts of the thousands of disappeared during the 1980-2000 conflict. Efforts to adopt comprehensive legislation on this crime are also underway in Tunisia and Mexico.

After years of civil society advocacy, the Supreme Court of El Salvador declared unconstitutional the 1993 amnesty law granting impunity for human rights violations in the 1980-1992 conflict. This historic verdict paves the way for accountability and revived the hope of victims and their families.

Other States have improved their institutional structures, setting up support mechanisms for relatives of the disappeared. In Nepal, the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons was finally established and is expected to uphold the rights to truth, justice and reparation of victims and their families, blatantly ignored since the end of the armed conflict in 2006. In Mexico, a Specialised Unit for the Investigation of Crimes against Migrants and a Transnational Mechanism of Search of Missing Migrants will for the first time address the abuse suffered by migrants, including enforced disappearance.

International bodies are also paving the way forward. In March, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED)adopted its first decision ever and took position on yet under-explored issues, such as State obligations when a prisoner is transferred from one place of detention to another, and the rights of their relatives to be informed on the detainee’s whereabouts and on the progress of the investigations.

 

Often too little, always too late

All aforementioned examples are important and welcome achievements. Not one of them, however, addresses the root of the problem: the commission of enforced disappearances in the first place. Despite our efforts, enforced disappearances are still on the rise. In the last three years, the number of urgent actions registered before the CED jumped from 4 to a staggering 294. The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is overwhelmed with new cases virtually every day.

It is high time for domestic authorities and the international community to adopt new strategies and implement existing instruments not just to redress, but to prevent these abuse. Unless States live up to their responsibilities and make this issue their first priority, ‘Never again!’ will remain two wishful words and there will be no ground for celebration on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

Gabriella Citroni, Senior Legal Advisor

 

 

In December 2014, TRIAL and a coalition of eight civil society associations from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador submitted an alternative report to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) in view of the forthcoming exam of Mexico’s official report, which will take place in February 2015 in Geneva. The alternative report provides answers to the questions previously formulated by the CED in its list of issues and focuses mainly on the subject of enforced disappearance of migrants in Mexico and highlights the existence of several pitfalls in the existing legislation, which does not respect the obligations established by the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

TRIAL, along with eight associations from Mexico and Central America, has submitted a report (available in Spanish too)  to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances(CED).

It aims at reminding Mexico of its legal obligation under the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Even though the State is party to this treaty since 2008, it is yet to adopt a number of measures to fully implement it. Consequently, enforced disappearances continue to be perpetrated.

As much remains to be done, the report highlights the following weaknesses in Mexico’s legal framework:

  • no adequate criminal legal framework to prevent and punish enforced disappearance has been adopted
  • no unified database on disappeared persons exists to facilitate investigations as well as access to justice and reparations
  • families of disappeared migrants face considerable obstacles and are denied the status of victims
  • the lack of effective legal cooperation and mutual assistance between Mexico and neighboring countries

TRIAL calls on the CED to prompt Mexico to adopt effective measures to tackle this issue without further delay.

In May 2014 TRIAL and 8 associations from Mexico and Central America submitted an alternative report to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED). It concerns the implementation by Mexico of its obligations under the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Mexico is a party to this treaty since 18 March 2008 and it must adopt a number of measures to fully implement it. Much remains to be done, while enforced disappearances continue being perpetrated in the country.

According to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, 170 migrants have been killed in the country since 2005, including the massive murder of 72 migrants in August 2013 in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. There seems to be a link between the murder of migrants, organized crime and the complicity of the police and other authorities.

Migrant shelters have been the object of multiple attacks by the organized crime and have received insufficient measures of protection by the government. Migrants are afraid to take their cases before the police and there is a state of chronic impunity.

TRIAL together with nine local associations submitted a report to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions mainly focusing on arbitrary executions of migrant people.

The organizations share the view previously expressed by the Special Rapporteur that migrants are a group particularly vulnerable to executions. They have also identified several issues of concern that they consider should be taken up by the Special Rapporteur in his forthcoming final report.