The United Kingdom stands firm in continued efforts to deliver justice for Daesh’s atrocities: UK statement at the UN Security Council
Statement by UK Political Coordinator Fergus Eckersley at the UN Security Council meeting on Iraq.
Thank you President. I would like to thank the Special Adviser for his latest report and for all the work of the UNITAD team. The United Kingdom continues to value UNITAD’s important contribution to holding members of Daesh accountable for their appalling crimes.
We welcome the progress that UNITAD has made since the last briefing. As we’ve heard, it has concluded reports on two critical issues: sexual violence against women and girls, and the development and use of chemical weapons by Daesh. It has delivered 80 field missions and digitised a further five million records.
And we welcome UNITAD’s important capacity-building work including training on witness protection and victim-centred approaches to evidence collection, as well as supporting mass grave excavations.
All of this is vital to bringing justice and accountability for victims and survivors while supporting the Iraqi government in its modernisation of judicial processes and of investigatory work.
We strongly encourage UNITAD and the Government of Iraq to find a way forward for third party evidence sharing, as this Council requested in resolution 2697, which is so critical to ensuring members of Daesh cannot escape impunity by fleeing abroad.
We also encourage UNITAD to continue working with the Iraqi authorities to improve evidence sharing and to plan for the future. However, we do recognise the sharing of sensitive evidence is not straightforward, as it is often subject to, among other things, the consent of witnesses.
We hope the upcoming report of the Secretary-General will provide clarity on these matters so that the Council and Iraq can properly understand what evidence has been and can be shared, and how the Council, UNITAD, and the Government of Iraq could make further progress on this. It is critical that the evidence collected by UNITAD continues to be available for prosecutions of international crimes.
President, we all agree here on the importance of accountability for Daesh’s crimes. We owe that to the victims as the Special Adviser has said.
For our part, the United Kingdom is committed to working closely with the government of Iraq and the United Nations to ensure UNITAD’s unique work is used effectively both in Iraq and around the world.
We are grateful to the Special Adviser and his Team for their dedicated efforts in pursuit of accountability. And we stand firm in our continued international efforts to deliver justice for Daesh’s atrocities.
Thank you.