Mandate: "By resolution 20 (XXXVI) of 29 February 1980, the Commission on Human Rights decided to "establish for a period of one year a working group consisting of five of its members, to serve as experts in their individual capacities, to examine questions relevant to enforced or involuntary disappearances of persons". Since then, the mandate and terms of reference of the Working Group were renewed by the Commission and approved by the Economic and Social Council each year. Since 1986 this has been done biennially and, since 1992, on a three-yearly basis. The last resolution renewing the mandate of the Working Group, A/HRC/7/12, was adopted by Human Rights Council in 2008. The Working Group?s basic mandate is to assist the relatives of disappeared persons to ascertain the fate and whereabouts of their disappeared family members. For this purpose the Group receives and examines reports of disappearances submitted by relatives of disappeared persons or human rights organizations acting on their behalf. After determining whether those reports comply with a number of criteria, the Working Group transmits individual cases to the Governments concerned, requesting them to carry out investigations and to inform the Working Group of the results. The Working Group deals with the numerous individual cases of human rights violations on a purely humanitarian basis, irrespective of whether the Government concerned has ratified any of the existing legal instruments which provide for an individual complaints procedure. It acts essentially as a channel of communication between the families of disappeared persons and Governments, and has successfully developed a dialogue with the majority of Governments concerned with the aim of solving cases of disappearance....."