Missing persons: How international law protects families’ right to know the fate of their loved ones
When a family member goes missing in connection with an armed conflict, their loved ones are left in painful uncertainty. They do not know where the person is, whether they are alive or what has happened to them. This is why families’ right to receive information about the fate of missing persons is so important.
This right is recognised in international humanitarian law (IHL). In particular, Article 32 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions recognises the right of families to know the fate of their relatives as a basic principle that must guide the parties to an armed conflict and the relevant humanitarian organisations.
Article 33 of the Protocol sets out specific obligations for parties to an international armed conflict. As soon as circumstances permit, they must search for people whose disappearance has been reported by the opposing party. The parties must also communicate all available information that may help trace them, record information about certain categories of detainees and deceased persons, and facilitate the search for, identification and return of the remains of those who have died.
Customary IHL supplements these provisions. Under Rule 117, parties to both international and non-international armed conflicts must take all feasible measures to account for persons reported missing and provide their families with any information they have. States bear primary responsibility for searching for missing persons and establishing their fate.
Additional safeguards are provided by the 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. The Convention prohibits enforced disappearance and defines it as the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.
Article 24 of the Convention establishes the right of victims to know the truth about the circumstances of an enforced disappearance, the progress and results of the investigation, and the fate of the disappeared person. States are obliged to take steps to search for and locate the person and, if they have died, to search for their remains, ensure that they are treated with respect and return them to their family.
The Ukrainian Red Cross has been working to trace missing persons and restore family links since 1992. Today, its Restoring Family Links Service processes requests from families who have lost contact with loved ones because of the war. The Service is part of the Global Family Links Network of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Families’ right to know the fate of their loved ones is protected under international law and must be upheld in practice. Parties to an armed conflict are obliged to make every feasible effort to establish the fate of missing persons and communicate this information to their families.