United Nations General Assembly A/RES/59/200 Distr.: General 23 March 2005 Fifty-ninth session Agenda item 105 (b) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 2004 [on the report of the Third Committee (A/59/503/Add.2)] 59/200. 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 57/215 of 18 December 2002, 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, Bearing in mind Commission on Human Rights resolution 2004/40 of 19 April 2004, 3 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, 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, 4 come within the jurisdiction of the Court as crimes against humanity, _______________ 1 Resolution 217 A (III). Resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex. 3 See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2004, Supplement No. 3 (E/2004/23), chap. II, sect. A. 4 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 04-48826