26 August 2014
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, condemned the appalling and horrific crimes against humanity being committed daily in Iraq by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated armed groups. (more…)
6 March 2014
All sides in the Syrian civil war are committing war crimes and the world powers bear responsibility for allowing these crimes to endure, stated UN human rights investigators on 5 March 2014. Their latest report on atrocities committed in Syria urges the Security Council to refer grave violations of humanitarian law to the International Criminal Court. It said that ‘the Security Council bears responsibility for allowing the warring parties to violate these rules with impunity.’ The independent investigators said that both sides in the conflict have been supported by the disagreeing world powers and that the diplomatic impasse has worsened the atrocities. They stated that not just the fighters and their commanders can be held accountable for the war crimes, but states which transfer arms to Syria as well.
Source: Reuters | World powers responsible for failing to stop Syria war crimes: U.N.
10 February 2014
Government forces, pro-government forces and armed opposition groups are employing civilian suffering as a method of warfare by starvation, denying humanitarian relief, targeting civilians, subjecting them to inhumane treatment and committing other human rights violations. This statement, issued by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, is based on the reports of six unpaid independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council. ‘The acts being committed amount to crimes against humanity, carried out as a deliberate and systematic effort to cause civilian suffering. They also constitute war crimes and serious violations of customary international humanitarian law which binds all parties,’ they stated. The rapporteurs urge all parties to stop using civilian suffering as a method for warfare and to ensure immediate humanitarian relief.
2012
The tragic events in the 1990s in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Kosovo, and the crisis in Libya in 2011 have triggered a fundamental rethinking of the role and responsibility of the international community. It is now accepted that while individual states … Read more