Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-01-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make it his policy to support an independent inquiry into alleged breaches of international humanitarian law in Yemen by the UN Human Rights Council.

Mr Philip Hammond

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. It is for the Government of Yemen to decide how its domestic human rights monitoring mechanism should work and the UK welcomes Yemen’s commitment to cooperate with the UN on protection of human rights.

The UK has also encouraged members of the Saudi-led coalition to investigate allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law, and for their investigations to be thorough and conclusive.