United Nations
General Assembly
A/RES/57/215
Distr.: General
28 February 2003
Fifty-seventh session
Agenda item 109 (b)
Resolution adopted by the General Assembly
[on the report of the Third Committee (A/57/556/Add.2 and Corr.1–3)]
57/215. Question of enforced or involuntary disappearances
The General Assembly,
Guided by the purposes and principles set forth in the Charter of the United
Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1 the International Covenants
on Human Rights 2 and the other relevant international human rights instruments,
Recalling its resolution 33/173 of 20 December 1978 concerning disappeared
persons and its resolutions on the question of enforced or involuntary
disappearances, in particular resolution 55/103 of 4 December 2000,
Recalling also its resolution 47/133 of 18 December 1992 proclaiming the
Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance as a body
of principles for all States,
Deeply concerned, in particular, by the intensification of enforced
disappearances, including arrest, detention and abduction, where these are part of or
amount to enforced disappearances, in various regions of the world and by the
growing number of reports concerning the harassment, ill-treatment and
intimidation of witnesses of disappearances or relatives of persons who have
disappeared,
Emphasizing that impunity with regard to enforced disappearances contributes
to the perpetuation of this phenomenon and constitutes one of the obstacles to the
elucidation of its manifestations,
Taking note with interest of the initiatives taken at the national and
international levels in order to end impunity,
Acknowledging the fact that acts of enforced disappearance, as defined in the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 3 come within the jurisdiction of
the Court as crimes against humanity,
_______________
1
Resolution 217 A (III).
Resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex.
3
Official Records of the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment
of an International Criminal Court, Rome, 15 June–17 July 1998, vol. I: Final documents (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.02.I.5), sect. A.
2
02 55340