Connecting victims and CSOs to United Nations mechanisms : how to foster effective engagement.

 

This session aimed to provide a space for civil society organizations who support families and document cases of enforced disappearance to directly exchange with several United Nations bodies: WGEID, CED, Human Rights Committee and Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions. The discussion centred on how to encourage the reporting of enforced disappearance cases to UN mechanisms and more broadly on the contribution of victims and CSOs.

Key issues raised included the following: 

 •Victim and CSO crucial contribution to UN mechanisms: Panelists from UN mechanisms highlighted the crucial contribution of victims and CSOs, “the engine” of their work. Victims and CSOs can contribute to the work of the relevant UN bodies in different ways: by documenting and submitting individual cases, submitting information in alternative reports, or during meetings, be they online, during sessions or during country visits. 

• Challenges: Different types of challenges were mentioned, including the lack of awareness from victims and CSOs about available mechanisms, their procedures and engagement modalities. CSOs supporting families also raised the need to manage their expectations regarding procedures that span over several years and frustration stemming from the lack of information and updates on their case. The risk of reprisals for engaging with UN mechanisms was raised as an additional challenge. For their part, the UN mechanisms pointed out the lack of cooperation from certain States as a major challenge to carrying out their mandate, providing information to victims on their cases and undertaking country visits. 

• Resource constraints: The lack of resources was repeatedly highlighted by UN mechanisms and CSOs as the main challenge. On the one hand, CSOs need adequate resources to support families and help them provide their crucial input to UN mechanisms. On the other hand, UN mechanisms need adequate human, technical and financial resources to carry out their mandate effectively. 

• Coordination and complementarity amongst bodies: The WGEID and CED, the two UN specialized bodies on enforced disappearances, coordinate to ensure complementarity and efficiency. Coordination also exists with other UN human rights bodies. For example, the Human Rights Committee cross-references and follows upon the recommendations formulated by other treaty bodies or special procedures, including CED and WGEID. 

 • Impact on the ground: Success stories of collaborative engagement were shared to show the impact of UN mechanisms’ work on the ground. In Mexico, over 450 individuals have been located thanks to CED urgent action procedure – a procedure aimed at locating and protecting a disappeared person – and strategic local measures supported by the UN. Besides, the UNFPA human identification programme, which implements CED recommendation to establish a system of fingerprint matching, has increased the capacity of local authorities to process digital fingerprints and achieved outstanding results.

Recommendations for action 

• Facilitating CSO and victim participation - UN mechanisms should develop and widely disseminate material and guidance on how to engage with UN mechanisms in as many languages as possible - CSOs and victims should not hesitate to use available mechanisms and reach out to them to register cases or requests meetings, including online - When a State will not accept a State visit, academic institutions could invite relevant bodies to allow them to exchange with local actors. 

• Building the capacity of local actors: CSOs and local actors should make the most of the mechanisms’ diverse and extensive expertise and not hesitate to request capacity-building workshops, either in the field or online. 

• Providing adequate resources: CSOs should be allocated adequate resources to contribute to the work of the UN mechanisms effectively. Likewise, the relevant mechanisms should be provided with the human, technical and financial re