If you have been receiving Response for a long time, you may know that it took us years to be granted our United Nations accreditation. We eventually received it in 2017, and have been making the most of it ever since.

At the start of every year, we like to look back on our work at the UN over the past 12 months. What has gone well? And where are we still waiting to see results?

CSW’s UN Officer Claire Denman attended all three sessions of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva in 2023 – in March, June and September. While there is plenty of advocacy that will continue into 2024, we are also encouraged by breakthroughs in cases like that of Pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo.

Pastor Lorenzo has been unjustly imprisoned in Cuba since July 2021, and where initially his case seemed not to draw much international attention, that changed last year as UN experts grew far more vocal on this continued injustice.

‘We are imminently waiting for an opinion to be adopted by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the case,’ explains Claire. ‘This will be helpful and will provide us with a formal UN opinion on what’s happened to Pastor Lorenzo, which will enhance our advocacy and ability to take that information to others who can help us hold Cuba accountable for his imprisonment.’

A breakthrough on Sudan

In October, the Council adopted a resolution which established an independent, international fact- finding mission (FFM) for Sudan. This is something we had been calling for as a matter of urgency, as the country remains engulfed in conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with civilians bearing the brunt.

The FFM will comprise three experts who will investigate, collect and analyse evidence of violations and abuses that have taken place during the conflict. Most encouragingly, it is also required to systematically record and preserve all information, documentation and evidence for future legal action.

‘It is not just a case of monitoring and reporting,’ says Claire. ‘It has a lot more weight to it, in the sense that the evidence that will be collected can be used for accountability in the future.’

Perseverance through setbacks

There were also challenges in 2023. At the same HRC session where the FFM for Sudan was established, Member States failed to renew a resolution that would have enabled continued international scrutiny of the situation of human rights in Ethiopia.

This is still sorely needed to investigate potential atrocity crimes in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. The UN’s failure to maintain this mandate is not only a missed opportunity; it also dealt a huge blow to survivors, who were looking to the UN to ensure accountability.

But even in the face of disappointments like these, Claire emphasises that the Council remains the foremost body for engaging on international human rights issues:

‘It provides a really unique place and space for trying to get important issues onto the agenda, discussed, and acted upon. Sometimes that happens more quickly than others, but it brings all the key actors to the same table to discuss the issues and to work out a way forward.’