What Role for the Convention against Enforced Disappearance in Times of Migrant Shipwrecks?

This chapter analyses the provisional version of the very first General Comment to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICED), which the Committee on Enforced disappearances (CED) decided to dedicate to the problem of enforced disappearance in the context of migration. Given the CED’s focus on enforced disappearance during migrants’ journeys, especially when they risk their lives at sea, here we question what role – if any – the ICED can specifically play in times of migrant shipwrecks and, in the affirmative, how it complements the obligations already emerged from other human rights treaties and areas of international law in case of distress at sea. While highlighting some key definitory problems, especially with regard to the existing difference between the concepts of enforced disappearance and disappeared/missing migrant, this chapter advances some proposals for improving the CED's provisional General Comment before its upcoming adoption.