How effective is the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance likely to be in holding individuals criminally responsible for acts of enforced disappearance?

On 23 June 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. The adoption of the Convention has been heralded as a significant achievement and an important step towards addressing the increasingly widespread and particularly grave phenomenon of enforced disappearance. In particular, it is hoped that the Convention will increase the accountability of individual perpetrators of acts of enforced disappearance by extending international criminal jurisdiction to these acts. This article examines the need for the new Convention by analysing the shortcomings of existing avenues for holding perpetrators of enforced disappearance responsible under international criminal law, and by identifying gaps in the criminalisation of enforced disappearances. The article then examines key provisions of the Convention in light of these existing gaps and shortcomings, and assesses the likely role and effectiveness of the new Convention in bringing individual perpetrators to justice.