Enforced disappearances were a hallmark of the Assad regime in Syria. What are the prospects for justice and can UN institutions in Geneva help? For more than a decade, Radwan Abdellatif lived without confirmation of his brother’s fate. Samer Abdellatif was last seen alive in 2012, when popular protests challenging the tyrannical grip of the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad were in full swing in Syria. Samer had been seen by a fellow inmate in Sednayah, a prison complex just north of Damascus long synonymous with torture, death and disappearance. “The file of the missing detainees is forgotten,” Abdellatif says, packing his suitcase in Japan for yet another trip to Syria as his children play nearby. As Syrians mark the 15th anniversary of the 2011 uprising, questions of justice have shifted from protest slogans to tentative state policy. The new leadership in Damascus, which emerged from insurgent movements, inherited damaged courts and faces the daunting task of rebuilding ...
