 I'm telling you this is going to be a very, very interesting show. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech, and more specifically this is Community Matters, but in this case it's the larger communities, the global community, and we're calling it In Forced Disappearances. You're going to learn in the course of this show what that's all about. So maybe about 90 days ago there was a program, the Paul Chung Memorial Lecture, which is done by, I guess, Shirley Daniel, and the, what's the name of the school? Shidler Business. It's part of Shidler College Business. They do this memorial lecture of Paul Chung, who was a benefactor of the school. And it's always a distinguished visitor. In this case, in this year, it was Tae Yoon Baek, who is with me today, who is a Korean professor at the UH School of Law, the William S. Richardson School of Law, and who joins us to talk about, I think, what might be his favorite subject, In Forced Disappearances. Thank you very much for inviting me to this show. You're a human rights person, aren't you? You can call me like that. Yeah, human rights is my dear subject, and I'm teaching international human rights law at the law school, and I'm also working human rights issues at the UN Human Rights Council as a member of a working group. How do you get to be a person who is dedicated to human rights? I mean, I think we all should be. I feel in my own perception of the world, I am becoming more interested in human rights than I ever was. A lot of our shows here on ThinkTech are dedicated to human rights and Amnesty International, that sort of thing. So you went to school originally in South Korea and Seoul. Tell us about your training and tell us how you got involved in human rights. Yeah, actually, as we mentioned, I'm from South Korea, and I attended my high school and college at the Seoul National University College of Law. And I have been also involved in the democratic movement in South Korea, later the labor movement as well. And during the democracy movement in South Korea, actually the concept of human rights was not that much popular. They were more focused on the complete achievement of democracy by ending military dictatorship regimes. However, after the democratization is consolidated, more and more interest in the individual rights and human rights and also ways to guarantee those fundamental rights through legal system became more and more important issues. And to me, after coming to the United States to study master of law degree and also later doctoral degree program, I came to understand that the nature of human rights, which is not guaranteed or entitled rights from the beginning, rather it's a result of ongoing movement to protect people from tyranny, violence, or other human rights violating system. Therefore, human rights itself is actually an extension of my old interest that we had had. We had had in Korea, and also it is a language that the whole global community can share together when they discuss human dignity, ways to protect human being from those threats to human dignity. So you've studied it, you've written about it, you've taught in this area, and you have participated actively with the United Nations. Can you talk about your experience with the United Nations? Actually, I had the honor to be invited to consider the position to be a member of UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Enforced or Involved in Disparency in 2015, which I accepted to pursue. And after a vigorous process of appointment and selection, I was actually selected to be one of those five members who represent the 194 UN member states. And I'm representing those states from Asian-Pacific region. So as a member of Working Group on Enforced or Involved in Disparency, we share cases of enforced disappearances when a family member or source submit a case to UN Human Rights Council. And once the case is registered, we start to compile and determine the nature of the disappearances and assist the government and also the victims to locate the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared persons. It sounds like a TV show. It sounds very interesting because you actually deal with the relatives of somebody who has disappeared under mysterious, if not draconian circumstances. So that's very, you meet them. Now you go to Europe to participate in these United Nations meetings? Yes. In fact, every law enforcement agencies are there to help people. If your family member relatives are missing, probably we will go to police pressing to look for the information that might be available. However, enforced disappearances issue is a serious violation of human rights because it is done either by governmental agencies, officials, or individuals or groups who are under direct or indirect or consent or in the occasions of the governmental agencies. So once you are subject to this type of deprivation of liberty, your family member, everybody will be in serious kind of threatening circumstances. So sometimes those governments or even the law enforcement agency in their local context may not be helpful at all. They may be corrupt. Exactly. Or they may be involved in those wrongdoings. So those family members are actually intimidated or even threatened not to pursue. So in that kind of situation, they come to the UN. And UN, especially my working group, is not to investigate or blame those crime only. We try to be humanitarian body to facilitate the communication between those who are suffering the victims of enforced disappearances and their families and the governmental agency who wants to look for the whereabouts or faiths. And so by establishing this channel of communication and continuously facilitating ending this kind of serious human rights violation. We are one of the rare UN human rights body that are very relatively well received by those governmental body as well. So you're trying to get the person back. Exactly. And when we go to Geneva for our session, we have three sessions every year. During our sessions, we invite the ambassadors of each government that are concerned and also family members whose family loved ones are missing and also NGOs during our sessions. And we try to study the pattern of the disappearances or the specific circumstances of the disappearances and also the results of the governmental investigation reported to us so that we can eventually solve the individual case or more broadly end the kind of patterns of human rights violation that are recording in specific country context. So interesting. Now suppose this organization and its governmental, I mean it's going to be on the final exam. What is an enforced disappearance? And you heard Natayvon Beck tell you generally what the definition of it was. It's a government agency or some group related to a government agency operating at the interest of the government agency that effectively kidnaps somebody, takes them off the street and removes them from society and holds them in imprisonment of some kind. Sometimes that person survives, but that's a small percentage. Most of them are killed. Sorry to interrupt you, but if I could add a little bit about the elements of enforced disappearances, we look at three elements as a core part that consists of enforced disappearances. Only one hand the arrest, detention, or abduction, which is a form of deprivation of liberty should happen, but it should be by either governmental officials or individual or organized group that are acting on behalf of the government, or with consent, director or indirect, or at least in the acquiescence of the government. And furthermore, the third element is that the government refuses to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. By doing this, they are actually putting the person out of the protection of the law. So overall, these three elements actually constitute a crime called enforced disappearances. In that very country. Exactly. And it is also a crime under international law as well. Yes. And would the Hague criminal court would address it? Actually, if it is committed by the governmental agencies in the widespread and systematic manner, it will definitely consist of crimes against humanity. And if this is conducted under a war situation, again Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention will be bringing into and then this will be also considered as a war crime. Therefore, if crimes against humanity or war crimes are committed and if the state had ratified the wrong statute, the state and agencies can be even subject to the jurisdiction of international criminal court. And without even going to international criminal court, if the state had ratified the international convention on the enforced disappearances, they will also subject to the review of the committee on enforced disappearances. So therefore, it's all kind of governmental kind of undertaking to end this crime. Sure. Yeah. And surprisingly, many governments actually are trying to end this wrongful practice. But in many situations, the understanding of the nature of this crime is not really shared. And also, the level of the state response to this type of crime is not still widely shared. So there's a room for the state to take more actions. And also, we are trying very hard to also enhance the cooperation, level of cooperation with the government through UN facilities, UN fora. Is there an agreement among nations, a convention of some kind where they sign on and say, we agree with the United Nations position on this. We agree that it is a crime. We won't do it. We won't tolerate it. Is there something that is an agreement between nations on that? Yeah. There is actually an international convention on enforced disappearances. And this convention actually has jurisdiction over those states who ratified, signed and ratified this treaty. Additionally, my working group is not based upon that convention. This working group has been established in 1980 when, as you may remember, a lot of missing cases had happened in Latin American country under military junta. And the UN commission on human rights at the time were really concerned about those missing people. And the difficulty of treating those issues is because they are not actually abduction or kidnapping. And without finding their bodies, it's very hard to punish those perpetrators. And the family members are completely left without given any type of remedies. So the UN General Assembly eventually adopted a declaration on enforced disappearances in 1992. Before that, the UN established my working group in 1980. And we continuously report back to UN Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly. So my working group's jurisdiction is broader than the committee. All UN member states are actually subject to our review. And the state actually responds to our communications and the request for investigation and information. But the level of cooperation varies. So we are trying very hard to emphasize how serious issue this is and how important the government should take measures to end this. Well, we're going to take a short break, Taeyun-Bek. But I want to say that after we come back, I'd like to sort of get a handle from you on where this is now. How much of it is happening? How much of it is being solved? How much of it is not? And what the future is, given a very, what do you want to call it, an angry world these days, and it sounds like your work is cut out for you. Thank you very much for saying that. That's Taeyun-Bek. And he is a professor at William H. Richardson School of Law. And his area of greatest interest is enforced disappearances. When we come back, we'll learn more about that. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lowe, and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at 2 o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means, let's take healthy back. Aloha. Aloha. I want to invite all of you to talk story with John Wahee every other Monday here at Think Tech Hawaii. And we have special guests like Professor Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii, who joins us from time to time to talk about the political happenings in this state. Please join us every other Monday, Aloha. Back with Tayun Beck, and he is a professor of law at the William S. Richardson School of Law. And he is specializing in assisting the United Nations in a workforce on enforced disappearances, which is something we all ought to know about. You know, a comment on discussion so far, it seems to me that the one most threatening thing that can happen to anyone in any society is to disappear and not come back and presumably be killed. And so we really need to study this. We have to shine light on it. And that's what Tayun Beck does. So one thing to catch up on something you said in the earlier part of the show is, you know, sometimes there may be demands for ransom, OK? Now does the workgroup get involved in when a family comes and says, oh, our relative has disappeared. We think the government has taken our relative. And the government then makes a ransom demand. Are you ever in the business of negotiating ransom? We are not representing the family member in actual resolution of those situations. But we have been documenting a lot of cases in which sometimes the ransom are involved. And to discuss the ransom issue, we first should mention those, the responsibility of non-state actors. In fact, sometimes the disappearances are conducted not only by governmental agencies, but also organized gangsters or militia groups, or sometimes in domestic conflict situations, some cause a governmental body that is controlling the region. And under the current UN system, those non-state actors are not member of UN. And therefore, according to our mandate, the act committed by them are not directly subject to our kind of mandate. Therefore, we first look at the governmental environment in terms of committing the crime or in terms of investigation or the level of acquiescence or the level of governmental efforts to perform the duty to protect the family members. And if the due diligence is not fully met, then we still can raise the issue with the government. We have said that sometimes non-state actors or those militia groups or quasi-governmental body can arrest people under the color of law, law enforcement. And they do not go through proper notification process toward the family members. And they do not detain the person in the regular prison. So when the person is gone missing, those issues actually are very hard for us to determine enforcement disappearances. And in some situations, those people who are involved in the abduction pursue personal interest or sometimes more systematically pursue monetary gains by requiring ransom for looking for information or in exchange for even release of the person. And in some other context, even governmental agencies or secret agencies are using their official facility and their official capacity to contact those family members although disappeared and they demand money. And sometimes those ransom are paid but the person had not been returned. And those situations is not often seen in the country like Sri Lanka where they had gone through internal conflicts. And also in every situation, actually the family members are desperate and they would like to do whatever is requested, exactly, pay ransom or pay any kind of bribery, whatever is requested, they are willing to do that. So a lot of problematic practices we see and those family members are in a very vulnerable situation. Yeah, spend every last dime trying to recover your relative. So I'd like to just go a step further on the United States. Does it have a policy? How cooperative is the United States in terms of working with your work group and working to facilitate the return of people who have been disappeared? United States is a country relatively free from the general practice of enforcement disappearances by the government. And however, we sometimes see situations where enforcement disappearances are actually happening when the US is involved. Like if during the counterterrorism war, potential suspects of a terrorist are arrested in cooperation between US security agency and local governmental agencies. And if the person is handed over to the possession of the US or at least with the US involvement continuing if the person is missing, we register the case either under US or either the country while sending the case also to the United States as well. And in terms of the treatment of those prisoner of war or the combatants of militia group or al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups, there are many cases actually that are related to enforcement disappearances. And we are requesting US government's assistance to that. And US government is responding to us, but there are still... Okay, they're not being rogue. So one other thing that you mentioned is Latin America. A lot of people in this country won't go to Latin America because of the danger of being kidnapped and held to ransom. And it's happened in so many countries. And now we have Bolsonaro in Brazil, right wing, very right wing, now he's the president of Brazil. And this may happen in Brazil too. And so you must have an ongoing stream of cases that come from Latin America because look at the, for example, the caravans crossing Mexico right now. A lot of them are leaving their homes in Latin America, in Central America to avoid this very kind of inhuman treatment of people. So I guess my question is you must have a lot of cases coming from that area. Historically, Latin American countries have a lot of enforcement disappearances cases. And they are still in our system, many of which unfortunately are not resolved there. However, new cases are also continuously being reported because many of Latin American countries have some internal, sometimes insurgent group, or even organized gangster group. And even if the initial abduction or detention has been happened by non-state actor, we often see their governmental involvement, police officers assisting, or lack of proper investigation. So many people who are still subject to disappearances are reporting the case to us. And we continuously work with the government of Latin American region like Mexico and Argentina and Chile. And we have a list of countries during our meeting. We, however, are very glad to see at least many Latin American countries these days are trying to end this practice, taking proactive role by redefining the convention against the enforcement disappearances. And also even legislating domestically a crime of enforcement disappearances. In many countries, there is no crime of enforcement disappearances. They think abduction kidnapping is enough. But abduction kidnapping is different type of crime than enforcement disappearances. And this crime is actually continuing crime unless it is resolved. So to have the provision of enforcement disappearances crime in criminal law make huge differences. So what I can say to you is that, yes, problems are continuing, especially with those migration stream going on. There are also many people who are missing during their kind of process of migration, especially if they are defrauded by the trafficking agencies or if there is any agency who just run away after they are caught in borderline. And the border guards, if they just kick them out without giving water or any proper equipment while there are deserts, people can die because of those actions. And so even at this time, we see a flow of new problems. And in Libya, as we have seen, childs who are trying to enter into another country's border sometimes are not accepted and they drown in the ocean, right? So it's very hard to locate the responsibility. Who is responsible for that specific? Well, let me go a step further on the child. We've seen this year, 2018, we've seen the Trump administration and the immigration service separating parents and children of those who would seek asylum in this country and they physically separate them and don't keep a database. In my opinion, they don't have a database about the parent who's being held here or returned to his or her country and the child who's somewhere in a child facility, but we don't know where. And as far as those parents are concerned, that's a disappearance. It's an enforced disappearance. Yeah. So enforced disappearance can happen because of migration or sometimes the migration can happen because of enforced disappearances in some context. And those child, for example, should be treated with special kind of attention because those child are really susceptible to any type of human rights violation. And if we do not fully kind of give the proper measure, they can be easily victim of enforced disappearances. The United Nations involved in this issue hasn't made a statement. Has your working group got involved in these missing? There are several hundred of them at least. Children who have effectively been disappeared. Nobody can find them. Nobody knows where they are. And yet somehow they are in the custody of the United States government, right at the very top. What is the United Nations doing about that? What are you doing about it? What can we do about it? First of all, in terms of our mandate, we have two different types of activities. On the one hand, we first register cases and determine whether the case is enforced disappearances or not through either urgent procedure or standard procedure. For us to initiate our environment, there should be a case registered reported to our working group in Geneva. Our secretary is actually working to receive all of the information and these complaints. And once it is registered, then it becomes a part of our system. And we start to communicate with the government requesting the information of the way or about of the person. Do you have any cases like that now? I cannot discuss a specific case because of our confidential nature of our mandate. But I think we are still receiving many cases and in the United States, if... Well, if they want to make a complaint to the working group or the United Nations or to the human rights part of the United Nations, where would they go? What would they do? Who would they write to? What website would they look at? Can you give us some help? Some of them may be watching right now. Sure, sure. Actually, UN Human Rights Council has a website called ohtchr.org. And this website is actually leading toward the many of human rights agencies. And also it has a link to a general complaint that you can use to submit a specific situation. And if it is directly related to enforced disappearances, the working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances also link is there. And if you go to the website, there is a form which is very easy to fill out. And if you fill out the complainant form with the identity of the missing person and the situation and the efforts that they had made so far to locate the person, then our secretary located in Geneva will compile it and send it to our working group so that we can start to review. Very important. And with the urgent procedure, we responded within sometimes a week, like the recent Saudi Arabian journalist's initial disappearance. It was reported to us the next day and we issued urgent appeal a week later demanding the government to start to look for the information. And of course, it is led to the tragic murder, premeditated murder. We are thinking, but again, if it's urgent issue, we try to respond urgently. And if it is a normal case that had happened more than longer than three months ago, we go through our regular session and we follow up on that. Additionally, we can also do country visit to study the pattern of enforced disappearances and also report it back to UN Human Rights Council eventually to a general assembly. This is really important. So you're involved in that and you would be involved in that, of course. One point I'd like to cover before we end, I'll tell you in back, is what is the scope of this? Recently, a movie was made by, it was called Human Flow and it was made by a Chinese artist, I don't know if I'll come up with this name in a minute, Ai Weiwei. Yeah. And he'd find the human flow that we're in camps right now in this world, in the global count of them. There were 65 million people in these camps. And as you said, a lot of them are either coming or going as disappeared. But the numbers for enforced disappearances, what do we have? You mentioned that there were 57,000 in total reported forced disappearances. You have seen, your work group has seen, then of the 57,000, how many are unsolved? How many do you believe resulted in a murder? Last year, we have received 800, a little bit more than 800 cases. Around 400 cases we have clarified. And out of those 400 cases, unfortunately, many of them were found dead. And a good number of people were found alive in prison. So sometimes in some countries. So nobody knows that they are in prison. Or in some country, they are kept without actually properly notifying their family members. So it depends on country context. And still, there are so many people who are missing without proper information provided. And the ongoing flow of the enforced disappearances is also very alarming. As you mentioned, in China these days, Xinjiang Uighur people are being re-educated by the government. But from the family point of view, they are displaced from one person to unknown places. And they are detained without proper notification. So it's a kind of a virtually incommunicative detention. And the number that is currently being cited are huge. So yeah, it's very unfortunate. But in many countries in the world so far, 102 countries had been registered. 108 states had been registered so far in our system. And still, 92 states have ongoing enforced disappearance problems. And new cases are coming in. So we should end this as soon as possible with a really cooperation between government, civil society, and also family members. And it's increasing, isn't it? The phenomenon of enforced disappearances. Especially in some areas like Asia and some areas where conflicts are going on, the increase is really, really rapid. So we are really worried. Your work is cut out for you. Thank you for doing your work. Thank you very much. You're allowing me to talk about this. Tyude Beck, Woody Mace Richardson School Professor of Human Rights. Thank you so much.