In order to achieve a positive decision of the General Assembly, a delegation of representatives of families organizations from South Africa, Belarus, the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Uruguay and the regional federations FEDEFAM and AFAD will participate to a conference on the new convention organized by the French Mission to the United Nations, on October 19, 2006.
The families’ representatives will also be in New York the whole week of October 16, in order to visit several country delegations, meet with the press and media as well as with other civil society organizations on the upcoming campaign to promote the ratification of the Convention by Member States to the United Nations.
The Convention represents an extremely important development in the fight against enforced disappearances and for the protection of victims and their families. As the first universal autonomous treaty on disappearances, the convention constitutes a great step forward in the historical development of international law. It will be an invaluable tool in the fight against impunity for perpetrators of disappearances and in the implementation of the right to truth, justice and reparation for victims and their families.
The signatories organizations and the delegation of families’ organizations call on all states at the General Assembly to adopt without any changes this important text. We also strongly urge all member States to ratify the document after its adoption and to quickly adapt their national legislation to the new document.
We would like to pay tribute to the families of the disappeared, who have inspired our organizations with their courage over many years and have given us hope. As the families maintain this hope, we cannot fail to have it too.
– International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
– International Commission of Jurists
– Amnesty International
– Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD)
– Latin American Federation of Associations of Families of Disappeared Detainees (FEDEFAM)
– OPFMD
– CVSR
– “We Remember”
– Familiares
– Kontras
– Netherlands Humanist Committee on Human Rights (HOM)