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1. Today in #Yemen accountability:
#UN expert investigation report recommends Security Council refer to @IntlCrimCourt
Also "encourage dialogue about creation of special tribunal... to prosecute cases of those most responsible"
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/GEE-Yemen/2020-09-09-report.pdf
#UN expert investigation report recommends Security Council refer to @IntlCrimCourt
Also "encourage dialogue about creation of special tribunal... to prosecute cases of those most responsible"
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/GEE-Yemen/2020-09-09-report.pdf
2. #UN experts also call for #Yemen:
*Criminally-focused investigation body, a la Syria IIIM
*No blanket amnesties
*Right to remedy, incl reparations
*Collaboration towards universal jurisdiction prosecutions
*Expand UNSC sanctions list
*Arms transfers may violate ATT, aid/abet
*Criminally-focused investigation body, a la Syria IIIM
*No blanket amnesties
*Right to remedy, incl reparations
*Collaboration towards universal jurisdiction prosecutions
*Expand UNSC sanctions list
*Arms transfers may violate ATT, aid/abet
3. Why this matters:
After 6 years of conflict, too many serious violations of IHL, gross violations and abuses of IHRL and multiple acts almost certainly amounting to international crimes, #Yemen has--what #UN experts call--an “acute accountability gap”
Why?
After 6 years of conflict, too many serious violations of IHL, gross violations and abuses of IHRL and multiple acts almost certainly amounting to international crimes, #Yemen has--what #UN experts call--an “acute accountability gap”
Why?
4. #Yemen dealing with:
-A Security Council captured by powerful states uninterested in accountability + redress implicating their allies
-A Special Envoy focused on forging a peace deal agreeable to warring parties, all implicated in abuse
-A Security Council captured by powerful states uninterested in accountability + redress implicating their allies
-A Special Envoy focused on forging a peace deal agreeable to warring parties, all implicated in abuse
-In Yemen, disintegrated institutions, a judicial system splintered
-Involved states (Saudi, UAE, Iran...), completely committed to leaving any justice at Yemen's borders
-Traditional int'l law champions displaying a palpable lack of ambition when it comes to #Yemen
-Involved states (Saudi, UAE, Iran...), completely committed to leaving any justice at Yemen's borders
-Traditional int'l law champions displaying a palpable lack of ambition when it comes to #Yemen
5. All the while:
Yemenis experiencing what the collapse of rule of law feels like.
Activists documenting the same patterns of abuse, again and again, six years on.
For them, the question of justice is not theoretical. It will determine decades.
[See, e.g. Lebanon]
Yemenis experiencing what the collapse of rule of law feels like.
Activists documenting the same patterns of abuse, again and again, six years on.
For them, the question of justice is not theoretical. It will determine decades.
[See, e.g. Lebanon]
6. You might not care about the Human Rights Council.
But.
Since the war began in 2014, the Council has been the only UN organ to regularly consider Qs related to accountability + redress for the widespread, serious + ongoing violations in #Yemen.
The only one.
But.
Since the war began in 2014, the Council has been the only UN organ to regularly consider Qs related to accountability + redress for the widespread, serious + ongoing violations in #Yemen.
The only one.
7. Warring parties hold the vast majority of power in + over Yemen. Their actions determine the fate of millions.
For Yemen’s trajectory to change, warring party behavior, and their backers, must change--now, following a ceasefire + ultimately to cement peace.
For Yemen’s trajectory to change, warring party behavior, and their backers, must change--now, following a ceasefire + ultimately to cement peace.
8. Accountability + redress are two of the most crucial levers to begin that transformation.
...
They also happen to be the right thing to do--to go even some way towards remedying the terrible wrongs Yemen has seen.
So.
...
They also happen to be the right thing to do--to go even some way towards remedying the terrible wrongs Yemen has seen.
So.
9. I care when a group of UN-appointed experts says what I've heard Yemeni activists across the political spectrum try to make people hear for years:
--Justice, the holistic sort, is non-negotiable--
[Because I hope it makes those with influence more likely to actually hear].
--Justice, the holistic sort, is non-negotiable--
[Because I hope it makes those with influence more likely to actually hear].
10. While the #Houthis recruit kids + impede aid left right + center, while the #Saudi/ #UAE-led coalition bombs prisons schools + clinics, while far too many are disappeared, starving + sick, global institutions have, mostly, shrugged.
11. This month, the Human Rights Council will again take up the question of Yemen, accountability + redress.
It should not miss the chance to listen to what credible Yemeni voices [e.g. not the warring parties themselves, please
] have been saying all along.
It should not miss the chance to listen to what credible Yemeni voices [e.g. not the warring parties themselves, please
] have been saying all along.
