YouSaid · the spoken record

Sooka

lines on the record
14
first
2020-02-13
most recent
2020-02-13
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “That is also true for a continental body like the African Union, if we are to silence the guns by 2020. As we take forward a transitional justice agenda, it is essential to ensure that peace and justice are seen as mutually reinforcing imperatives and are not replaced by the erroneous notion that peace must come first, before accountability. Prevention and building a sustainable peace require that we address mass atrocity crimes, which are the legacy of violent conflicts, and that we restore the trust deficit between the State and its citizens so that the State works for all citizens, irrespective of ethnicity, religion, gender or race. While we have to acknowledge the constraints that we operate under, we must also focus our efforts on ensuring that victims and their families are able to access justice and have their dignity restored.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  2. “The Security Council must address impunity using a prevention lens to ensure the non-recurrence of violations, but it also needs to address the indirect causes of conflict or factors that exacerbate conflict, namely, structural violence, discrimination, economic exploitation, unequal power relations and climate justice. In charting the road ahead, the Council needs to be more innovative, taking decisive approaches towards current conflicts on its agenda and acting in concert with other United Nations bodies, including the Human Rights Council, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the General Assembly and continental bodies such as the African Union, so as to enhance its legitimacy and its effectiveness in maintaining international peace and security.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  3. “That policy is meant to guide member States towards achieving sustainable peace, justice, reconciliation, social cohesion and healing after experiencing mass atrocities. While the policy is to be welcomed, we should remember that policies alone cannot substitute for a lack of political will to deal with accountability for grave crimes. The Security Council Report document I mentioned explores in great detail the response by various organs of the United Nations to the crisis in those four countries, but notes that the Security Council has to date been unable to either bring justice to the victims or seriously affect the course of the conflict.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  4. “Lack of action on accountability in conflicts where mass crimes are committed risks hampering the Council’s ability to address and resolve those conflicts more broadly, in a way that ensures long-term stability and avoids the resumption of conflict.” Continental bodies, such as the African Union (AU), have also begun to play a critical role in promoting transitional justice, as evidenced by the African Union’s role in 2006 in the prosecution of Hissène Habré, the former President of Chad. The AU and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development have also been instrumental in facilitating the peace process for South Sudan, as well as the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan. African Union member States also recently adopted the AU’s transitional justice policy on 12 February 2019.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  5. “The recent fifth research report on the rule of law of Security Council Report focuses on how impunity has been responsible for some of the world’s most devastating conflicts, exploring in great detail four country situations: Myanmar, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. The report notes that, “Ending impunity is not only a matter of principle. For the Council, it is also a practical tool to maintain international peace and security.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  6. “For example, the transitional justice-related role of peacekeeping missions, such as the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, has been critical for international peace and security. Peacekeeping operations are also the best forums for promoting transitional justice through their support programmes for the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of former combatants and their contributions to prevention through institution-building.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  7. “Focusing on women and girls is critical, but ignoring the violations perpetrated against men and boys limits our analysis of how gender norms fuel the use of sexual violence in conflict and stymies our efforts at prevention. That is evidenced by the testimony that is emerging from many war zones. However, fragile States emerging from conflict have not always been able to implement the ambitious transitional justice programmes that they adopt. In many instances, they lack technical capacity and, often, the political will to do what is necessary. In both those instances, the United Nations should be required to provide vital support for the implementation of such processes. Since 2004, the Security Council has referred to or prescribed rule-of-law and transitional justice interventions in more than 60 resolutions.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  8. “However, accountability for conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence remains a challenge at both the domestic and international levels. My experience in investigating sexual and gender-based violence has convinced me of the importance of understanding the role that gender norms play in the fostering of violence and human rights abuses. Sexual and gender-based violence is still too often narrowly framed as a matter of gender identity, and insufficient attention is given to its causes. That obscures the fact that the drivers of conflict-related sexual violence are similar, irrespective of the victim’s identity. In fact, evidence shows that perpetrators use prescribed gender roles to punish and terrorize women and employ the same tactics to humiliate and emasculate men.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  9. “When they were consulted on the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, rural women in Sierra Leone asked the Commission to ensure that the Government allocate a percentage of the funds that it received from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative towards the secondary education of girls, as most poor families prioritized the education of boys. The women also recommended that the Government implement constitutional reforms to improve their legal status regardless of whether they had been married under Islamic law or customary law. The work of the Truth and Dignity Commission in Tunisia has been ground-breaking, including ensuring an independent budget to facilitate the inclusion and participation of women and girls.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  10. “Joinet’s work was premised on the recognition that gross human rights violations and atrocity crimes are rooted in State structures that manifest unequal power asymmetries and shape contexts of extreme violence and repression. African experiences have also challenged the narrow focus on civil and political rights violations in the light of the legacies of violence and structural violations arising from their colonial histories and wars of liberation, including land dispossession, corruption and economic crimes. Earlier transitional justice processes also ignored the gender dimension of conflict. However, the transitional justice processes adopted in countries like Sierra Leone, Peru and, more recently, Tunisia have adopted a gender lens that deliberately focuses on the inclusion and participation of women and girls.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  11. “As an actor in the process I was, however, always deeply conscious of the limitations of the narrow mandate, which did not allow us to consider structural violations. The Principles to Combat Impunity, developed by Louis Joinet and later updated by Diane Orentlicher, advanced the field of transitional justice, as Joinet posited that States are primarily responsible for ensuring that victims and their families are able to realize their inalienable right to truth, justice and reparations. Joinet transformed transitional justice from a technocratic process of one-size-fits-all to a holistic approach that is context-specific, inclusive and participatory and centralizes the rights of victims.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  12. “Transitional justice suggests the drawing of a line between the past and the future. However, even the best transitional processes often exclude many people who are not yet ready to speak or who have not been given an opportunity to tell their stories. As in my own country, it can take decades to deliver justice, and often the quest for the truth will be driven by the families of victims, helped by a handful of determined civil society actors assisting them. I was fortunate to be a part of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 1995 by Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected President. South Africa’s process was deeply influenced by the Latin American experiences of establishing accountability while at the same time ensuring stability and the continuance of the new Government.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  13. “The apartheid State responsible for his death in custody found that he had hanged himself in his cell. Many of those who were detained and tortured during that period are now speaking out about their torture at the hands of South Africa’s notorious apartheid security branch. Reopened inquests are a symbol of hope for countless victims and their families all over the world in their long arduous struggle for truth and justice. The reopened inquests in South Africa and the latest report that Omer Al-Bashir might at last be transferred to the International Criminal Court to face genocide and war crimes charges demonstrate the importance of addressing impunity, which is directly linked to restoring the rule of law as a prerequisite for national healing and reconciliation.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source

  14. “Ms. Sooka: I would like to thank the Belgian Government for inviting me to participate in this important open debate on transitional justice. I come from a country where, during the years of apartheid, scores of detainees were said to have jumped out of windows at police headquarters, hanged themselves in cells or died by hitting their heads against police filing cabinets or by fatally slipping on bars of soap. Inquests held under the apartheid system found nobody responsible for their deaths. Two decades after South Africa’s transitional justice process, those inquests are at last being reopened, and families now have hope for justice. “I would like to know how and why he died,” said Jill Burger, the sister of trade union activist and doctor Neil Aggett, two weeks ago when she testified at the reopened inquest.”

    2020-02-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8723 (2020) · source