“The goal of the Israeli government is abundantly clear: the destruction of life in Gaza.” That’s how Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, opened her statement to the 59th session of the Council on Tuesday. Calling the war in Gaza “the most ruthless, prolonged...
The UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) report found that Israeli forces have used airstrikes, shelling, burning, and controlled demolitions to damage or destroy more than 90 per cent of schools and university buildings across Gaza. This destruction in the wake of the 7 October 2023...
“Russian armed forces have committed the crimes against humanity of murder and the war crimes of attacking civilians, through a months-long pattern of drone attacks targeting civilians on the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Province,” the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said. Attacks have been...
According to local health authorities in Gaza, 830 people were killed between 18-23 March, including 174 women and 322 children. A further 1,787 were injured. “The acts of war that we see bear the hallmarks of atrocity crimes,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA. “Hundreds of...
The historic shift of power in Syria and the possibility of finally accessing evidence of horrific human rights violations could bring accountability closer than ever – if only proof can be preserved – a top UN investigator said on Tuesday....
The move, announced on Wednesday, follows a comprehensive investigation by the ICC into the 2016 and 2017 waves of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine province targeting the minority Muslim Rohingya community. “My Office has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing...
The report details the horrific reality faced by both the people of Israel and Gaza since 7 October 2023, with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk stressing the imperative for Israel to fully and immediately comply with its obligations under international law and the rules of war....
“Water is scarce and fear is pervasive” in Gaza, Mr. Türk told journalists in Amman, recounting a conversation he had minutes earlier with a colleague in Gaza who had to flee Israeli bombardments with his family. “His children, aged nine and seven, are asking him questions he does not know...
Volker Türk highlighted the dichotomy at the border crossing, describing it as a “lifeline” for the 2.3 million residents of Gaza over the past month, although “unjustly, outrageously thin.” But it is also “the gates to a living nightmare”, he continued, as people in Gaza “have been suffocating, under persistent...
That’s the message from the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, who said on Monday that perpetrators are mostly, but not exclusively, partners or ex-partners, and often escape accountability “due to a lack of proper investigation”. A 2022 report from the UN Office on Drugs...
The report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, published on Friday, follows a study issued in March. It documents additional indiscriminate attacks with explosive weapons, resulting in deaths, injuries and the destruction and damage of civilian objects. For example, 24 people, mostly women and children, were...
“The incident reports that we see coming out of Ethiopia are deeply disturbing and constitute a call for action,” said Alice Wairimu Nderitu. “I want to particularly draw the attention of the global community to the continued presence of risk factors for genocide and related atrocity crimes in the country,”...