Missing persons and memory governance - Online Expert Panel

The Asser Institute and the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances co-hosted an online expert panel on ‘Missing persons and memory governance’. The online panel was part of the MELA-project, and it discussed memory laws in the context of enforced disappearance. The main topics of the event were the right to truth and combatting state-sponsored narratives of enforced disappearances. Background: This online panel was part of the agenda of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. It gathered leading experts in memory law and enforced disappearances and invited us to question how these seemingly disparate topics might relate to each other. The online panel covered the following themes: 1) The importance of memory governance in the context of enforced disappearances, 2) Operationalising the right to truth, 3) The relationship between memory governance and the international legal regime for missing persons, and 4) Combating state-sponsored false narratives through the voices of victims and civil society.