Geneva. 09 October 2025.
With the conclusion yesterday of the UN Human Rights Council’s 60th session, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) welcomes the significant progressive steps taken towards accountability and justice in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, while denouncing the failure of States to provide the necessary financial and political support to the world’s premier human rights body in a time of global crisis.
Multilateral cooperative efforts to advance human rights worldwide have come under unbearable strain, bringing dire implications for the human rights protection everywhere, including for victims and survivors of atrocity crimes, such as enforced disappearances, torture, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Human rights have borne a particular brunt of the burgeoning UN liquidity and budget crisis, that overlaps with major reforms currently being discussed in the context of the 80th anniversary of the organization (UN80 process). The Updated estimates by the UN Secretary General foresee reductions of 15.1 per cent of resources and 18.8 per cent of posts in the 2026 regular budget compared with 2025, with a disproportionate impact on the already poorly endowed human rights pillar of the UN.
The impact of cuts to UN human rights capacity were manifest at the 60th session, as decisions and resolutions were constrained by the budgetary impact of actions mandated to the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) and Special Procedures independent human rights mechanisms. For instance, the important mandates of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, and the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons were merged into a single mandate under the title of Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and trafficking in persons, even though these are distinct areas requiring their own particular dedicated attention. While the Council should aim to achieve greater efficiencies, this should not come at the expense of essential human rights protection.
Attention to country situations was also affected by budgetary considerations. In that regard, the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have suffered from the failure to implement the resolution to create an independent Commission of Inquiry agreed at a Special Session of the HRC in February, leading the DRC to have pursue a resolution, adopted by the Council, to force its establishment.
Notwithstanding the financial constraints and uncertainties linked to UN80 planned reforms, the ICJ underscores the critical importance of preserving the system of independent mechanisms for monitoring and accountability for violations and abuses of human rights. It that regard, the ICJ deplores the dissolution of the mandate of the independent expert on Somalia, leaving the country to rely on OHCHR technical assistance, rather than independent monitoring and fact finding.
The ICJ also deplores the ever-increasing constraints and arbitrary measures, including in relation to security procedures and physical access to the UN compound, that have been placed on the work of independent civil society at the Council, when attacks on civic space and human rights defenders are on the rise worldwide. While the ICJ welcomes the adoption by consensus of a resolution on cooperation with the United Nations, its representatives and mechanisms in the field of human rights that tackles the situation of transnational repression, the HRC and the UN must do more to facilitate the practical work of civil society within their own house.
The ICJ warmly welcomes the highly consequential breakthrough on human rights in Afghanistan, with this year’s resolution, adopted without a vote, that establishes an ongoing independent investigative mechanism to “collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of international crimes and the most serious violations of international law, including those that may also amount to violations and abuses of international human rights law, committed in Afghanistan.”
The ICJ, together with Afghan and international civil society, have longed called for concrete accountability measures from the Council. This mechanism represents a crucial step forward in responding to the systematic rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan, including of women, girls and LGBTQI+ persons. Looking ahead, this new pathway to justice must be rapidly operationalized with adequate resources, despite the UN’s financial constraints.
The ICJ similarly welcomes, the adoption of the resolution which will address accountability in Sri Lanka, by extending the monitoring and reporting mandate of the OHCHR for another two years. While this in some measure aligns with the ICJ’s repeated calls, we are concerned that the resolution reflects unwarranted reliance on the Government’s commitments, broken in the past, and fails to acknowledge the Government’s demonstrated unwillingness and inability to deliver credible accountability for thousands of enforced disappearances and other atrocities. The resolution fails to adequately recognize the prevalence of serious human rights violations, including custodial deaths, ongoing reprisals against human rights defenders, families of victims, and civil society, and the persistent militarization and surveillance in the North-East.
The ICJ welcomes the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Cambodia, while deploring that the situation that remains dire is not adequately acknowledged in the adopted text.
While we also appreciate the adoption of a resolution on the situation in Sudan, where a raging conflict is generating one of the world’s gravest human rights crises, a group of States composed of Bolivia, Burundi, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Vietnam and Sudan itself unconscionably opposed action and the resolution was not adopted by consensus and was extended for only one year despite entreaties for at least a two year extension.
The ICJ similarly welcomes the adoption of resolutions renewing mandates aimed at monitoring the human rights abuses and violations in Burundi and the Russian Federation, while regretting that they could not be adopted by consensus.
The ICJ further deeply regrets that the HRC did not adopt a stronger resolution on Libya, as the technical cooperation that the UN human rights office is providing to the country is clearly not a sufficient response to meet the critical task of advancing the delivery of justice to victims and survivors of the serious past and present human rights violations and abuses in the country.
The ICJ welcomes the consensual renewal of mandates including the mandates of the Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and to sanitation, of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples; of the working group on arbitrary detention; of the Special Rapporteur on the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; and of the Independent expert on the human rights of older persons.
The ICJ also notes the importance of the Council’s adoption, by consensus, of a resolution on the “promotion and protection of the human rights of women and children in conflict and post-conflict situations: ensuring justice, remedies and reparation for victims”. As highlighted by participants at a side event supported by the ICJ, sexual and gender-based violence is often used in a very targeted and intentional way, including as a method of warfare. In that regard, the ICJ recalls that 2025 is the year marking the 30th anniversary of the Beijing declaration and plan of action, as well as the 25th anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.
The ICJ also notes the adoption without a vote of thematic resolutions including on economic, social and cultural rights in the context of combating inequalities, and on the role of prevention in the promotion and protection of human rights focusing on the rule of law and accountability. This is particularly important for preventing the escalation of human rights crisis by addressing them at an early stage, as in the case of Tunisia where the aggravation of the human rights situation should be tackled quickly by the HRC ,
The ICJ greatly deplores that important resolutions on the prevention of maternal mortality and morbidity; the question of the death penalty and human rights; and on drug policies and human rights, which should all be supported unanimously were subject to attempts to dilute broadly accepted standards for the increasing protection of human rights in these specific policy areas, taking into consideration the adverse human rights impacts experienced by rights-holders, especially those who are marginalized and in vulnerable situations .
In that context, a new resolution on the impact of sea-level rise on human rights was adopted without a vote. Nevertheless, the ICJ regrets the failure of efforts by Vanuatu, supported by the Marshall Islands, as States especially and immediately impacted by the climate change induced sea-level rise, to include an explicit recognition of the role of fossil fuels in the crisis. Bullying to withdraw this provision by spoiler States serve only to advance the narrow economic interests of fossil fuel producers and suppliers bearing a large measure of responsibility for the crisis, to the detriment of the protection of human rights in a context of existential threats to humanity.
The ICJ was pleased to host a side event with the participation of the Special Rapporteur on Truth, Justice and Reparation to highlight the fundamental role of documenting human rights violations and abuses for justice in situations of transition, as well as to ensure guarantees of non-recurrence of such violations and abuses, that could otherwise generate new conflict and atrocities, as in the case of Syria, Sri Lanka or Peru.
Find more information on ICJ’s statements and activities during the 60th session of the HRC at:
