whose rights under the Covenant have been violated. The Second Optional Protocol requires states to take the necessary measures to abolish the death penalty. However, Bangladesh is yet to ratify the two Optional Protocols. Recommendations 55. The NHRC puts forward the following recommendations for full implementation of the ICCPR in Bangladesh: - The Government of Bangladesh should withdraw reservation regarding trial in absentia and declarations made relating to prisoners right, compensation in case of miscarriage of justice under various provisions of the ICCPR. - The Government of Bangladesh should ratify the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, 2006. Bangladesh should include the crime of enforced disappearance into its criminal law. It should enact separate legislation or reform the existing penal law for prohibition and criminalization of the enforced disappearance.45 However, given the special nature of the crime and numbers of victims potentially involved in enforced disappearance, a separate law criminalizing it is preferable. The specific law criminalizing enforced disappearance can provide legal protection and remedies to the victims of enforced disappearance in Bangladesh. - Accountability of state agencies including law-enforcement agencies should be ensured through ending of impunity for committing the crime of extra-judicial killing, torture and enforced disappearance. Every incidence of extra-judicial judicial killing, torture and enforced disappearance must be investigated and responsible persons-whether government officials or private entities, should be prosecuted. - Bangladesh should ratify the two Optional Protocols in order to fully implement the rights guaranteed under the ICCPR. - In order to ensure transparency and accountability of actions of the police authorities, it is imperative that the directives of the Supreme Court in BLAST vs. Bangladesh and Saifuzzaman vs. State should be implemented as soon as possible. Legislative reform should be initiated in line with the recommendations and guidelines of these judgments. - Compensation scheme should be introduced for victim of extra-judicial killing, torture and enforced disappearance. - A national law on witness and victim protection should be adopted and an effective program for witness and victim protection should also be put in place. 45 Sayed Masud Reza, Disappearance: Contemporary Context, Dhaka, National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh, 2013, p. 14. 25