Confronting the Crime of Enforced Disappearance in comparative criminal legislation

Abstract

The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance of 2006 obligates the states parties to it to take legislative measures to criminalize enforced disappearance and punish it in their domestic legislation, and in response to this, American and European countries worked to embody this through making amendments to their penal laws in force or issuing penal laws specific to punishment on international crimes, including the crime of enforced disappearance. These countries differed in their criminal policies regarding the implementation of their international obligations stemming from the Convention. The research is devoted to shedding light on the experience of criminalizing enforced disappearance in the US and European penal legislation, as it constitutes an important legislative precedent worthy of study, and because its results are of great importance in relation to the criminalization of this crime in other states parties, including Iraq. The research is divided into two sections. The first section deals with the definition of the crime of enforced disappearance in international law, and the second section is devoted to combating the crime of enforced disappearance in American and European legislation.