Rights body welcomes renewal of rights commission mandate in S. Sudan
March 24 (KAMPALA) – The Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ) has welcome a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution, which renewed mandate of UN Human Rights Commission in South Sudan.
CPJ’s executive director, Tito Anthony says the step taken by the UN Human Rights Council is positive and in the interest of South Sudanese.
“The new mandate will help the commission to continue it work and accomplish the undone task and ensure that the hybrid court is established as per the [August 2015 peace] agreement,” said Tito.
He, however, said it would be unrealistic if the UN had ended the mandate of the Human Rights Commission before the establishment of hybrid court that seeks to try those accountable for war crimes.
“I call upon the commission to it try it best to collect evidence that can prosecute perpetrators and give victims justice,” stressed Tito.
He further added “I urge the government of South Sudan to fully cooperate with the commission to smoothly carry out its mandate”.
Established in 2016, the Commission has to conduct independent investigations into alleged gross violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes in the war-torn country.
The investigation UN panel which has to provide its findings to the hybrid court for South Sudan, to be established in cooperation with the African Union, submitted its first report on 6 March 2017 and the second on 13 March 2018.
The 37th Human Rights Council session in Geneva concluded on Friday its works with the adoption of a resolution extending the mandate of UN Commission in South Sudan.
Adopted without a vote, the resolution said deeply alarmed by the report of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, noting that some of the human rights violations may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The United States introduced a resolution on South Sudan that the Council adopted with broad cross-regional support, said the State Department in a statement released on Friday.
“We worked closely with South Sudan, members of the African Group, and other member states to ensure the text was adopted by consensus,” said the statement.
Washington further hailed South Sudan’s support for the resolution adding that Juba “reaffirmed its commitment to continue cooperating with the Commission and UN bodies and mechanisms”.
South Sudanese, regional and international human rights groups called on the Council members to renew and strengthen the mandate of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan pointing for the importance of its role to achieve justice and to end impunity.
“The HRC should also strengthen the resolution to make explicit that the mandate of the Commission includes the identification of individual perpetrators, with a view to enable future prosecutions,” they further requested.
(ST)