STATES are not the only negative factors behind the weakening of essential procedures of the CHR. The 2003 report of the Working Group on enforced disappearances (WG) offers a sad illustration of this fact.

Since 1980, five experts appointed by the Commission report to this body on a yearly basis on cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances received from all over the world. This oldest thematic procedure of the CHR was created to act as a channel of communication between families of disappeared persons and the governments concerned. During this 59th session, many groups of relatives from Latin America, Middle East and Asia complain in the Serpentine Bar that the cases they submitted were not even dealt with. Their dismay has serious grounds.

In its 2003 report, the WG explains that two of its five members (those from Malaysia and Nigeria) did not attend any of last year's three sessions. Moreover, a third member "strongly objects" to the report (without explaining why). Thus, the document was approved by two members only, namely the new Western expert and the Chairman, who is a former minister and still engaged in the politics of his country, Peru. The latter, the report notes, did not participate in the decisions relating to the more than 3,000 cases concerning his country.  In the practice, therefore, the Secretariat is conducting the entire procedure.

Only 120 new cases were transmitted to governments in 2002 and 16 of these cases occurred before the 1990s. Therefore, reading the report, an observer ignorant of patterns of human rights abuses worldwide might wrongly conclude that the horrendous practice of enforced disappearances will soon be a thing of the past. The contrary is true: organisations of relatives present in Geneva protest and claim they submitted hundreds of new cases to the OHCHR last year. Most of these cases were not even mentioned in the report.

The official replies to these protests focus on the lack of administrative support the WG receives from the UN Secretariat. This is too superficial an answer.

Over the last few years, staff resources have indeed diminished. But thousands of new cases were not examined at all and therefore not transmitted to the WG.

The report states that "the existing backlog of information that must be processed prior to its consideration by the Working Group relates to over 15,750 cases".

Furthermore, hundreds of decisions taken in 2001 "remain to be conveyed to the respective Governments". As the experience of the last 20 years shows, hundreds of lives were rescued thanks to urgent reaction by the UN. The current situation is shameful. Bureaucratic explanations to the backlog show no concern whatsoever for the fate of the victims. This is no longer acceptable.

To perform its task, the WG needs more commitment, both from its members and from the UN Secretariat. For several years now, the WG has taken several restrictive measures to reduce its backlog. Relatives were abruptly told that cases should be submitted first to national authorities, a requirement which is in contradiction to the original mandate of the Working Group.

It was further decided to authorise relatives to withdraw their complaints, even when the cases of disappearances were not clarified, and in some countries this exposed the sources of complaints to undue pressure from the authorities.

Increasingly, the Secretariat requested sources of information to provide evidence that the "arrest" had been made by agents of the state while, clearly, the conduct of investigations lies in the hands of the government (and not the victim). Several countries were urged to find a collective solution to cases of disappearances, in particular in the field of financial compensation, so that these cases could be closed. Finally, country-specific observations in the report were limited to those countries with more than 100 alleged cases of disappearances.

Another discrepancy lies in the twofold function of the WG. Its 2003 report emphasises that the WG's "role ends when the fate and whereabouts of the missing person has been clearly established as a result of investigations". At the same time, the WG is to monitor states' compliance with their obligations deriving from the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and this instrument defines the crime of enforced disappearance as a continuous crime.

Many paragraphs of the 2003 report are identical to those in last year's report. The CHR is again informed of the 1997 invitation of the Government of Iran for the WG to visit the country, with the additional information that "a mutually convenient date is being sought".

On Colombia, it is reported that the government "reiterated its invitation of 30 March 1995 … the Working Group accepted the invitation and a mutually convenient date is being sought".

No reply was received from the governments of Algeria and Iraq to the WG's request to visit to the country. And, while the budget contained provisions for country visits, no visits took place in 2002.

It is time that human rights NGOs and organisations of relatives of victims seriously considered joint action to obtain drastic changes in the working methods of the Working Group in order to improve the UN's response to the fate of thousands of disappearances.