Book of the Disappeared

“Book of the Disappeared is destined to be an essential work in the field of human rights for years to come. The authors argue that the search for the disappeared must be conducted for three reasons: to locate, identify, and return the remains of the disappeared to family members for proper burial; to gather evidence to hold perpetrators accountable; and to set the historical record straight.”
—Eric Stover, Co-Faculty Director, Human Rights Center, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley

“This book is an essential read because it reviews the issues connected to enforced disappearances and documents their widespread global nature. This is a tour de force, written by some of the most well-known researchers, with deep knowledge about these matters. The book usefully evaluates the crimes committed and the quest for justice.”
—Jeremy Julian Sarkin, Distinguished Research Professor of Law, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal and Former Chair-Rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances

“This is a welcome contribution to the field of transitional justice as it presents a plethora of historical and ongoing case studies of importance for specialist and nonspecialist audiences to understand the grave consequences of political violence to individuals and societies.”
—Sonja Biserko, President of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia

“Book of the Disappeared provides new ways of conceiving enforced disappearances free from the weight of old referents. It helps us understand this as a global problem, allowing us to enter into wide geographical horizons, which until now have been largely invisible.”
—Gabriel Gatti, Professor of Sociology, University of the Basque Country, Spain

“By documenting the impact of victims who have turned activists and formed effective grassroots movements with global impact, Book of the Disappeared provides a roadmap for the reader who wants to become familiar with global movements for justice that had their roots in communities where these atrocities occurred. Any person interested in human rights, international justice, the voice of the silenced, will be interested to read this book.”
—Avideh Shashaani, President, Fund for the Future of our Children

Heath and Zahedi’s titular diction (“quest” and “justice”) guides the reader towards this impressionable futurity: a quest is both a journey and a seeking, a quest(ion) that requires crossing into unknown and (sometimes unknowable) spaces. What Book of the Disappeared ultimately seeks is this question of justice: how do we make legible and judgeable the extrajudicial and “arbitrary deprivation of right to life” that is enforced disappearance?