The Committee on Enforced Disappearances and Its Monitoring Procedures

The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances establishes the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to oversee its implementation. Its reporting, individual communications and inter-state communications procedures have enhanced features that build on the experiences of other monitoring bodies with similar procedures. Its urgent visit and referral procedures contain novel elements that can promote compliance with the right not to be subjected to enforced disappearance. While issues of duplication, lack of enforcement powers, competence ratione temporis and time and resource constraints set the parameters of what it can and cannot do, the Committee, as part of a system of international and regional bodies, has the potential to induce respect for human rights and to help move states toward the goal of compliance with the right not to be subjected to enforced disappearance.