Colombia
Practice Relating to Rule 98. Enforced Disappearance
Colombia’s Basic Military Manual (1995) provides: “It is prohibited to deprive [the civilian population] of its liberty (sequestration, enforced disappearances).”
In 2005, in the Constitutional Case No. C-473/05, the Plenary Chamber of Colombia’s Constitutional Court stated with regard to deceased victims of enforced disappearance:
All necessary measures must be adopted in order to deliver the body to [the victim’s] … relatives. This obligation must be fulfilled irrespective of whether the identity of the perpetrator of the disappearance or killing is identified and of whether an investigation of those allegedly responsible is opened.
In 2007, in the Constitutional Case No. C-291/07, the Plenary Chamber of Colombia’s Constitutional Court stated:
Taking into account … the development of customary international humanitarian law applicable in internal armed conflicts, the Constitutional Court notes that the fundamental guarantees stemming from the principle of humanity, some of which have attained
ius cogens status, … [include] the prohibition of enforced disappearances.

[footnote in original omitted]