The challenge of probing ‘horrific’ rights abuses from Russia to South Sudan
How do UN human rights experts work? Three of them talk to SWI swissinfo.ch about their tough job and why they do it.
There are many independent human rights experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, which is meeting in Geneva until July 14 for its latest session. Special Rapporteurs and working groupsExternal link report and advise on specific countries or human rights issues, conducting country visits, advocacy, public awareness on human rights abuses, and engaging with authorities where possible.
There are also investigative bodiesExternal link such as international commissions of inquiry, commissions on human rights and fact-finding missions. For example, in March 2022 the Human Rights Council created a commission of inquiry on UkraineExternal link, which told the Council in March this year that Russia had committed a “wide range of war crimes” in the context of its aggression against its neighbour.
All these individuals and expert groups report regularly to the Human Rights Council and are a central part of its work. Some have specific mandates to preserve evidence for possible future trials. They are not UN staff members and are not paid. They face many difficulties, including access to countries and places, access to witnesses and victims, and logistical problems. The work may also take a personal toll.
Mariana KatzarovaExternal link of Bulgaria, who took office on May 1 as the first Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Russia, told SWI swissinfo.ch in a recent interview that she expected the job to be tough.
Juan MéndezExternal link, a former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (2010-2016) and now member of its Expert Mechanism on racism and law enforcement, agreed that being an independent human rights expert for the UN is a challenge. “It’s not easy work and it does affect you,” he told SWI. “I’m glad it affects me, because if these things didn’t affect me, it would be that I had come to consider as natural things that are really tragic.”
‘Moved and shocked’
“When I hear the stories and meet people, I never fail to be moved or shocked, even though I’ve heard similar stories before,” said Andrew ClaphamExternal link, professor of international law at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, who has just ended a six-year mandate as a member of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. “Each time, each story often describes very humiliating and degrading things which one human being shouldn’t have to suffer at the hands of another.”
In its April 2023 report, the commission denounced ongoing impunity in South Sudan for what it called “horrific” human rights abuses, including widespread killings, rape, sexual slavery and mass displacement of civilians. It said government and military personnel implicated in these crimes remained in office and named some individuals warranting criminal investigation and prosecution.
Over the years, the commission’s reports have been increasingly hard-hitting against members of the government and top military officials, so how does that go down? “Obviously they’re not super happy,” Clapham replied. “But I would say it’s a very constructive discussion.” He said that although it may seem impunity still reigns in South Sudan, there have been some steps in the right direction. “We want to highlight where people have been punished in court and dismissed from post, and to argue for more of it.”
Getting access
Among their numerous challenges, UN human rights investigators often face problems of access, with some governments uncooperative or even hostile. It is a fundamental principle of the UN that human rights experts, like peacekeepers, need an invitation from the country concerned in order to go there.
Méndez said that when he was UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, he visited 12 countries in six years, some of them more than once. But there were countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and India which he asked to visit many times but never got an invitation. The United States did invite him, but under terms he could not acceptExternal link, for a visit to the US military prison of Guantanamo, where terrorist suspects have been held indefinitely since 2002 and some are torture victims. He was told he could not have any interviews with detainees. UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Fionnuala Ní Aoláin did visit GuantanamoExternal link this year and has denounced ongoing violations of international law there.
“Some countries realise that they have a problem and are willing to be assisted to resolve it,” Méndez told SWI. “There are also countries that invite you with the expectation that they will pull the wool over your eyes, so the visit is a little more complicated. And there are countries where the central authorities are in good faith, but they don’t always have full control over everybody.”
Méndez is now a member of the UN Expert Mechanism on racism and law enforcement, an investigative body set up following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while being arrested. Its mandate is to investigate racism in policing globally, and it recently visited the USExternal link. Again, they wanted among other things to visit prisons, to see the conditions and talk to detainees of African descent. Méndez said they were allowed to see and talk to whoever they wanted, except in New York City.
“For all we know, there was a misunderstanding about the nature and purpose of our visit because we were also trying to visit Rikers Island, the prison,” he said. “And when we were expecting to visit it, we heard that the visit was not going to take place, and at the same time that our meetings with the mayor’s office and with the New York Police Department authorities were also not confirmed.”
There was subsequently an exchange of messages and phone calls “and we agreed that we will submit our questions in writing, and they will respond in writing”, Méndez continued. But clearly, this is not the best way to get a real picture of the situation.
Logistical problems
Clapham said the South Sudan commission is lucky in some ways because it has cooperation from the government, an in-country team, and there is a UN peacekeeping force on the ground that can sometimes help with logistics and security. “Most of the other commissions of inquiry have been banned from going to the country and therefore they don’t have staff there, they don’t travel there themselves,” he pointed out.
But war-torn South Sudan presents plenty of challenges. “The roads in South Sudan are not always passable, especially in the rainy season,” Clapham said. “You can’t always just hop on a flight and arrive in places, and there could be security concerns where you’re going. Then we operate under the do-no-harm principle: one would not want to interview people in ways that retraumatise them or put them at further risk. So there are all the safeguards and problems that you would have in any complex war crimes investigation.”
Investigating without access
Katzarova hopes the Russian authorities will cooperate with her because she thinks it is important to talk to everyone, especially government officials, for a thorough assessment of the human rights situation. But this is by no means certain. Russia condemned the October 2022 resolution of the UN Human Rights Council that created her mandate, saying it was politically motivated.
“There is a preconceived notion, it seems, that the Russian authorities are not really ready to embrace communication with the mandate,” she told SWI swissinfo.ch. “I don’t know yet because I haven’t received any official responses to the letters I sent immediately after my mandate began.”
Sometimes countries don’t want to be seen to officially say no, so they simply don’t answer. In that case, as with a no, under UN rules the expert cannot go.
If Katzarova is not given access to Russia, she said she would have to rely on sources in the growing Russian diaspora and try to verify their information as best she can. She said social media and the internet meant people inside Russia “can also reach me, and I’m completely open to receive information from anybody who feels that I could amplify their voice and ask the right questions to the government”.
Working methods clearly differ, depending on the situation. For South Sudan, Clapham said one of the commission’s ways of working was interviewing refugees in neighbouring countries, “especially when they are recent refugees, so they can recount their experiences to us as fresh”. It’s hard to do that in-country, he explained, because the places that have come under attack or where there have been incidents of violence are usually quite inaccessible. “And also, if you were to go there, then almost by definition the people have fled.”
The commission may then take up such incidents of violence with the government. “We always meet the high-level ministers and members of the cabinet to hear their reactions to our reports and to try to discuss structural issues,” he said.
Why do the job?
Clapham admitted it was frustrating that after all these years violence continues in South Sudan, while justice and reconciliation mechanisms planned under a peace agreement have not been set up.
On the other hand, he pointed to what he saw as some successes for the commission, such as identifying particular units and individuals associated with crimes, and telling the story from the point of view of victims.
He thought the commission’s work on sexual violence in South Sudanese society “has been important for a level of understanding and hopefully a level of prevention in the future”. The commission also did a report on starvation, “which I think helped explain to people how this can indeed be an individual war crime, and starvation is not something that just happens to people, it’s something that is man-made and there can be individual accountability for it”.
He hoped this would help prevent future attacks on aid convoys. “Small steps are better than no steps,” he said.
Méndez seemed to feel the same way. He said racism in law enforcement was a matter of culture in some US institutions, which didn’t mean all law enforcement is racist. “But there is enough consistency in some actions of law enforcement and different law enforcement bodies around the country that it can be safely said it’s a matter of institutional culture that will take a lot of effort to eradicate.”
So why do the job? “I think it’s the same reason that inspires all human rights work, especially international human rights work,” Méndez said. “Human rights violations will not disappear, but at least we can make contributions to resolving the most serious ones, and particularly those that are so ingrained in the culture that they require a long-term effort.”
He said the work of UN human rights experts could contribute to change. “But it joins the efforts of so many others including victims’ families and victims themselves in seeking justice and accountability for what they suffer. Their decision is not to give up, and that inspires us.”
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