General comment No. 11 on the right to recognition as a person before the law in the context of enforced disappearances

The Working Group has always considered that enforced disappearances infringe the right to be recognized as a person before the law. Following this conclusion, the Declaration for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance provides, in its article 1.2: "Any act of enforced disappearance places the persons subjected thereto outside the protection of the law […] It constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia, the right to recognition as a person before the law […]." Following recent developments of case law at the universal and regional levels, the Working Group deems it necessary to state its interpretation of article 1.2, in order to help States to apply the Declaration in a way that is most conducive to the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance.