Cyprus
In Cyprus, 2,002 people (492 Turkish Cypriots and 1,510 Greek Cypriots) were reported missing as a result of unrest during the 1960s and the events of 1974. A Committee on Missing Persons was established in 1981 with UN backing and continues to coordinate efforts to locate and identify the missing.
The CMP consists of three members, one appointed from the Greek Cypriot community, one from the Turkish Cypriot community and a third member selected by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The agreement establishing the CMP stipulates that it must have access throughout the island to carry out its work.
The CMP does not attempt to investigate, or attribute responsibility for the deaths of missing persons or make findings as to the cause of such deaths. Its mandate is humanitarian, to bring “closure to thousands of affected families through the return of the remains of their missing relatives.”
Between 2006 and the beginning of 2023, the CMP had exhumed 1,197 sets of human remains and identified 1,029 (737 Greek Cypriots and 292 Turkish Cypriots).
In July 2012 ICMP began extracting DNA profiles from post-mortem samples received from the CMP and matching these against DNA profiles from anonymized family reference samples. ICMP has also provided guidance on problematic cases, and assistance in matching profiles from a historical database of samples produced prior to ICMP’s involvement.
To date, ICMP has generated DNA profiles from 1,632 bone samples submitted for testing. A total of 1,533 DNA match and re-association reports, representing 341 missing persons, have been submitted to ICMP.
On 14 December 2015, the Republic of Cyprus became the eighth country to sign the ICMP Agreement.
International legal instruments
In addition to ICMP, the Republic of Cyprus is a state party to major international human rights instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). It signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) in 2007 but has not yet ratified it. It is also a state party to the ECHR. It became a party to the Rome Statute in 2002.
Constitutional framework
The Cyprus Constitution from 1960 guarantees the protection of the right to life, and the right to liberty and security of the person, as well as the right to respect for private and family life. It also provides that no person will be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment as well as equality before the law. However, as a result of inter-communal strife the Republic of Cyprus applied a legal doctrine of necessity, which posits implied exceptions to particular provisions of the Constitution and which can extend to fundamental rights guarantees. The relatively more limited MDP process described below may be viewed in this context.
The Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) has undertaken exhumations and anthropological examinations, and in 2012 it adopted a DNA-led approach to identifications, under an agreement with ICMP. The CMP’s humanitarian mandate does not permit examining the cause or manner of death of victims, and its work has been regarded by the ECtHR as falling short of standards for an effective investigation required under Art. 2 of the ECHR, right to life, in the case of Cyprus v. Turkey.
Other regulations and measures
In the Grand Chamber Judgement of 2014 on the question of just satisfaction in the case of Cyprus v. Turkey, the court awarded the aggregate sum of EUR 30,000,000 for non-pecuniary damage suffered by surviving relatives of missing persons. The judgement followed the principal judgment of 2001 in which numerous violations of the ECHR by Turkey concerning missing persons were found in relation to military operations it had conducted in northern Cyprus in 1974. The awarded sum was to be distributed by the Cypriot Government to individual victims of violations found in the principal judgment. The Cypriot Government was to set up an effective mechanism to distribute the awarded damages to individual victims.
