Legal Analysis of the Crime of Enforced Disappearance of Persons in International Law as a Violation of Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Enforced or involuntary disappearances ofpersons is a unique and consolidated act, during which, the victim is abducted, illegally detained and often tortured during interrogation, killed, and the body concealed. This action violates the victims’ human rights considerably. The “individual's right to recognition before the law” under Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of these rights that is seriously violated by committing this act. Forced disappearance is recognized in international instruments as a “crime against humanity”. This is one of the most serious forms of placing a person outside the protection of law and this practice violates the individual's right to the recognition of legal personality. In other words, this action put individuals in an uncertain situation in which they don’t have access to their minimum human rights. Hence, they are not recognized as a person before the law and they are deprived of legal rights derived from the recognition of the legal personality. Accordingly, this paper aims to provide an analytic descriptive study in order to express the nature of the crime of forced disappearance of persons, and based on international documents and practices, the reasons why this crime is regarded as a violation of Article 6 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be analyzed.