UNHRC calls for strengthening international justice system

February 26, 2013: As the main United Nations human rights body began its work on Monday, senior UN officials stressed the importance of strengthening international processes that will monitor and prevent rights violations around the world as well as hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes. Addressing the opening of the 22nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that despite significant progress over the past two decades on issues such as the elimination of violence against women and tackling impunity for international crimes, there continue to be systematic human rights violations around the world.

“The promise of respecting all human rights for all people is still a dream for too many,” Pillay said. “Hundreds of thousands of people have died in genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina; the Palestinian territories are still occupied; massive violations have occurred in Iraq and Sri Lanka; and war crimes continue to be committed in numerous internal conflicts, including those continuing in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Sudan and Syria.
“We must continue to nurture and strengthen the system designed to deal with such crimes and violations, and those who commit them. It is also critical that we in the international community do our utmost to prevent such situations from developing or deteriorating,” she said.

Ms. Pillay underlined that while many instances of human rights violations have been referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) – the world’s first permanent tribunal with the powers to prosecute suspected perpetrators of war crimes – this can only happen if the State concerned is among the 122 States Parties of the Rome Statute, or if a situation is referred to it by the Security Council. In particular, Ms. Pillay said this had not happened in the case of Syria, where there have been constant allegations of human right violations committed by the Government forces and the opposition since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.

“Two important situations – Darfur in 2008 and Libya in 2011 – have been referred, but the Security Council has so far failed with regard to Syria, despite the repeated reports of widespread or systematic crimes and violations by my office, the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, civil society organizations and Special Procedures,” she said.

In September, Ms. Pillay urged the Security Council to refer the case of Syria to the ICC. Since then, the High Commissioner has repeated this call, warning that possibly up to 70,000 people have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been displaced, and over 4 million people have been affected by the violence and are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.