International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances

Description

International Coalition against Enforced Disappearances is a coalition of family organizations and human rights groups campaigning against enforced disappearances. It brings together associations of families of the disappeared and human rights NGOs that work in a nonviolent manner at the local, national and international level. The coalition was founded in September 2007 in Geneva, during a side event to a session of the UN Human Rights Council. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

The coalition promotes the early ratification and effective implementation of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2006. It runs a country by country ratification campaign, launched in 2009, to press individual governments to ratify and apply the convention. Its members are family associations and human rights organizations from around the world, working together on advocacy toward UN member states.

The coalition grew out of earlier cooperation among family organizations and international NGOs during negotiations for the convention held in Geneva between 2001 and 2003. It also builds on work by the Latin American federation FEDEFAM, which first discussed the idea of such a convention in 1982. By May 2015 the coalition counted 53 member organizations worldwide.