A/HRC/16/70 125. Information on persons unaccounted for, including ante-mortem data, should be collected and processed fairly and lawfully. States should ensure respect for the relevant standards and principles with regard to the protection of personal data whenever information, including medical and genetic information, is managed and processed. 126. States should cooperate at the international level to effectively solve cases of missing persons by providing mutual assistance in terms of information-sharing, victim assistance, locating and identifying missing persons, and in exhuming, identifying and returning human remains. Parties to an armed conflict should refrain from acting on the basis of reciprocity when addressing the issue of missing persons. 127. States that are parties to an armed conflict should fully cooperate with ICRC in order to establish the fate and whereabouts of missing persons. 128. Financial and technical assistance should be provided to the countries and/or official bodies concerned for exhumation and identification processes. 129. International and regional organizations involved in solving the problem of missing persons should develop cooperation further within their respective mandates while ensuring synergy and avoiding duplication. Cooperation agreements and partnerships should be developed not only at the intergovernmental level, but also with national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, civil society structures and associations of families of missing persons. 130. States should raise public awareness of the problem of missing persons as a fundamental concern of international humanitarian law and human rights law, and encourage the mass media to draw the public’s attention to this problem and to the needs of families of missing persons. 131. The establishment of a special rapporteur on missing persons with a relevant mandate would significantly enhance the existing international mechanisms protecting the rights of missing persons and their families. 22