Comparative analysis of the legislation of foreign countries on criminal liability for enforced disappearance.

Abstract

The article analyzes the foreign experience of criminal law counteraction to enforced disappearances on the basis of research of the legislation of 50 countries.
 A study of the criminal law of approximately 100 countries has shown that criminal law prohibitions on enforced disappearances are currently contained in the legislation of Albania, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia, Congo, Croatia, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mali, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Northern Macedonia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela.
 It is found that the place of enforced disappearance in the system of the Special Part of foreign criminal laws is defined differently. The article establishes that the vast majority of legislators recognized this act as a crime against international law order.
 It is noteworthy that many legislators did not single out a separate article on liability for enforced disappearance, but recognized this act as a type of crime against humanity, mentioning it in the relevant “general” article.
 The article establishes that while formulating the disposition of the relevant criminal law prohibition, most legislators of foreign countries proceeded from the definition of enforced disappearance, given in Art. 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and from the definition of this act, given in paragraph “i” of Part 2 of Art. 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Attention is drawn to the fact that these international legal acts set different standards for criminalizing enforced disappearances.
 There is a significant variety of existing approaches not only to criminalization, but also to penalizing enforced disappearances. The article emphasizes that the studied foreign experience may be needed in improving the domestic criminal law prohibition on liability for such encroachment. In particular, the overwhelming majority of legislators attribute enforced disappearances to crimes against international law order rather than to encroachments on personal liberty.