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The development of guiding principles for the proper management of the dead in humanitarian emergencies and help in preventing their becoming missing persons: First Expert's Meeting

Geneva, 30 November–1 December 2018, University of Geneva Law Faculty, Swiss National Science Foundation, Right to Truth, Truth(s) through Rights project, and the ICRC Missing Persons Project, with the participation of the University of Milan Medico-Legal Institute, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, and the International Organization for Standardization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2020

Conference report
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Executive summary

When large numbers of people die as a result of humanitarian emergencies, their bodies and remains are often managed with little consideration for their dignity. This may impact the capacity to identify the deceased and prevent them from becoming missing persons. Many of the existing guidelines for managing the dead in emergencies, including those published by the International Police Organization, the World Health Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross, are accomplished from a technical point of view, but offer little or no specific guidance on guaranteeing respect for the deceased and their remains. In 2018, the Missing Persons Project of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Right to Truth, Truth(s) through Rights project of the University of Geneva convened a meeting of experts to discuss the need for developing guidance to guarantee the dignified treatment of the dead in humanitarian emergencies. Participants identified the need worldwide for a set of general principles to guide practitioners and decision-makers in their efforts to ensure respect for dead persons and human remains in humanitarian emergencies, and recommended their development.

Keywords

missing personshumanitarian emergenciesdignified management of the dead
Type
Reports and documents
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 101 , Issue 912: Protracted conflict , December 2019 , pp. 1213 - 1229
Copyright
Copyright © icrc 2020

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Footnotes

*

This report is a summary of a workshop. The views expressed here are those of the participants concerned and are not necessarily those of the organizations that they represent.

Report Coordinators: Sévane Garibian (RTTR) and Morris Tidball-Binz (ICRC)

Report Authors: Zahira Aragüete-Toribio, Adriana Schnyder and Marion Vironda Dubray (RTTR)

Invited Experts: José Alcorta (ISO), Lt. Col. Geoffrey Cardozo (retired British Army officer), Ben Carson (ISO), Cristina Cattaneo (University of Milan), Rudi Coninx (WHO), Stephen Cordner (Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and Monash University), Tania Delabarde (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Caroline Douillez (ICRC), Serge Eko (International Criminal Police Organization), Francisco Ferrándiz (Spanish National Research Council), Oran Finegan (ICRC), Luis Fondebrider (Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team), Tony Fracasso (University Centre of Legal Medicine), Sévane Garibian (RTTR), Pierre Guyomarc'h (ICRC), Jamila Hammami (ICRC), Tom Holland (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency), Maria Dolores Morcillo (ICRC), Dina Shokry (Cairo University), Senem Skulj (ICRC), Morris Tidball-Binz (ICRC), Florian von König (ICRC)

Note-Takers: Zahira Aragüete-Toribio (RTTR), Arpita Mitra (ICRC), Adriana Schnyder (RTTR), Olivier van Den Brand (RTTR), Marion Vironda Dubray (RTTR) and Vanessa Vuille (RTTR)

References

1 Project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. See: www.right-truth-impunity.ch/en (all internet references were accessed in May 2020).

2 See ICRC, Missing Persons Project: Working Together to Address a Global Human Tragedy, Geneva, 2018Google Scholar, available at: www.icrc.org/en/publication/4375-missing-persons-project.

3 Cordner, Stephen and Tidball-Binz, Morris, “Humanitarian Forensic Action: Its Origins and Future”, Forensic Science International, Vol. 279, 2017CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 INTERPOL, Disaster Victim Identification Guide, 2018, available at: www.interpol.int/en/content/download/589/file/18Y1344%20E%20DVI_Guide.pdf.

5 Cordner, Stephen, Coninx, Rudi, Hyo-Jeong, Kim, van Alpen, Dana and Tidball-Binz, Morris (eds), Management of Dead Bodies after Disasters: A Field Manual for First Responders, 2nd ed., WHO and ICRC, Geneva, 2016Google Scholar.

6 UN, The Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Deaths: The Revised United Nations Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, UN Doc. HR/PUB/17/4, New York and Geneva, 2017 (UN Doc. E/ST/CSDHA/.12, 1991).

7 S. Cordner et al., above note 5.

8 INTERPOL, above note 4.

9 See OSAC, “OSAC Registry Approved Standards”, available at: www.nist.gov/topics/organization-scientific-area-committees-forensic-science/osac-registry-approved-standards.

10 “Haiti Shows the Importance of Dealing with Dead Bodies When Disaster Strikes”, The Guardian, 1 November 2012, available at: www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/nov/01/haiti-dead-bodies-disaster-strikes.

11 Sphere Project, Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response, 3rd ed, Practical Action Publishing, Rugby, 2011.

12 See ICRC, Missing Persons: A Handbook for Parliamentarians, Geneva, 2009Google Scholar, available at: www.icrc.org/en/publication/1117-missing-persons-handbook-parliamentarians.

13 See Francisco Ferrándiz, Below Ground: Mass Grave Exhumations and Human Rights in Historical, Transnational and Comparative Perspective, Instituto de Lengua Literatura y Antropología, 2016–18, available at: http://illa.csic.es/en/research-project/below-ground-mass-grave-exhumations-human-rights-historical-transnational.

14 Parra, Roberto C., Anstett, Élisabeth, Perich, Pierre and Buikstra, Jane, “Unidentified Deceased Persons: Social Life, Social Death and Humanitarian Action”, in Parra, Roberto C., Zapico, Sara C. and Ubelaker, Douglas H. (eds), Forensic Science and Humanitarian Action: Interacting with the Dead and the Living, Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2020CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosenblatt, Adam, Digging for the Disappeared: Forensic Science after Atrocity, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2015CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Cordner, Stephen and Ellingham, Sarah T. D., “Two Halves Make a Whole: Both First Responders and Experts are Needed for the Management and Identification of the Dead in Large Disasters”, Forensic Science International, Vol. 279, 2017CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

16 See ISO, “Directives and Policies”, available at: www.iso.org/directives-and-policies.html.

17 ISO 22320:2018, “Emergency Management – Guidelines for Incident Management”; ISO/PWI 23804, “Emergency Management – Framework”.

18 ISO 22319:2017, “Community Resilience – Guidelines for Planning the Involvement of Spontaneous Volunteers”.

19 ISO 22395:2018, “Community Resilience – Guidelines for Supporting Vulnerable Persons in an Emergency”.