A/HRC/45/13/Add.3 (a) Any person who commits, orders, solicits or induces the commission of, attempts to commit, is an accomplice to or participates in an enforced disappearance; (b) A superior who: (i) Knew, or consciously disregarded information which clearly indicated that subordinates under his or her effective authority and control were committing or about to commit a crime of enforced disappearance; (ii) Exercised effective responsibility for and control over activities which were concerned with the crime of enforced disappearance; (iii) Failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his or her power to prevent or repress the commission of an enforced disappearance or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation or prosecution.49, 50. B. Coordination of the authorities in charge of the search and criminal investigations 54. The obstacles to criminal proceedings already discussed and the lack of cooperation of the perpetrators in the location of the disappeared, owing to the fear of being prosecuted, led to the creation in many countries of special bodies for the purposes of searching for victims. 55. The Working Group has noted that a lack of coordination between State agencies with different responsibilities as regards enforced disappearances – that is, the search for victims, the investigation and the criminal prosecution – can often be one of the key factors that can undermine their effectiveness and result in undue delays. 51 This issue can be particularly acute in States with a federal system of government. Overlapping and interferences can discredit State authorities in the eyes of the public and complicate the process for the victims, who have to repeat depositions, thus risking retraumatization, and at times even personally have to act as the connection between judicial and non-judicial authorities. 56. The search and the criminal investigation should be mutually reinforcing. In line with the Committee on Enforced Disappearances guiding principles for the search for disappeared persons, when the search is conducted by non-judicial authorities, mechanisms and procedures should be clearly established by law52 to ensure cooperation, coordination and an exchange of information between them and the ones responsible for carrying out the criminal investigation, in order to guarantee that the progress and results achieved on both sides feed into one another regularly and without delay.53 Coordinating the efforts of the different agencies, thereby avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy, offers the potential to better manage their generally limited resources and facilitates the exchange of information among authorities. 54 Ensuring the interoperability of databases of both the search and criminal 49 50 51 52 53 54 Several countries solved the issue of accusation through the theory of indirect perpetrator through organized power structures. See International Commission of Jurists, Enforced Disappearance and Extrajudicial Execution: Investigation and Sanction, p. 220ff. The need to include the responsibility of superiors in legislation brings about strong consensus. See E/CN.4/2005/102/Add.1, principle 27 (b); Minnesota Protocol on the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Death (2016), para. 26; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, arts. 25 and 28. See also the contribution by the Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo to the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, communication reference No. CED/C/15/2, 24 January 2019, p. 4. Available at www.ohchr.org. See the contribution by Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, p. 4. See, for instance, E/CN.4/1996/38, para. 203; and A/HRC/WGEID/114/1, para. 40. See also Swisspeace, “Report: coordinating the search and criminal investigations concerning disappeared persons”, June 2020, p. 2, describing experiences of coordination in Colombia, the Gambia, Mexico, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In particular with regards to exhumations, seizure of evidence, chain of custody and the setting of confidential databases. CED/C/7, annex, principle 13, para. 2. In the report on their visit to Mexico, the Working Group recommended the creation of an interinstitutional committee, supervised by one federal authority able to coordinate the different authorities 11