Rights group faults UN Human Rights Council decision on Yemen accountability
Yemen Herald News 
GENEVA, Switzerland — A human rights group has criticised the UN Human Rights Council for ending its session without creating an independent international mechanism to investigate violations in Yemen.
The Association for Human Rights and Immigration said the outcome failed victims who have sought accountability for abuses committed during Yemen’s war.
The organisation set out its position in a statement issued on 7 October. The account of that position rests on the organisation’s own statement, and no independent confirmation of it has been published.
The Council closed its 63rd session this month. It adopted 34 resolutions, two decisions and one president’s statement.
The Council has 47 member states and meets at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
On Yemen it adopted resolution A/HRC/63/L.33, on technical assistance and capacity-building for Yemen in the field of human rights. The text was adopted without a vote.
The resolution was taken under agenda item 10, which covers technical assistance and capacity-building.
It calls on all parties to the conflict to implement Security Council resolution 2216, adopted in 2015.
That resolution demanded that the Houthis withdraw from areas they had seized and give up weapons taken from state institutions. It also imposed an arms embargo targeting Houthi leaders.
It urges them to reach a comprehensive agreement to end the conflict, with the full and effective participation of women.
It asks the High Commissioner for Human Rights to report on the delivery of technical assistance at the Council’s 66th session.
It asks the Secretary-General to ensure that the Office of the High Commissioner has the resources to deliver that assistance on time.
The session established no independent international investigative body for Yemen, and renewed none.
That is the omission the organisation objects to.
It said keeping Yemen under agenda item 10, without an independent mechanism, does not meet the demands of victims and human rights organisations for justice and accountability.
It said the item 10 framework, built mainly around technical assistance and capacity-building, does not reflect the scale of the violations recorded in Yemen.
It said technical assistance cannot replace an independent international investigation.
Such an investigation, it said, would gather evidence, document responsibility and identify the individuals and entities implicated in violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
The organisation said the absence of a comprehensive international mechanism could deepen the concerns of victims about impunity.
It pointed to the complexity of the conflict and the involvement of multiple armed, political and regional actors.
The group said reliance on national investigative bodies had not produced accountability.
It described what it called an overlap of Saudi and Iranian interests in maintaining those national mechanisms.
It said that overlap raised questions about the influence of regional political calculations on international accountability efforts.
That characterisation is the organisation’s own.
The Houthis are aligned with Iran, which has denied arming them. The Yemeni government is backed by Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations in 2023.
Agenda item 10 covers assistance provided with a state’s cooperation. Investigative mandates are more often created under other items.
Yemen has been without an independent international investigative mandate since 2021.
The Council declined that October to renew the mandate of its Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen.
The group had reported to the Council on violations by all parties to the conflict since 2017.
Victims and human rights organisations have pressed for an independent mechanism in the years since.
Legal and human rights organisations, among them the International Commission of Jurists, called the decision a blow to accountability at the time.
The war has continued since.
The Houthis took the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in 2014, and a Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year.
The war was largely frozen for years before the current escalation.
Fighting escalated this month. Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government launched an offensive against the Houthis in early October, after Houthi forces seized territory along the Bab al-Mandab strait in September.
Yemeni government forces have claimed control of the Bab al-Mandab coastline and the port of Mokha. The Houthis have not confirmed losing ground there.
Houthi forces have struck airports inside Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said attacks on the airports at Riyadh and Abha killed three people and wounded 36.
It said a further attack at the Riyadh airport on Thursday killed three Saudi citizens.
The United Arab Emirates, condemning the earlier attacks, said the dead were a Moroccan, an Algerian and a Sudanese national.
The war has driven one of the world’s largest relief operations.
The United Nations humanitarian plan for 2026 says more than 22 million people in Yemen need assistance.
The figures are drawn from the humanitarian needs and response plan for the country.
It says 18.3 million people are acutely food insecure.
It says more than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.
It records 5.2 million displaced people, and seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of those in need.
The Council asked for its next report on technical assistance for Yemen at the 66th session.
The 63rd session ran from 7 September to 7 October.
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