clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

UN calls for human rights abuses to be documented in Libya

September 29, 2016 at 3:34 pm

Senior UN officials have called for an independent body to document human rights abuses in Libya and efforts by the authority to bring perpetrators to account.

Kate Gilmore, speaking at the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva yesterday on behalf of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, said the human rights situation in Libya is “depressing, with little hope of resolution in immediate sight.”

The UN’s special envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, further added that the UN Security Mission in Libya would fully cooperate with any new system that would seek to improve and protect human rights and its promotion in Libya.

Perpetrators of abuses and violations often act with impunity where “victims believe for good reason that there are few prospects for justice,” Gilmore explained.

However, Gilmore said that perpetrators instead needed to be held criminally liable for their actions, not allowed access to any official positions in the Libyan state and the International Criminal Court must do more to pursue them.