Peacekeeping comprises activities,especially military ones,intended to create conditions that favor lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths,as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland.
Vesna Pusić is a Croatian sociologist and politician who served as First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the centre-left cabinet of Zoran Milanović. She was Croatia's second female Foreign Minister taking the office after Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. She is known as an outspoken liberal and an advocate of European integration,anti-fascism,gender equality and LGBT rights.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New York City,with offices in Boston,Washington,D.C.,as well as Nairobi. It was established in 1986 to use the unique skills and credibility of health professionals to advocate for persecuted health workers,prevent torture,document mass atrocities,and hold those who violate human rights accountable.
The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti,also known as MINUSTAH,an acronym of its French name,was a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti from 2004 to 2017. It was composed of 2,366 military personnel and 2,533 police,supported by international civilian personnel,a local civilian staff,and United Nations Volunteers. The mission's military component was led by the Brazilian Army and commanded by a Brazilian.
Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad bin Zeid al-Hussein is a Jordanian former diplomat who is the Perry World House Professor of the Practice of Law and Human Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the president and CEO of the International Peace Institute. He also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2014 to 2018. He played a central role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court,and was elected the first president of the Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court in September 2002. He also served as a political affairs officer in UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1996.
Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict,war,or military occupation often as spoils of war,but sometimes,particularly in ethnic conflict,the phenomenon has broader sociological motives. Wartime sexual violence may also include gang rape and rape with objects. It is distinguished from sexual harassment,sexual assaults and rape committed amongst troops in military service.
Some of the personnel of the United Nations peacekeeping are accused of committing sexual abuse in general and of child sexual abuse in particular. An Associated Press (AP) investigation revealed in 2017 that more than 100 United Nations (UN) peacekeepers ran a child sex ring in Haiti over a 10-year period and none were ever jailed. The report further found that over the previous 12 years,there had been almost 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other UN personnel around the world. AP found the abuse to be much greater than originally thought. After the AP report,U.S. Ambassador to the UN,Nikki Haley,urged all countries to hold UN peacekeepers accountable for any sexual abuse and exploitation. As early as 2004,Amnesty International reported that underage girls were being kidnapped,tortured and forced into prostitution in Kosovo with UN and NATO personnel being the customers driving the demand for the sex slaves. The UN's department of peacekeeping in New York acknowledged at that time that "peacekeepers have come to be seen as part of the problem in trafficking rather than the solution".
Carman Lapointe was Under-Secretary-General for the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) from 2010 to 2015. Lapointe was fired in 2015 after an External Independent Review panel found she has abused her authority and attempted to suppress allegations of sexual abuse by launching an investigation into the whistleblower.
Sinha Basnayake,PC is a Sri Lankan lawyer. He was a former Director of the General Legal Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs and a member of the UN Internal Justice Council.
Kathryn Bolkovac is a human rights advocate,consultant,former police investigator with the Lincoln Police Department,and former monitor with United Nations International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She came to prominence when she sued her employers for unfair dismissal after she lost her job following her attempts to expose sex trafficking in Bosnia. Her story was shown in the film The Whistleblower and told in the nonfiction book,The Whistleblower.
Flavia Pansieri was the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights at the level of Assistant Secretary-General. She was appointed to this position by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 15 March 2013,and resigned on 22 July 2015,departing on 31 December 2015 after the selection of her successor was announced.
A child sexual abuse scandal in Haiti involving the Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers emerged in 2007 following an investigation by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). At least 134 Sri Lankan soldiers serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti were accused of sexually abusing nine children from 2004 to 2007. In 2016,the Sri Lankan government decided to make a one-time ex-gratia payment to a victim and child born as a result of sexual exploitation and abuse,which was praised by the UN. However,none of the accused have been punished by the Sri Lankan government.
Madeleine Selina Rees,OBE is a British lawyer and current Secretary General of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She has spoken out against human rights abuses in Bosnia by peacekeepers and others working for the United Nations.
Secret prisons of SBU are secret detention facilities operated by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Eastern Ukraine to incarcerate suspected Russian-backed separatists.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released two reports on "the situation of human rights in Indian-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir". The first report released on 14 June 2018 was the first ever issued by the United Nations on human rights in Kashmir. The second update report was released on 8 July 2019. The first report covered June 2016 to April 2018 while the second report covered the period May 2018 to April 2019. In both cases the reactions of Pakistan and India were diametrically opposite.
The EHRC–OHCHR Tigray investigation is a human rights investigation launched jointly by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in mid-2021 into human rights violations of the Tigray War that started in November 2020. The EHRC–OHCHR joint investigation team's report was published on 3 November 2021.
Following the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis,the United Nations Human Rights Council voted on 27 May 2021 to set up a United Nations fact-finding mission to investigate possible war crimes and other abuses committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories,the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry in Ukraine is a United Nations commission of inquiry established by the United Nations Human Rights Council on 4 March 2022 with a mandate to investigate violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Commission delivered its reports on 18 October 2022 and 16 March 2023.
Sexual violence in the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been committed by Armed Forces of Russia,including the use of mass rape as a weapon of war. According to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine,the victims of sexual assault by Russian soldiers ranged from 4 years old to over 80 years old.
