The Convention defines enforced disappearance 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 authorization, 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, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”
The Convention focuses on the obligations of States Parties to prevent and punish the crime of enforced disappearance and draws extensively on the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance made by the General Assembly in 1992 but with new and strengthened standards and obligations.
The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2006. It entered into force in 2010 after 20 States had ratified or acceded to it. The Convention established the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).