“General debate Item 4: Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention"

Statement by: International-Lawyers.Org

25 September 2020

Thank you, President,

We are deeply concerned about the systematic and widespread human rights violations in Iraq. We have raised this issue many times before UN relevant bodies and are still of the firm belief that the situation requires special attention by this Council.

It is appalling that international crimes committed by powerful states against other states are too often erased from humanity’s collective memory and replaced with propaganda to cover up the millions of lives destroyed and extinguished through these crimes. We call attention to the 2003 illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq for which not a single person responsible has been brought to justice. The victims of that heinous war are entitled to the protections of international law and cannot be removed from our collective memory.  

Therefore, International-Lawyers and Geneva International Centre for Justice repeat their calls to establish an international, independent Commission of inquiry to investigate all human rights violations in Iraq since 2003 in order to hold all perpetrators accountable.

It is also appalling that the Iraqi government continues to evade calls for accountability for thousands of disappeared persons by branding them as terrorists solely on the basis that they derive from certain ethnic regions in Iraq.

Human rights defenders in Iraq are subjected to abductions and assassinations merely for exercising their fundamental rights.

Impunity enables these violations to persist and we repeat our call upon the Council to take all necessary measures to stop these grave violations.

Thank you.

Justice, Human rights, Geneva, geneva4justice, GICJ, Geneva International Centre For Justice