History
ICMP
Origins and Treaty
ICMP was created at the initiative of US President Bill Clinton in 1996 at the G-7 Summit in Lyon, France, to work with governments in the former Yugoslavia to locate those who were missing as a result of the 1990s conflicts in the region. Today, almost 75 percent of the 40,000 missing in the region have been accounted for to standards required by courts of law.
ICMP develops and applies good governance and rule-of-law-based strategies to address the issue of the missing around the world. It also brings a unique element of technical assistance to its activities. In 2001, ICMP established a missing persons DNA identification system that has become the benchmark for technical innovation and performance in the field of human identification. ICMP has also developed an Integrated Data Management System (iDMS) to enable the comprehensive processing of missing persons data globally.
International Expansion
Since its inception in November 2001, ICMP’s missing persons DNA identification system has been the benchmark for technical innovation and performance in the field. The system complements forensic archaeological and anthropological techniques with a state-of-the-art process of DNA matching. This has resulted in an exponential rise in the number and speed of identifications. ICMP also developed the only specialized missing persons database (iDMS) to manage all data pertaining to the missing persons process.
As a consequence of ICMP’s success in the former Yugoslavia, and with the financial support of a growing number of donor governments, in 2003 ICMP’s mandate and sphere of activity were extended by supporting governments, to address the global issue of missing persons, including cases arising from natural disasters.
Since then, ICMP capacity building and technical assistance has had a major – often a pivotal – impact on the location, recovery and identification of missing persons in different parts of the world. Among many other cases, ICMP has been actively involved in programs including:
- The Asian Tsunami in December 2004
- Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005
- Iraq in 2003 – Efforts after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq in 2003 to begin locating and identifying people missing for decades, as well as more recent cases.
- Colombia in 2008 – Efforts, amid renewed prospects of ending internal military conflict in Colombia in 2008, and after the Peace Agreement of 2016 to help coordinate the location and identification of persons who went missing since the early 1960s.
- Restoration of democracy in Chile – Efforts, after the restoration of democracy in Chile to begin locating and identifying those who went missing during almost two decades of authoritarian rule.
- Libya – Efforts to begin locating and identifying missing persons in Libya following the violent collapse of the 42-yearlong Gaddafi regime in 2011.
Legacy
Since its work in the Western Balkans, ICMP has worked worldwide to support countries emerging from conflict or from large-scale disasters. As a result, it is increasingly the norm for domestic stakeholders to assume ownership of the missing persons process. More cases are being properly investigated and more perpetrators are being held to account; civil society is actively engaged, and modern forensic methods, including DNA analysis, are being used.
This in turn has had a significant bearing on strengthening the rule of law with regard to missing persons and on ensuring that relatives of the missing can assert their right to know the fate of loved ones and have the means to seek justice and reparations.
