Human Rights Council 37: Call for Urgent Debate on Human Rights Situation in Eastern Ghouta
This UK statement was delivered by Ambassador Julian Braithwaite during the 37th Session of the Human Rights Council on 2 March 2018.
The Human Rights Council takes place at the Palais des Nations in Geneva
We thank the Bureau for considering our request of yesterday morning and recommending to the Council that we convene an urgent debate this afternoon.
Mr President – the reasons for this request are clear. For this Council to have credibility it needs to respond to the most pressing human rights crises that are occurring. This is particularly the case on Syria given that the Council has been the main UN body which has been seized of the situation in Syria since 2011.
United National Secretary General Guterres spoke out in the strongest terms about Eastern Ghouta when he addressed this Council on Monday saying that it was, and I quote “high time to stop this hell on earth”.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been similarly strong focussing on Syria in his own address to the HRC in which he described Eastern Ghouta as one of the “most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times.
I ask colleagues here today, how can this Council not respond?
Despite the UNSC resolution on 24 February serious violations have continued on a wide scale including repeated airstrikes of civilians causing many deaths. And we must remember that this is against a background of five years of siege, causing wide-scale starvation, severe malnutrition, and countless deaths from lack of adequate medical care.
Again I ask, how can this Council not respond?
I am sensitive to the fact that some colleagues would have needed more time to prepare statements and positions for today. Unfortunately the scale of the crisis in Eastern Ghouta does not give us the luxury of more time. This Council has the ability to respond on an urgent basis and there is every reason to do so now given the scale and gravity and appalling context of the situation.
So I call on all colleagues to support the call for an urgent debate. Those suffering in Eastern Ghouta as we debate this point, require us to respond, and to do so today.