29 68. The Working Group on Enforced Disappearances of Persons of the United Nations, added: 1. Enforced disappearances are prototypical continuous acts. The act begins at the time of the abduction and extends for the whole period of time that the crime is not complete, that is to say until the State acknowledges the detention or releases information pertaining to the fate or whereabouts of the individual. 2. Even though the conduct violates several rights, including the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and also violates or constitutes a grave threat to the right to life, the Working Group considers that an enforced disappearance is a unique and consolidated act, and not a combination of acts. Even if some aspects of the violation may have been completed before the entry into force of the relevant national or international instrument, if other parts of the violation are still continuing, until such time as the victim’s fate or whereabouts are established, the matter should be heard, and the act should not be fragmented. 3. Thus, when an enforced disappearance began before the entry into force of an instrument or before the specific State accepted the jurisdiction of the competent body, the fact that the disappearance continues after the entry into force or the acceptance of the jurisdiction gives the institution the competence and jurisdiction to consider the act of enforced disappearance as a whole, and not only acts or omissions imputable to the State that followed the entry into force of the relevant legal instrument or the acceptance of the jurisdiction. 4. The Working Group considers, for instance, that when a State is recognized as responsible for having committed an enforced disappearance that began before the entry into force of the relevant legal instrument and which continued after its entry into force, the State should be held responsible for all violations that result from the enforced disappearance, and not only for violations that occurred after the entry into force of the instrument. 72                                                                                                                                                                       acquiescence, and (iii) state officials thereafter refused to acknowledge the act or to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the person concerned. […] 7. Under the definition of enforced disappearance contained in the Declaration, the criminal offence in question starts with an arrest, detention or abduction against the will of the victim, which means that the enforced disappearance may be initiated by an illegal detention or by an initially legal arrest or detention. That is to say, the protection of a victim from enforced disappearance must be effective upon the act of deprivation of liberty, whatever form such deprivation of liberty takes, and not be limited to cases of illegitimate deprivations of liberty. 72 Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance, General Comment on Enforced Disappearance as a Continuous Crime. Available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/disappear/docs/GC-EDCC.pdf, Last visited on February 23, 2011. 1. Enforced disappearances are prototypical continuous acts. The act begins at the time of the abduction and extends for the whole period of time that the crime is not complete, that is to say until the State acknowledges the detention or releases information pertaining to the fate or whereabouts of the individual. 2. Even though the conduct violates several rights, including the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and also violates or constitutes a grave threat to the right to life, the Working Group considers that an enforced disappearance is a unique and consolidated act, and not a combination of acts. Even if some aspects of the violation may have been completed before the entry into force of the relevant national or international instrument, if other parts of the violation are still continuing, until such time as the victim’s fate or whereabouts are established, the matter should be heard, and the act should not be fragmented. 3. Thus, when an enforced disappearance began before the entry into force of an instrument or before the specific State accepted the jurisdiction of the competent body, the fact that the disappearance continues after the entry into force or the acceptance of the jurisdiction gives the institution the competence and jurisdiction to consider the act of enforced disappearance as a