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Q&A: The ICRC's engagement on the missing and their families

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2018

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Abstract

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a long history of working with missing persons and their families. Based on its statutory mandate as enshrined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, their 1977 Additional Protocols, the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and resolutions of the International Conferences of the Red Cross and Red Crescent,1 the ICRC has worked to prevent people from going missing and has facilitated family contact and reunification. It has also worked to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing persons since 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, when it pioneered the compilation of lists of prisoners of war and the introduction of “the wearing of a badge so that the dead could be identified”.2

The ICRC promoted and strengthened its engagement towards missing persons and their families when it organized the first ever International Conference of Governmental and Non-Governmental Experts on Missing Persons in 2003.3 Today, the ICRC carries out activities in favour of missing persons and their families in around sixty countries worldwide. In 2018, it embarked on a new project setting technical standards in relation to missing persons and their families, together with expert partners and a global community of practitioners who have a shared objective – preventing people from going missing, providing answers on the fate and whereabouts of missing persons, and responding to the specific needs of their families.

This Q&A explores the ICRC's current work on the issue of the missing and will, in particular, explore the ways in which the ICRC's Missing Persons Project aims to position the missing and their families at the centre of the humanitarian agenda.

Type
The missing and their families
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 99 , Issue 905: The missing , August 2017 , pp. 535 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © icrc 2018 

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References

1 The Geneva Conventions of 1949, their Additional Protocols and customary international humanitarian law (IHL) rules, which are applicable in situations of armed conflict, contain legal obligations for States and parties to conflict in terms of both preventing individuals from going missing and their response in the event that they do. In discharging these obligations, parties to conflict are to be prompted mainly by the families’ right to know the fate of their relatives, and they must provide families with any information they have in this respect. International human rights law also recognizes the right to know the fate of a missing relative, and the correlative obligation of public authorities to carry out an effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding a disappearance. This is linked, in particular, to the protection of the right to life, the prohibition against torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to family life. For more information, see the ICRC factsheet “Missing Persons and Their Families”, available at: www.icrc.org/en/document/missing-persons-and-their-families-factsheet (all internet references were accessed in September 2018).

2 See: www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/57jnvq.htm.

3 See ICRC, The Missing and Their Families: Summary of the Conclusions Arising from Events Held Prior to the International Conference of Governmental and Non-Governmental Experts (19–21 February 2003), Geneva, 2003, available at: www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/report/5jahr8.htm; ICRC, International Conference of Governmental and Non-Governmental Experts on the Missing Persons – Outcome (including Observations and Recommendations), available at: www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/report/5jygcs.htm.

4 Definition based on ICRC, Missing Persons: A Handbook for Parliamentarians, Geneva, 2009, available at: www.icrc.org/en/publication/1117-missing-persons-handbook-parliamentarians.

5 ICRC, International Day of the Disappeared: Why it Matters, Geneva, August 2016, p. 19, available at: www.icrc.org/en/document/missing-persons-international-day-of-the-disappeared-report-2016.

6 Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Missing Persons and Victims of Enforced Disappearance in Europe, Issue Paper, March 2016, available at: https://rm.coe.int/missing-persons-and-victims-of-enforced-disappearance-in-europe-issue-/16806daa1c.

7 Public event hosted by the Peruvian Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, 20 April 2018. See: www.gob.pe/institucion/minjus/noticias/4076-presentaran-el-listado-base-del-renade.

8 United Nations (UN) Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, Report of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances – Mission to Guatemala, UN Doc. A/HRC/4/41/Add.1, 21 February 2007.

9 See ICRC, “Nepal: Families Have the Right to Know the Fate of Their Missing Loved Ones”, 28 August 2018, available at: www.icrc.org/en/document/nepals-missing-families-have-right-know-fate-their-missing-loved-ones.

10 ICRC, Annual Report 2017, Geneva, 2018, p. 347, available at: www.icrc.org/en/document/annual-report-2017. These figures are from the end of the reporting period for 2017.

11 Ibid., p. 184, 201.

12 See International Center for Transitional Justice, Lebanon: Addressing the Legacy of Conflict in a Divided Society, available at: https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/subsites/lebanon-legacy-conflict/.

13 ICRC, above note 10, p. 413.

14 UN Human Rights Council, Joint Written Statement, UN Doc. A/HRC/22/NGO/157, 25 February 2013.

15 ICRC, above note 10, p. 491.

16 See Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, 2017, available at: www.forumseguranca.org.br/publicacoes/11o-anuario-brasileiro-de-seguranca-publica/; Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, 2018, available at: www.forumseguranca.org.br/publicacoes/anuario-brasileiro-de-seguranca-publica-2018/.

17 See Registro Nacional de Datos de Personas Extraviadas o Desaparecidas, Database, available at: http://secretariadoejecutivo.gob.mx/rnped/consulta-publica.php.

18 These are only the reported cases. See IOM, “Latest Global Figures”, Missing Migrants, available at: https://missingmigrants.iom.int/latest-global-figures.

19 ICRC, ICRC Institutional Strategy 2019–2022, Geneva, available at: https://www.icrc.org/en/publication/4354-icrc-strategy-2019-2022.

20 The Family Links Network is composed of all Restoring Family Links services of National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Central Tracing Agency of the ICRC at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Central Tracing Agency supports and coordinates the work of the Family Links Network. For more information, see: https://familylinks.icrc.org/en/pages/home.aspx.

21 Available at: https://familylinks.icrc.org/europe/en/pages/home.aspx.

22 Available at: www.icrc.org/en/download/file/1066/model-law-missing-icrc-eng-.pdf.

23 ICRC, above note 4.

24 See the ICRC Database on National Implementation of IHL, available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl-nat.

25 These twenty-two contexts were chosen on the basis of their relevance to the missing in terms of human and material resources used, and the longevity of their programmes (most started before or around 2003). Newer programmes were also chosen on the basis of their geographical or topical relevance – for instance, programmes in Africa or programmes related to missing migrants.

26 See ICRC, The Missing and Their Families, above note 3.