General Comment No. 1 on article 3 of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

With a view to focusing the attention of Governments more effectively on the relevant obligations deriving from the Declaration, the Working Group decided to adopt the following general comments on those provisions of the Declaration that might need further explanation in the light of the experience of the Working Group in its communications with Governments. At its forty-seventh session, the Working Group adopted the following general comments on article 3 of the Declaration, which stipulates that "each State shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent and terminate acts of enforced disappearance in any territory under its jurisdiction".