The UN Human Rights Council on Friday passed a resolution establishing an independent commission of experts to investigate human rights violations committed by Russia in the invasion of Ukraine, which Kiev claims are crimes of war and against humanity. .
On Twitter, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, thanked him. “I welcome the creation of the international commission of inquiry to investigate Russia’s war crimes against Ukraine. Evidence will be documented and used in international courts. Russian war criminals will be held accountable.”
The 47-nation Council’s resolution was passed by a score of 32 votes in favor, 13 abstentions (including China, Cuba and Venezuela) and only two against (Russia itself and Eritrea).
“We know who the war criminals are and who their supreme leader is,” said Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Eugenia Filipenko.
She stressed that holding those responsible for abuse to account “is the only way to ensure that it doesn’t happen again anywhere in the world.”
Ahead of the vote, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Russia has attacked civilian targets, including schools, hospitals and residential areas, and caused more than 2 million people to flee their homes. to other parts of Ukraine or to other countries.
The three experts will be appointed by the President of the Council (currently the Argentine ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Federico Villegas) and will report the first results of their investigation at the 51st session of the Council, scheduled for the last quarter of this year.
One of the commission’s missions will be to “identify, as far as possible, which individuals or entities have been responsible for human rights violations” in Ukraine, in order to ensure that they are held accountable.
The investigations will include interviews, testimonies of victims and forensic material, among others, according to the text of the resolution.
The resolution also condemns “in the strongest possible terms” the human rights violations committed by Russia in its aggression against Ukraine and calls for “a speedy and verifiable withdrawal of Russian troops from all territory” of the neighboring country, including its territorial waters.
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