17/11/2011 Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Strasbourg, 16.11.2011 - “The continuing suffering of relatives and friends of no less than 14,000 mission persons in the Western Balkans, 2,300 in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation and close to 2,000 in Cyprus as well as countless missing persons left behind by the conflicts in the South Caucasus region remain a major obstacle to lasting peace and reconciliation,” Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD) stressed at a meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in Paris today.
In a draft recommendation, contained in his report on the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, the Committee invites the Committee of Ministers to consider launching the process of preparing the negotiation, in the framework of the Council of Europe, of a “European Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance”.
While underlining the importance of the UN Convention on the subject and giving it its full support, the Committee regrets that this instrument fails to include in the definition of enforced disappearances the responsibility of non-state actors and remains silent on the need for establishing a subjective element (intent) as part of the crime of enforced disappearance. It also stresses that it refrains from placing limits on amnesties or jurisdictional and other immunities and severely limits the Committee on Enforced Disappearances’ temporal jurisdiction.