UN rights council urged to act on Yemen ‘acute accountability gap’ News
© WikiMedia (Mathieu Génon)
UN rights council urged to act on Yemen ‘acute accountability gap’

In a joint statement published Tuesday, 24 nongovernmental organizations urged the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to act to bridge Yemen’s “acute accountability gap.”

The statement was based on 1 September 9 report from the UN Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. The report describes the conflict in Yemen that has been ongoing since 2014: “The Group of Experts finds that the parties to the conflict continue to show no regard for international law or the lives, dignity, and rights of people in Yemen, while third states have helped to perpetuate the conflict by continuing to supply the parties with weapons.”

The joint statement calls for changed behavior from the parties to the conflict and their backers, noting that the “human rights and humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen is man-made, and was avoidable.” The organizations also called for the international community to take action on the recommendations from the group of experts, including the recommendation that the UN Security Council refer the situation in Yemen to the International Criminal Court and expand sanctions.

According to the experts’ report; “The verified human rights violations include arbitrary deprivation of life, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, gender-based violence, including sexual violence, torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the recruitment and use in hostilities of children, the denial of fair trial rights, violations of fundamental freedoms, and economic, social and cultural rights.”

These 24 organizations are calling on the UNHRC to endorse the September 9 report and take direct action and concrete steps towards “credible justice for Yemen,” ahead of the September 29 session of the UNHRC.