UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

55^th Session

Enhanced Interactive Dialogue report of Commission of Human Rights in South Sudan

1 March 2024

EU Statement

Mr Vice/President,

We would like to begin by thanking the Commission for its valuable work for the people in South Sudan [and specifically their most recent report]. We also appreciate South Sudan’s continued cooperation with the Commission.

However, we remain gravely concerned by continued gross human rights violations and a climate of impunity, marked by severe violence against civilians, including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and appalling accounts of sexual and gender-based violence in the country.

We call on the political leadership to direct their efforts to ending the fighting and implementing in full the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan. We urge the Government to build on the appointment of the leadership of the National Elections Commission (NEC), the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC), and the Political Parties Council (PPC) on 3 November 2023 to create the necessary conditions for credible elections. A transparent and credible election process as well as the establishment of strong and accountable institutions of governance, rule of law, and transitional justice are vital for South Sudan’s way forward. We call on the government to fulfil its duty in protecting its people, to combat corruption, including in the political marketplace, and to guarantee and respect the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association.

We recognize South Sudan’s ratification of human rights treaties as an important step, and urge the Government of South Sudan to continue to transpose treaty-provisions into national legislation. The people of South Sudan need protection, they need institutions they can rely on to uphold the rule of law, to allow for civil society to thrive, to allow for a way forward.

Honoured members of the Commission,

What way do you propose forward, where do you see further and maybe enhanced necessity to investigate and report, and what steps can the members of this council take to support?

Thank you.