Lithuania: Solid legal framework sound basis to continue progress in preventing enforced disappearance, say experts

VILNIUS – Lithuania should continue building on its sound legislative and institutional measures to better prevent and address enforced disappearances, said a delegation* of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

“We recognise the establishment of legal safeguards, notably through the codification of enforced disappearance as an autonomous crime in line with international standards and the inclusion of a broad notion of criminal universal jurisdiction in the Lithuanian legislation,” the delegation said in a statement at the end of its official visit.

The experts commended the Government for its vocal commitment to international human rights law and the fight against enforced disappearances, including through the implementation of the recommendations of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances and other relevant international human rights mechanisms.

The experts expressed concern at reports of continued pushbacks of migrants to neighbouring Belarus. While noting the challenges posed by an increased number of arrivals in the past few years, they recalled that “international law clearly prohibits the return of any person where there are substantial grounds to believe that they would be in danger of enforced disappearance”.

The delegation also highlighted how, during certain forms of deprivation of liberty, migrants’ guarantees against enforced disappearances are not sufficiently secured. In this respect, the experts stressed the importance of ensuring the immediate notification of relatives of all migrants deprived of liberty, as well as their access to a lawyer or any other person of their choice from the very outset of their deprivation of liberty, and in line with the applicable legal framework.

The Working Group also referred to the involvement of Lithuania in US Central Intelligence Agency extraordinary renditions and the corresponding secret detention programme, including the perpetration of enforced disappearances. “Despite the unanimous recognition by multiple international mechanisms, including the Working Group and the European Court of Human Rights, of Lithuania’s involvement in cases of extraordinary renditions, which entailed enforced disappearances, there has not been any official acknowledgment or public apology by Lithuanian authorities,” the experts said.

“This lack of recognition jeopardises the right to know the truth, both in its individual and collective dimensions, and has implications also in terms of guarantees of non-repetition,” they said, calling on the Government to take all the necessary measures to ensure the recognition of the legal standing as victims, including to the family members of all those who were subjected to enforced disappearance.

The delegation thanked the Lithuanian authorities for the frank and constructive exchanges throughout their visit. The Working Group will present its official report on the visit to the UN Human Rights Council in September 2025.