United Nations resolution on Yemen fails to launch global investigation into war crimes

The resolution makes no mention of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition and fails to mention expressly the coalition’s ongoing military campaign in Yemen.

However, Arab countries and Yemen’s government that were in exile in Riyadh did not support the Dutch plan and introduced their own resolution at the Geneva-based rights council.

He described it as “a very good starting point for an independent national institution that would seriously investigate all violations of human rights all over Yemen“. It instead favored what has become its standard operating prodecure, weak “technical assistance” programs, whose usefulness should be measured against the concerned governments’ political will to improve their human rights record, or the energy they deploy to shield themselves from scrutiny.

Before Saudi Arabia and Arab allies intervened in March to try to restore Yemen’s president to power and roll back the Iranian-allied Houthi militia, Yemen imported more than 90 percent of its food, mostly by sea. Homosexuality is illegal under Sharia law in Saudi Arabia and punishments for those engaging in same-sex relationships include execution, chemical castration and imprisonment.

The UN Human Rights Council missed a crucial opportunity to stop violations of worldwide law in Yemen by failing to set up a formal inquiry into all warring parties in the country, including concerning reports of massive civilian deaths, a watchdog group said on Friday.

To the consternation of human rights groups, the consensus approach coincides with evidence of sharply rising civilian casualties in Yemen.

The civilian toll from airstrikes was “starkly underlined” by report s that more than 130 people had been killed at a wedding party in Taiz, the spokesman, Rupert Colville, said.

United Nations- The United States (US) has told the United Nations (UN) that it wants commercial shipping to conflict-torn Yemen to increase and cautioned that vessels should only be inspected when there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect illicit arms shipments.

Meanwhile, Mr. Colville said, the coalition was “indubitably responsible” for the blockade of Yemen’s ports, which was “greatly exacerbating the extremely dire humanitarian situation affecting nearly all of Yemen”.

Amnesty global UK’s head of policy and government affairs Allan Hogarth said: “If the UK is doing back-room deals with Saudi officials over human rights, this would be a slap in the face for those beleaguered Saudi activists who already struggle with endemic persecution in the Kingdom”.

“This was the time to put the parties to this conflict under scrutiny for human rights violations”, he said.

“The delegation is honoured to send… the enclosed memorandum, which the delegation has received from the permanent mission of the United Kingdom asking it for the… backing of the candidacy of their country to the membership of the human rights council (HRC) for the period 2014-2016, in elections that will take place in 2013 in New York”.