“Strengthening accountability and justice for serious violations of international law”

Distinguished President, 
Excellencies,

I thank Albania for organizing this important Open Debate on accountability and justice.  

Impunity fuels and intensifies many of the crises currently on this Council’s agenda.  This emboldens perpetrators, silences victims and undermines prospects for peace, human rights and development.

Our collective experience has shown that justice and accountability are fundamental to the pursuit of peace and security.

So I am encouraged by the international community’s growing resolve to fight impunity, through the United Nations system and beyond, including through a renewed focus on both State and individual responsibility for serious violations of international law.

In this context, I am privileged to sit on this panel with the President of the International Court of Justice, an institution central to the common objective of upholding the rule of law at the international level.

UN inter-governmental organs have taken significant steps to advance accountability, often with a specific focus on fostering individual criminal responsibility for international crimes. This Council’s creation of UNITAD to enhance criminal accountability for crimes of Da’esh/ISIL/Daesh accompanies the General Assembly and Human Rights Council establishing independent investigative mechanisms to do likewise for Syria and Myanmar.  And through further action of the Human Rights Council, there are currently no fewer than twelve specific human rights mechanisms active, addressing various forms of accountability.

Today, I wish to highlight three ways in which my Office is contributing to efforts to strengthen accountability and justice for serious violations of international law.

First, the UN Human Rights Council has stepped up its response to serious human rights violations that may also amount to international crimes. This includes creating mechanisms with mandates to establish facts and the circumstances of violations, to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse information and evidence, to identify those responsible, and to make recommendations towards future accountability.  My Office is continually strengthening its support to such mandates, which we see as key contributors to justice and rule of law, including through accelerating and streamlining the operationalization of mandates. The work of these mechanisms has been used by international courts addressing both State and individual criminal responsibility, as well as national prosecutors and judges pursuing international crimes, including under principles of universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction. The conviction in Germany of Syrian Colonel Anwar Raslan for overseeing torture at a Syrian detention center nearly a decade ago adds to the growing number of jurisdictions working with diverse partners, including vital society actors, towards delivering accountability for international crimes.

My Office is committed to providing the support necessary for each mandate entrusted to us to operate in line with the highest standards of human rights fact-finding, including through the use of modern methodological and investigative techniques.  Efforts have focused on the gathering and preservation of information, with a view to increasing the likelihood that it can be used in diverse legal proceedings; on strengthening chain of custody; on explaining and procuring fully informed consent of victims, witnesses and other information providers in accountability contexts; and, on effective preservation of and access to digital materials.

Second, together with the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the wider UN system, my Office is working to enhance the UN’s support to national transitional justice mechanisms, including truth commissions and reparations programmes.

An important element emerging from this work is the need to tailor transitional justice initiatives to address adequately and comprehensively respond to underlying patterns and root causes of violations.

Our work indicates that for justice responses to be truly effective, they must be people centred and gender sensitive, seeking, respecting and acknowledging the views of victims. This means, in particular, promoting the meaningful involvement of both victims and marginalized communities, and emphasising their access to remedies and reparation, including rehabilitation, with particular focus on mental health and psychosocial support.

It also means supporting national stakeholders, including civil society actors, to identify innovative, pragmatic and context-specific justice solutions, to achieve tangible differences in people’s lives. 

Third, my Office has been strengthening the focus on gender-sensitivity in all phases of justice and accountability processes.  In particular, we have developed specific guidance for integrating gender in investigations and in analysis of the root causes of violence and abuse, as well as on gender-sensitive reparations, including specifically for victims of sexual and gender-based violence.

In this regard, it is vital to involve women and girls, along with other victims and beneficiaries, meaningfully in justice and accountability efforts, as leaders and agents of change.

Excellencies,

One of the aims of this Open Debate is to work towards a global strategy to enhance the role of the international community to hold States and others accountable for serious violations of international law.  To that end, allow me to put forward some views from my own perspective.

First, enhancing the normative and institutional framework will further strengthen the legal basis for accountability and justice efforts, upon which national and international accountability actors can build their proceedings.

The adoption of a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity would, in my view, fill a significant gap in the current international framework, and facilitate international cooperation in this area.

Relevant treaties providing jurisdictional basis for accountability,  including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, deserve universal adherence and should be ratified by all States, and I equally encourage all States to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, in the common interest of the entire international community.

And crucially, investigative and accountability mechanisms mandated by the UN’s intergovernmental organs must receive adequate and sustainable funding and the necessary technical capacities to discharge their mandates effectively.

Second, this Council’s support for independent and impartial investigation, justice and accountability efforts is essential.

In that regard, I encourage further reflection on how the Security Council, drawing on the full breadth of its mandate and legal power, can systematically and consistently support appropriate justice and accountability measures.  In its own process, the Council could also consider regular invitations for briefings by investigative and accountability mechanisms, as well as of relevant civil society actors in this field.

And finally,
Distinguished President
Excellencies,

Placing victims at the centre of accountability strategies will contribute to the sustainability of accountability and justice efforts.

This is not only the right thing to do, in acknowledgment of the victims in whose names these processes were created. But it also helps to identify and address the conditions that have led to the serious violations in the first place.

Most importantly, this means providing the space for the full participation of victims and affected communities, in all their diversity, to ensure that their voices are heard, including - wherever possible - in this Council itself.

Thank you.