[2] Following a General Assembly resolution in 1992 containing a 21 article declaration about enforced disappearance,[5] and its resolution of 1978 requesting that recommendations be made,[6] the Commission on Human Rights established an "inter-sessional open-ended working group to elaborate a draft legally binding normative instrument for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance" in 2001.

[1] The Group concluded its work in 2006 and its draft international convention was adopted by the Human Rights Council on 29 June 2006, and welcomed the offer by France to host the signing ceremony.

The Convention includes an optional complaints system whereby citizens of parties may appeal to the Committee for assistance in locating a disappeared person.

[11] A question asked in Parliament about whether there was any intention to sign the Convention, resulted in the answer that the Government needed "to conduct a detailed analysis of the provisions of the treaty and their implications for implementation in order to determine the UK's position towards ratification".

[15] A number of European countries were not initial signatories to the convention; these included the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands.

[17] The initial signatories were Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Congo, Croatia, France, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Japan, Lithuania, Maldives, Moldavia, Morocco, Uganda, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Macedonia, Chad, Tunisia, Vanuatu, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chile, Comoros, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Finland, Grenada, Honduras, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Niger, Paraguay, Portugal, Samoa, Sweden, and Uruguay.

The primary purpose of the ICAED is working together towards early ratification and effective implementation of the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

Amnesty International is campaigning for Costa Rica, Pakistan, East Timor, Burundi, Portugal, Morocco, Lebanon, Cape Verde, Serbia, and Paraguay to ratify the convention.