The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine is a

United Nations commission of inquiry A United Nations fact-finding mission, also called a United Nations commission of inquiry, is a United Nations mission carried out with the intention to discover facts. They are often sent to troubled areas. Fact-finding missions have been sent b ...

established by the

United Nations Human Rights Council The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...

on 4 March 2022 with a mandate to investigate violations of

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and of

international humanitarian law International humanitarian law (IHL), also referred to as the laws of armed conflict, is the law that regulates the conduct of war ('' jus in bello''). It is a branch of international law that seeks to limit the effects of armed conflict by pr ...

in the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

. The Commission delivered its report on 18 October 2022.

Creation

On 3 March 2022, the

(UNHRC) started debating the effect of the

on human rights. On 4 March, in resolution A/HRC/49/L.1, the UNHRC condemned the violations of human rights and international law caused by the full-scale Russian invasion, called for

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

to stop its violations in Ukraine, called for Russia to completely withdraw from internationally recognised Ukrainian territory in order to prevent further violations, and decided to establish an independent international commission of inquiry on Ukraine. The resolution was passed by the UNHRC with 32 states in favour, 13 absentions and 2 (

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...

and Russia) against. The Russian representative on the UNHRC, Evgeny Ustinov, viewed the commission of inquiry as "a mere waste of resources, which could better be used to help civilians in Ukraine".

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

expressed its support for the UNHRC to create a commission of inquiry into violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Ukraine by all groups involved.

Structure

The commission of inquiry was initially set up to include three human rights experts, initially for one year, headed by

Erik Møse Erik Møse (born 9 October 1950) is a Norwegian judge. Møse has been a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Supreme Court of Norway, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). At the ICTR, he served as Vice Presiden ...

from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, and also including Jasminka Džumhur from

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

and

Pablo de Greiff Pablo de Greiff (born June 20, 1963) is a Colombian academic and a human rights activist, who served as the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. In January 2015 ...

from

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

Aims

The aim of the commission of inquiry is to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of

and

in the context of the

. The commission is required to make recommendations based on its investigation, initially reporting in September 2022 to the fifty-first and fifty-second sessions of the UNHRC and the seventy-seventh session of the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...

Report

On 18 October 2022, the Commission published its report on events that took place between the end of February and March 2022 in the four regions of

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

Chernihiv Chernihiv ( uk, Черні́гів, , russian: Черни́гов, ; pl, Czernihów, ; la, Czernihovia), is a city and municipality in northern Ukraine, which serves as the administrative center of Chernihiv Oblast and Chernihiv Raion within ...

Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Sumy.The Commission found that Russian armed forces were responsible for the large majority of violations of human rights and

, and that Ukrainian forces also committed violations of international humanitarian law, including two incidents that qualified as war crimes.

References

External links

Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine
{{2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, War crimes Human rights in Ukraine War crimes during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Ukraine and the United Nations Russia and the United Nations 2022 in the United Nations