A/HRC/16/70 49. In Peru, for instance, in a common effort of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Ombudsman’s Office, the Human Rights National Coordination Entity and ICRC, a list of missing persons who disappeared as a consequence of the violence in Peru between 1980 and 2000 was drawn up. In its final report in 2003, the Commission made a series of recommendations focusing on four main domains: institutional reforms; the establishment of a comprehensive reparations programme; the establishment of a national plan of forensic anthropological intervention; and the institution of follow-up mechanisms.16 VII. The right to know 50. The right to know is the pillar of the protection that ought to be afforded to missing persons and their families. 51. The right of family members to know the fate of missing relatives as a result of armed conflict, including their whereabouts or, if dead, the circumstances and cause of their deaths and the correlative obligation to carry out an effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding a disappearance, is provided by both international human rights law and international humanitarian law. 52. The right of the relatives to know the fate of their family member is explicitly laid down in article 32 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. Article 33 of the Protocol further provides that “[a]s soon as circumstances permit…, each party to the conflict shall search for the person who had been reported missing by an adverse Party”. The same was recognized to apply in non-international armed conflict. 53. The right to know also includes the right to information about the place of burial of a missing relative, if known. 54. In addition to international instruments that lay down obligations in relation to missing persons, there is also a wealth of relevant case law that has been built up by regional supervisory bodies over the past 20 years. Thus, it has been generally recognized that a person’s becoming unaccounted for can cause grievous suffering not only for the person who has gone missing but also for that person’s family, and that this suffering can amount to inhuman treatment. Relevant examples from case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights include the cases relating to Velásquez Rodríguez (1988) and Blake (1998). The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights took a similar line in the case of Amnesty International and others v. Sudan (1999). Reference should also be made to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights: in a number of its decisions, the Court has emphasized the obligation of States to take adequate measures to trace missing persons and satisfy families’ right to know.17 55. The Human Rights Council has discussed on various occasions the right to the truth, although in a broader context. In its resolution 12/12, the Council reaffirmed the importance of respecting and ensuring the right to the truth so as to contribute to ending impunity and to promote and protect human rights. The Council noted that the right to the truth may be characterized differently in some legal systems as the right to know or the right to be informed or freedom of information. 16 17 12 See the website of the Truth and Conciliation Commission at www.cverdad.org.pe/ingles/ifinal/index.php. For example, see Aziyev and Aziyeva v. Russia (2008).