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Human Rights Council – 13th Regular Session

Interactive Dialogue with Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Special Representative of the Secretary-General on IDPs

Intervention by Permanent Mission of Australia
9 March 2010

Australia thanks the two Working Group Chairs for presenting their reports and would like to congratulate all members of the two Groups for their important work.

We also welcome the presentation and report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons. As this is the Special Representative’s final report to the Council, we would like to thank Professor Kaelin for his tireless work over his two terms in support of the human rights of IDPs.

To the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, we commend you for your work over this reporting period, including the transmission of 456 new cases to Governments.

We are gravely concerned that over this reporting period you have had to send communications to Governments regarding reported harassment of relatives of disappeared persons. Further, we listened carefully to your remarks on the special consequences of enforced disappearances for women left behind, including their susceptibility to intimidation and reprisals.

Given this, we appreciate the Working Group’s conclusion that families left behind are also victims of enforced disappearances. We invite the Working Group to comment further on the repercussions of enforced disappearances on families and what states might do to support these victims.

To the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, we note the Group’s attention to legal and judicial education in Equatorial Guinea, particularly in the form of the new Institute of Judicial Practice. We invite the Working Group to comment on what role such education programs can play in preventing arbitrary detention and what support such programs receive or should receive from the international community.