Steve McCabe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-06-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will request that the UN Human Rights Council establishes an international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Yemen by all parties to the conflict in that country.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
The UK supported a UN Human Rights Council resolution in October 2015, which called on the UN to provide technical assistance to the Government of Yemen, assist the Yemeni National Independent Commission of Inquiry, and report back to the next session of the Human Rights Council in September. The UK welcomes Yemen’s commitment to cooperate with the UN on protection of human rights
We are aware of reports of alleged violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) by actors in the conflict and take these very seriously. It is important that all sides conduct thorough and conclusive investigations into all incidents where it is alleged that IHL has been breached. We regularly raise the importance of compliance with International Humanitarian Law with the Saudi Arabian Government and other members of the military Coalition. The Saudis have their own internal procedures for investigations and they announced more detail of how they investigate such incidents of concern on 31 January.
