John Blomster: Welcome to ºìÌÒÊÓƵ, presented by the ºìÌÒÊÓƵ. I am your host John Blomster. And today we're speaking with Bernard Duhaime, professor of international law at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Quebec in Montreal. He is also the chair-rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, which works to help relatives of disappeared persons find the whereabouts of their family members, among other aims. In his many roles, he has spent much of his career fighting on behalf of victims of human rights violations. And he is here today to discuss his work with the working group and at the UN.
Bernard, thank you very much for being here.
Bernard Duhaime: Hello, John. Thanks for having me.
Blomster: So, first of all, how do you define an enforced or involuntary disappearance?
Duhaime: So, it's a complicated or composite human rights violation, which has three main components as far as our working group is concerned. The first is that a person has been captured and detained against its will. The second element is that this capture in detention is done by state agents or by persons who act with the collaboration or acquiescence of state agents. And the third element is that the state authorities then deny the detention of the person. And as a result of this, as a consequence of these three elements, the person is forced out of the protection of the law, is unable to exercise his or her rights because the state alleges that this person is not under the state's control.
Blomster: So, how does it work? How does the working group take on cases? What happens when someone brings an allegation of an enforced disappearance? What the process?
Duhaime: We have two major mandates. The first one is a humanitarian one and it deals with the cases, the allegations of disappearances. When the working group was created in 1980 that was the main task of the working group. As I said, states, in the disappearance, states deny the detention. Sometimes they even deny the mere existence of the person. There's not a lot of cooperation on behalf of states in many of these cases. So many of the complaints are not even recorded by competent authorities. They are not investigated and so forth.
We were created initially to receive communications by representatives of disappeared persons who explained to us the circumstances of the disappearance. Who do you think is behind the disappearance? What type of initiative they have taken to try to trigger mechanisms within their countries and so forth. And we basically write to the government, saying we received these allegations of disappearance. What are you doing about it? Have you been investigating? Can you explain to us what are the progresses in this investigation? And so forth. And we keep the case, on record and in our statistics, as long as we are unable to clarify the case, meaning to establish the fate and whereabouts of the person. Now, we usually do this when either the source—so most cases the relative of the disappeared or represented in the disappearance of the family—or when the government provides us with reliable information that allows us to confirm that a person is in a specific place, or its body is in a specific place. Then we clarify the case. We also clarify the case if the government provides satisfactory information, or sometimes the source also does the same, but reliable information that allows us to know the fate of the individual, when it is impossible to establish the whereabouts. And I'll give you a good example. If the body has been destroyed, for example, in the flights of death in Argentina during the dictatorship, at the end of the 70s, early 80s, where the authorities would throw the naked body of the individual in the sea, and the body was never found again. So it was impossible to establish the whereabouts of the person or of the corpse. But thanks to flying records or testimony of witnesses who saw the individuals getting on the plane and not coming back and so forth, we were able to establish the faith of an individual, but we do so when it's impossible to establish the whereabouts of the person and that clarifies the case. If the case is not clarified, then it stays in our statistics as long as required. And so governments do not want to appear In our annual report as having all these disappearances cases recorded under their state. And so they're doing what they can to reduce these numbers by completing the investigations and having the cases clarified with our process.
Blomster: So, since the formation of the working group in 1980, how many cases have you and what kind of success have you had?
Duhaime: Well, unfortunately, we have had many, many cases. And as long as there is one single case in our docket, it will be a failure. In my point of view. This being said, considering that we are a special procedure reporting to the Human Rights Council, and that we are essentially a humanitarian mandate. We're not a judicial body. It's relatively interesting to see that from the roughly 57,000 cases that we have received since 1980. We have probably around 46,000 that have been clarified, probably a little bit less.
Blomster: That's incredible.
Duhaime: Well, I mean, it's around 20%, more or less. I would say it's clearly not sufficient. But considering that we're not judges issuing judicial orders and sending the police to enforce orders, it's an interesting result. Let's put it this way.
Blomster: I mean, given the global scope of the work that you do, I mean, the world's a pretty big place. And so that's, that is still remarkable, especially given the enforcement mechanisms that you have. What's an example of a case that was brought to your attention that you were able to clarify that had a particularly good outcome or one that really is memorable to you in all your time doing this?
Duhaime: Prior to join the working group, as I mentioned earlier, I did a big case at the Inter-American Court, with colleagues from Guatemala, representing the children of a Mayan leader, who was disappeared during the war. Unfortunately, we were not able to find the individual, nor to establish his fate or find his corpse. But we were able through a very significant judgment to establish the modus operandi of the intelligence military services at a time to locate, capture and eliminate indigenous leadership during the war. And the impact that this has had on the participation, political participation of the mayor's during the that period as well as the prevention of the transmittal transmission of culture from one generation to the other and so forth.
Now, this is also very significant because it occurred during the Civil War in Guatemala and currently there's their discussions in Guatemala about the adoption of an amnesty law that would prevent prosecution of people who've committed crimes during that time including enforced appearances. So, I’m very worried that this law could prolong impunity in that specific case and other cases of disappearances in Guatemala at the time of the war.
Blomster: And finally, in dealing with so many of these cases, which is obviously, very troubling, very challenging to see the families going through this, does the fact that you're seeing people who just continued to fight and search and not give up, what impact has that had on you in seeing this in case after case after case? Is that something that you take a light from, you take a, you know, a positive from?
Duhaime: Absolutely. And this is a question that I'm being asked a lot in particular, because my work in human rights since my law school years. I think a human rights defender and an advocate for the rights of others has to be able to see the power, the determination of victims and relatives of victims with whom they work and get inspired by it. Otherwise, it would be very natural, I guess, to at some point be overwhelmed by pain and despair and so forth. So as a lawyer, we do the best for our client. As a human rights defender, we also try to have a broader policy-oriented result to further social justice. But working on it with enforced disappearances has been a stake in me, I guess a little bit further because of the immense admiration I have for the relatives of the disappeared, which are for the great majority, either mothers or daughters or wives, or sisters of disappeared men. These women are extremely courageous. They dedicate all their time and energy to finding the truth and getting justice for their loved ones and their disappeared—for establishing the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared and for the families and so forth. And, you know, they do so in extreme conditions, most of the time being harassed or being either humiliated or threatened or so forth. And they're extremely courageous.
And if we look at what the UN is doing right now, it's doing something. It's putting the issue on the table, essentially, because families are forcing the UN to do something about it. The working group was created because of the work of relatives of disappeared persons. Initiatives at all levels have been essentially the result of you know, hard efforts and energy dedicated to this issue by mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and it's really inspiring and encouraging to see that, notwithstanding the gravity of this unacceptable crime, human beings are still able to gather all their energy and do some good.
Blomster: Bernard Duhaime is chair rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. He is also a professor of international law at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Quebec in Montreal and a leading voice on human rights issues on the global stage.
Bernard, thank you very much for taking so much time to talk to us on ºìÌÒÊÓƵ.
Duhaime: Thank you, John.
