Articles : Just Security: Just Security: Ethiopia’s Atrocity Victims Broaden UN Appeal After Human Rights Council’s Failure

Just Security: Just Security: Ethiopia’s Atrocity Victims Broaden UN Appeal After Human Rights Council’s Failure

The United Nations Human Rights Council, wrapping up its 54th ordinary session, completed its voting on resolutions Oct. 13, a process that highlights those situations of concern to the council and that it feels deserve its attention as the highest U.N. body solely focused on human rights. But there was a glaring omission — no vote on the situation in Ethiopia, where the bloodiest conflict on the globe continues today.

As we suggested would be likely in an earlier Just Security article, the European Union, penholders for the situation in Ethiopia, decided not to call for a renewal of the mandate of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE), which expires in December. Unfortunately, we were conservative in our prediction – not only was the mandate of ICHREE not renewed, but there was no resolution on the situation of Ethiopia at all. This means that Ethiopia is no longer on the agenda of the Human Rights Council, and conditions there will not be monitored or discussed at the Council despite ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And according to ICHREE, such violations are likely to continue. The day before the deadline for resolutions, ICHREE released an additional report on the risk of future atrocity crimes in Ethiopia. Drawing upon indicators identified in the United Nations Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes, the report finds the risk of atrocity crimes in Ethiopia to be “acute.”

Full article here.