A/HRC/43/56 disappearance is a refusal to acknowledge the arrest, detention or abduction, or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of such person or persons. 302 The Committee on Enforced Disappearance has concluded that enforced disappearance can constitute acts of torture within the meaning of Article 1 of the UN Convention against Torture.303 27. Article 9(2) of the Convention on Enforced Disappearance provides for command responsibility for those with direct or indirect oversight over their subordinates who fail to prevent and punish the crime of enforced disappearance. Article 6 creates an obligation for states parties to establish competence to exercise jurisdiction over enforced disappearance when an alleged perpetrator is on its territory. Suspected perpetrators of enforced disappearance in South Sudan can face accountability for this crime in states exercising jurisdiction over this crime when committed abroad. 28. With regard to torture, as recently noted by the UK Supreme Court, “A person acting in an official capacity” includes “a person who acts or purports to act, otherwise than in a private and individual capacity, for or on behalf of an organisation or body which exercises, in the territory controlled by that organisation or body and in which the relevant conduct occurs, functions normally exercised by governments over their civilian populations. Furthermore, it covers any such person whether acting in peace time or in a situation of armed conflict.”304 Individuals from multiple armed groups in South Sudan may be considered to have acted or are acting in an ‘official capacity’ and thus their acts are potentially prosecutable as torture in the many jurisdictions around the world that exercise jurisdiction over extraterritorial torture. 302 Elements of Crimes, International Criminal Court (ICC), 2011, at Article 7(1)(i). See Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED), Communication No. 456/2011, Hernández v. Bolivia, Views adopted on 15 May 2015, para 6.6. 304 R v TRA (Appellant) [2019] UKSC 51, at para. 76. 303 52

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