30 August 2012 -- The International Day of the Disappeared is marked each year on 30 August to draw attention to the fate of individuals imprisoned at places and under poor conditions unknown to their relatives and/or legal representatives.

The initiative for the day came from the Latin American Federation of Associations for Relatives of Detained-Disappeared (Federación Latinoamericana de Asociaciones de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos, or FEDEFAM) in Costa Rica, an association of local and regional groups actively working against secret imprisonment and forced disappearances in a number of Latin-American countries.

Source: Wikipedia

Selected learning materials

Enforced disappearance (Asian Human Rights Commission)
This lesson introduces the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (Roy Gutman and David Rieff (eds.)
This book was published on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary—in August 1999—of the Geneva Conventions, with the aim of encouraging public knowledge of the principles of conduct in war. It consists of three types of articles. The heart of the law, and of this book, are the grave breaches, or serious war crimes, delineated in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the First Additional Protocol of 1977, including disappearence.

International and regional mechanisms to prevents forced disapperances:

- Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (1992)

- International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006)

- Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (1996)

Useful links

UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances

International Coalition Against Forced Disappearances

Links to other organisations involved in advocacy against disappearances

International Humanitarian Law (Foundation Course)

Protection Against Torture