Enforced Disappearance Legal Database


The Enforced Disappearance Legal Database (EDLD) is the first and only resource of its kind. It includes over 200 case summaries, drawn from the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights, UN treaty bodies, and a number of domestic courts, as well as a full range of legal standards. All entries can be read in English, Spanish, French and Russian.

The EDLD has been developed by the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC) with input from domestic and international legal experts.

About EHRAC

EHRAC is an independent human rights litigation centre, based in London. We collaborate with lawyers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine to challenge serious human rights violations in three key ways: through strategic litigation and advocacy; by strengthening knowledge and skills; and by facilitating networks and the exchange of expertise.

Jurisprudence

Leading judgments and commentary by human rights mechanisms.

Law & Standards

Legal instruments, regulations, and enforcement mechanisms across jurisdictions. 

Characteristics of enforced disappearances

An enforced disappearance is one of the most serious forms of human rights violations. Enforced Disappearances are defined in the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance as containing three cumulative elements: 

  1. The arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty of a person;
  2. The involvement of State agents or persons or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the State; and,
  3. The subsequent refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or the concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, placing the person outside the protection of the law. 

In addition to its stand-alone character, enforced disappearances can affect a number of other fundamental human rights of the disappeared person, namely, the right to security of the person, the right not to be subject to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of one’s liberty and, in some circumstances, the right to life. 

Enforced disappearances are also widely accepted to have a severe impact on the rights of the relatives and loved ones of the disappeared person who are themselves understood to suffer immensely as a result of the disappearance, the devastation of not knowing what happened to their loved one and the burden of continuing the search for them often in the face of great risk and personal cost. 

Enforced disappearances are also often used as a strategy to spread terror within a targeted population in an effort to eliminate any form of dissent and, consequently, can affect entire communities and society as a whole. When committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack targeting a civilian population, enforced disappearances can amount to a crime against humanity as defined in international law.