Yemen Universal Periodic Review: Government must reconsider key accountability recommendations

In the joint statement, rights groups reiterated that accountability is a prerequisite for a human rights-based transitional justice and called on Yemen to reconsider key recommendations made during the country’s UPR.

These recommendations include taking effective steps to independently and impartially investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by any party within the territory of Yemen and to invite UN Special Procedures, and adopt the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Watch and read the joint statement below:

This is a joint statement on behalf of ISHR, the Justice for Yemen Pact Coalition and DTi.

My name is Akram Alshwafi, I am a Yemeni human rights defender working with Watch4HR, part of the Justice for Yemen Pact Coalition.

As the Council adopts the UPR of Yemen, the crackdown on civil society has intensified to the point that it is threatening their survival in the country. This is taking place in the context of a regional instability that feeds on impunity. Dozens of individuals, including those working with UN agencies and civil society organisations, are arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared.

While our organisations welcome the acceptance by Yemen to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, it is high time to ratify and implement these treaties and release all those arbitrarily detained. We decry the failure to adopt crucial recommendations to protect human rights defenders and journalists who continue to be the target of all parties to the conflict, reveal the fate of the disappeared and abolish the death penalty.

In 2023, the coalition members documented 309 grave violations against children, including cases of killing and maiming, child recruitment, attacks on schools and hospitals, abduction, denial of humanitarian access, as well as sexual and gender-based violence. Since the 2022 ceasefire, there has been a rise in the number of children killed and injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance.

From 2014 to 2023, the Yemeni Coalition for Monitoring Human Rights Violations documented over 1,929 civilian deaths and the destruction or damage of more than 2,872 public and private facilities due to anti-personnel or anti-vehicle mines. We further regret that Yemen failed to adopt the recommendation to sign the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas.

Our organisations reiterate that accountability is a prerequisite for human rights-based transitional justice. While Yemen has accepted some recommendations calling on the country to take measures to ensure accountability and reparation for victims, we urge Yemen to reconsider key recommendations related to accountability, including:

• to take effective steps to independently and impartially investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by any party within the territory of Yemen;
• to invite UN Special Procedures including the mandates relating to torture, arbitrary detention, human rights defenders and transitional justice to visit Yemen;
• and adopt the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

To read the statement in Arabic, click here.