After WWII, high military officials of the Third Reich, architects of the infamous “Nacht und Nebel” decree (which was an illicit practice of the Extraordinary Rendition and Enforced Disappearance), were tried and hanged by the Nuremburg Military Tribunals. The allied forces staffed tribunals recognised enforced disappearance as a flagrant violation of human rights. It is not only a human rights violation but also unanimously accepted as one of the gravest crimes in our modern world. To terminate the felony of involuntary disappearances, international regimes have enacted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPED). Rendering to ICPED under Article: 2, “enforced disappearance” is considered to be the “arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.” Under Article: 7 (2) (i) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), “Enforced disappearance of persons” means “the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organisation, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.” In Pakistan, with the abduction of the older brother of Akhtar Mengal during 1970s, enforced disappearances became a part of the public vocabulary. A surge in this practice was seen during the Musharraf regime. Unofficial reports have documented that scores of people were taken away by state authorities by using the rhetoric of war on terror, and were detained in secret detention centres or killed extra-judicially. This deterrence policy continued to be practised in the democratic epochs of the Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. Since the inception of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, 6,124 cases of enforced disappearances/missing persons have been reported. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stood first with 2,019 cases of missing persons, followed by Sindh with 1,367 cases, Punjab with 1,099 cases, Balochistan with 356 cases, former FATA with 229 cases, and the Islamabad Capital Territory positioned last with 217 cases. These reported cases are 1/10th of un-registered cases as a statement of Akhter Mengal revealed that nearly 10,000 people, including women and children, have been vanished from Balochistan. In Pakistan, with the abduction of the older brother of Akhtar Mengal during 1970s, enforced disappearances became a part of the public vocabulary The judiciary has failed to ensure justice for enforced disappearances by abdicating its constitutional authority and responsibility to guarantee the right to life and personal liberty of persons. Although victims’ families filed the writ of habeas corpus before the apex court of provinces and the centre, the courts have only issued “rule” against the respondents, and have accepted the statements of law enforcement agencies, which have formally refused involvement in all crimes of disappearance. In 2007, the United Nations opened for signature ICPED, which entered into force on December 23, 2010, but Pakistan, to date, is not a party to this convention. According to Article 1 of the convention, “No one shall be subjected to enforced disappearance.” Article 7(1) (i) of ICC state that the systematic practice of enforced disappearances constitutes a crime against humanity. It is significant that in the Kupreški? case in 2000, ICTY found that an enforced disappearance could be characterised as a crime against humanity and also a jus cogens offence. The Inter-American Convention on the Forced Disappearance of Persons also prohibits enforced disappearance as “a grave and abominable offence against the inherent dignity of the human being”, and states that it “violates numerous non-derogable and essential human rights.” Article 24 of ICPED defines a victim as not only the person who is subjected to enforced disappearance, but also as any other individual that has suffered harm as the direct result of enforced disappearance. The UN Declaration on Enforced Disappearance (A/RES/47/133, 1992) specifies that an “enforced disappearance constitutes a violation of 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 and that it violates or constitutes a grave threat to the right to life.” Pakistan is not a party to ICPED but is a party to the ICC; it legally recognises enforced disappearance as an international crime and is bound to ensure accountability. Moreover, the significance of determining the customary law prohibition on enforced disappearance is important as a norm to be invoked within domestic jurisdictions in the absence of a binding treaty law. So the government must ensure justice for enforced disappearances to the families of the disappeared. The writer is an international human rights law expert and lecturer at PMAS, AAU