INTRODUCTION

This report examines cases of "enforced disappearance" in Lebanon. The term was comprehensively defined by the U.N. General Assembly in 1992, in the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. The declaration identified the elements that must be necessary in order to characterize an act as an enforced disappearance:

[P]ersons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, thereby placing such persons outside the protection of the law.3

Human Rights Watch has documented cases in Lebanon that meet these criteria. Syrian security forces in Lebanon, in some cases with the support and cooperation of their Lebanese counterparts, have deprived Lebanese citizens and stateless Palestinians of their liberty. Furthermore, once these acts were committed, family members and lawyers were unable to obtain any form of official acknowledgment of either the arrest, detention or abduction or the whereabouts of the individuals who were "disappeared," placing these persons outside the protection of the law.

The declaration provides the authoritative set of principles and broad guidelines to assist states in preventing and eliminating enforced disappearances. The declaration states unequivocally that "[n]o State shall practice, permit or tolerate enforced disappearances."4 It notes that such actions should be classified as extremely serious criminaloffenses,5 and states that "[n]o order or instruction of any public authority, civilian, military or other, may be invoked to justify an enforced disappearance. Any person receiving such an order or instruction shall have the right and duty not to obey it."6 The declaration also describes the grave consequences of enforced disappearances:

Such act of enforced disappearance places the persons subjected thereto outside the protection of the law and inflicts severe suffering on them and their families. It constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia, the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It also violates or constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.7