Chapter 3 • The Major Regional Human Rights Instruments and the Mechanisms for Their Implementation police officers (art. 7), impartial investigations of alleged torture (art. 8), the duty to establish jurisdiction over the crime of torture in certain cases (art. 12), and extradition (arts. 13-14). 3.2.3 The implementation mechanism Unlike the United Nations and European torture conventions, the Inter-American Convention does not provide for any specific implementation mechanism. However, under its article 17, “the States Parties shall inform the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of any legislative, judicial, administrative, or other measures they adopt in application of this Convention”; it is subsequently for the Commission to “endeavour in its annual report to analyze the existing situation in the member States of the Organization of American States in regard to the prevention and elimination of torture” (art. 17). Thus, the Convention does not foresee any possibility for the Commission to make any on-the-spot investigation in a country where it has reason to believe that torture is being practised. However, the Commission may still be able to make such visits, with the agreement of the State concerned, by invoking the general field of competence accorded to it under the Charter of the OAS. Under the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, the States parties must take effective measures to prevent and punish torture within their jurisdiction. As is confirmed by the Convention, the right not to be tortured is non-derogable and no emergency situation of any kind can justify acts of torture. 3.3 The Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons, 1994 The Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons was adopted by the General Assembly of the OAS in 1994 and entered into force on 28 March 1996. As of 9 April 2002 it had ten States parties.33 This Convention was elaborated in response to the considerable wave of enforced or involuntary disappearances that had occurred in many parts of the Americas in the 1970s and the 1980s in particular. 3.3.1 The scope of the Convention As defined in the Convention, “forced disappearance is considered to be the act of depriving a person or persons of his or their freedom, in whatever way, perpetrated by agents of the state or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of the state, followed by an absence of information or a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give 33 See http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/Sigs/a-60.html. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 91