UN Human Rights Council in session in Geneva, Switzerland
The UN Human Rights Council has voted yes on a resolution to appoint three human rights experts chosen by the council president to investigate human rights abuse in the Ethiopian civil war. The resolution was introduced by the European Union and all the European nations on the council voted for it, but no African members did. Seven African nations voted no and six abstained. The resolution was passed by a vote of 21 in favor,15 against, and 11 abstaining.
The UN Commission on Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission recently conducted its own joint investigation into human rights abuse in the Ethiopian civil war, which began last year when the treasonous TPLF faction of the national army attacked a federal army base. The joint investigation concluded that there were human rights abuses that should be further investigated and prosecuted on both sides of the conflict, but that there was no genocide underway, and that the Ethiopian government was not using food as a weapon. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) denied any conclusion that it was guilty of human rights abuse, but the Ethiopian government accepted the report and set up a legal entity to investigate and prosecute.
Dissatisfied with that outcome, the EU introduced a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council to create its own investigative team of three appointed by the council president.
At the Council’s virtual meeting to vote on the resolution, the representative of Slovenia read the EU drafted resolution pro forma, but no one else stepped up to speak in favor of it. Representatives of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Russia, China, Venezuela, and the Philippines stepped up to condemn it as a hypocritical attack on Ethiopia’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Ethiopia has no legal obligation to let the council’s investigators into the country.
