Policy Paper:Evaluation of the Strategy in

1 Policy Paper:Evaluation of the United Nations Strategy in Yemen

Policy Paper:Evaluation of the United Nations Strategy in Yemen

Earlier this year, the United Nations warned that the crisis in Yemen remains the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. An estimated 24 million people (80% of the population) are in need of protection and assistance. The number of people in acute need are at a staggering 27% higher than last year. Then what is the nature of the UN’s strategy for handling the disaster in Yemen? International United Nations Watch held a public seminar in the House of Commons in collaboration with All Party Group for Yemen, which was hosted by MP Keith Vaz along with lawmakers, academics, and journalists to review and discuss this topic. At the seminar, the speakers discussed the UN’s response to the food crisis, reviewed UN efforts to solve the political crisis, and placed the topic within the context of war crimes, justice, and accountability.

Time and Date: 5:30-7:00 pm, 8 May, House of Commons, UK

Chair: Keith Vaz MP – head of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Yemen

Speakers:

Helen Lackner – Research associate at the School for Oriental and African Studies

Gerry Simpson – Professor of Public and International Law at the London School of Economics

Maria Holt – Reader in Politics at the University of Westminster

Maya Garner – Spokesperson for International United Nations Watch

Mouna Hashem – International Evaluation Consultant & Researcher

The following is the text of what was said at the seminar.

Note: The first minute of MP Vaz’s speech is not available for technical reasons. Some minor edits were made to the text to make it more readable.

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Keith Vaz, MP We were trying to get into debates on the next day to make sure that there is parliamentary time talk about these very important issues. The Secretary of State is in London and I understand that he's also going to be talking to Joan, so this is good news. We also need the bombing to stop. I was asked just now by Al- Jazeera about the arms issue. Of course, the arms issue is absolutely vital, but it's a bigger debate. Of course, we have to be very careful who we sell arms to and make sure that the arms are not used against innocent civilians. But the issue for us now, the present issue is to make sure that the bombing stops, the war ends, and the peace process takes effect. That is our hope for what the UN is all about. And that is what we hear from our speakers . Our first speaker is Maya Garner who is from International UN Watch. Maya is the spokesperson for InternationalUnited Nations Watch and she reports on UN peacekeeping policies and works to uphold transparency and accountability for violations at the UN. She has worked for the last three years, defending human rights in the Middle East through grassroots initiatives and advocating change to political leaders. Maya Garner.

Maya Garner, IUNW Spokesperson Thank you for attending today and thanks to our speakers for agreeing to be on the panel. I would like to say a few words about who we are as an organization and the work we do and then to state our position on UNpolicies in Yemen. W e are a newly established organization called International UN Watch, a non-for -profit, politically non-affiliated group of young thinkers who aim to monitor the activities of the UN's various bodies to make sure that they're in line with the UN's founding principles and to ensure that the UN is held to the highest level of accountability. And so we see to expose the corruption at various UN bodies and call for greater transparency. Andwe want to raise political consciousness of UN activities, of ongoing debates — national political, societal, or developmental. And we seek to promote a new vision for the UN and to have a generation capable of understanding the mechanisms of the UN. And additionally we work to mobilize politicians, media and professionals to support the United Nations and defend its institutional independence.

And so, we promote discussion of UN activities on public platforms such as this panel here today. As speaking on behalf of International UN Watch, I would like to make perfectly clear our deepestconcern about the UN's inability to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Under the International UN's W atch, we have seen a worsening of war with the involvement of numerous regional and international actors. And although the UN has tried to mediate between different sides of the conflict and it has arranged ceasefires and pushed back

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against extreme violence, it has been unable to pressure countries like , the United States and the United Arab Emirates to subordinate their political and strategic interests in Yemen to their legal and ethical obligations as members of the UN. The current situation in Yemen is an affront to the values of peace, stability and good governance that are embedded in the UN's guiding principles.

Yemen is not just a tragedy. It is the site of a new kind of war that brings together new technologies such as drone strikes and new forms of paramilitarism and private military contracting combined with old tactics such as starvation, terror bombing and state exploitation of extra legal activities by proxies that date back to the colonial era. The humanitarian disaster we see today did not emerge by itself, it is specifically human made. In the UN discourse about the situation there must be absolute clarity that famine and disease are not that simple consequences of war; they are weapons of war. We have seen sewage and water facilities deliberately targeted by the Saudi-led coalition, resulting in the cholera epidemic created in part from the loss of livelihoods and civil services and the targeting and destruction of farms and fishing boats with air strikes. 20 million food insecure with more than 3 million people requiring treatment from acute malnutrition, 2 million of which are children under five years old.

In a vicious circle, children who suffer from malnutrition are more susceptible to cholera which results in more malnutrition. Both the cholera epidemic and the famine are two particularly severe manifestations of the concept of de-development which permeats the Saudi-led coalition's intervention in Yemen. We see the notion of de- development brought into practice through the targeting of transportation infrastructure, gas stations, bridges, combined with the naval blockade of sea ports and then the targeting of agriculturalinfrastructure, such as farms as well as sanitation facilities and hospitals. Given these realities, it is particularly unacceptable for the UN to not do more to reign in the activities of its member states. The Human Rights Council must recall the UN's founding principles and condemn how they are being violated in the country. Maintaining peace between larger nations by allowing for proxy wars is simply not a maintenance of peace.

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So we at International UN Watch believe the UN Human Rights Council must push to hold these states accountable for the massive consequences of their actions in Yemen, which includes the famine and aerial bombardment by Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States and human rights violations by numerous actors, including in secret prisons that are staffed by Emirati soldiers. Just last week, the U.S. Senate failed to override President Trump's veto of the legislation that could end the US military assistance for the Saudi and Emirati intervention in Yemen. And while the Senate could not bring up the two thirds majority required to override a presidential veto, it means nonetheless, we now see some movement, some political will, toward creating legislation in favor of peace in the case of Yemen. We are sitting now in the Houses of Parliament, of a country that has played a major role through the billions of pounds worth of arms exports to Saudi Arabia, ignoring multiple calls from organizations such as and who have demanded that the UK follows the example of other EU countries to suspend the arms sales to Saudi Arabia. We at international UN watch call on the United Nations to bring the human rights violations to an end by holding its member states accountable and to stop the exports of armsthat have been used to create the world's worst humanitarian crisis. I would like to present this as an opportunity to the UK government as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and to the UK politicians and professionals, to the activists and journalists, and the British human rights organizations to work towards upholding this call and to take the lead in assisting the United Nations in its duties to the people of Yemen to ensure their safety and bring the military intervention to a decisive end.

Keith Vaz, MP Thank you very much, Maya. Dr. Mouna Hashem has 20 years experience in the evaluation of bilateral and multilateral organizations, including UN agencies and has covered research areas, including health, gender equality and food security. We are delighted to have her here today. Dr. Hashem.

Dr. Mouna Hashem, international consultant Good afternoon everyone. I am going to talk about the humanitarian crisis, specifically the UN's response to the humanitarian crisis, including talking about challenges. The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is the worst the world has seen in modern history. Whatever numbers may be quoted on civilian deaths, famine or cholera, within a few hours these numbers inevitably increase. Who would have thought in the 21st century that we would not only witness but allow such a man-made humanitarian crisis to occur? And for what reason? According to the Saudi coalition and the western powers supporting them, this

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brutal war was intended to reinstate the transitional President, Abdu Mansur Hadi, whom they consider the legitimate President. Even though his two-year term had expired and the majority of Yemenis considered him corrupt, incompetent, and reject him. According to the Vienna declaration: “legitimacy is derived from the people who have political right to self-determination so that they can administer their own affairs and determine their own political, social, and cultural system without external interference or control, whether by the intervention of another state, military force, or through the use of mercenaries under the control of influence.” In understanding the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, we need to look at the causes of the country’s destruction that pushed 80% of the population intoa state of severe malnutrition, famine, disease and eventually to the current humanitarian crisis. The causes include airstrikes, the closing of the country’s major airport in Sana’a, the transfer of the Central Bank of Yemen from the capital Sana’a to Aden, the intentional depreciation of the Yemeni Rial, and the Saudi Coalition’s air, land, and sea blockade. Since the start of the war on 26 March 2015, the Saudi coalition airstrikes have been targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, including residential neighbourhoods, health centers, hospitals, markets, weddings, funerals, schools, school buses, and vocational centers, in addition to economic resources such as airports, seaports, factories, farms, livestock, irrigation systems, water purification and sanitation facilities, roads and bridges. The airstrikes have directly killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people, and indirectly killed thousands by disabling the injured and the sick to accessing healthcare or medicine. The aerial bombing of civilian residential areas also led to 3.65 million displaced people since 2015; and, according to UNICEF, an estimated 2.5 million children are out of school, as one in five schools across the country have been bombed, damaged, or used for displaced families. The Saudi coalition closed San’a airport to all commercial flights in September 2016 thus preventing hundreds of people from travelling to obtain urgent medical care overseas and the airport remains closed. It also blocked the importation of commercial and medical supplies, and prevented the entry of journalists who could report on the atrocities taking place. In 2017, President Hadi, backed by the Saudi coalition, transferred the Central Bank of Yemen in Sana’a to

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Aden; he then stopped payment of wages to government employees. This action severely impacted people’s ability to earn a living and escalated general malnutrition. An estimated 1.5 million public sector workers-- all government employees-- including ministry employees, health workers, teachers, sanitation workers, etc., have not received their wages up until the present (8 May 2019). Given that each public sector employee has an average of five dependents, it means the situation has impoverished about 7.5 million people. As their purchasing power diminishes a ripple effect is felt on the incomes of medium and small merchants, their employees and families. Another factor crippling the country’s economy and accentuating poverty and malnutrition, is the depreciation of the Yemeni currency. This occurred as a result of the Hadi government issuing new banknotes in the absence of adequate monetary policy instruments. Consequently, by 2018, the Yemeni Rial was severely depreciated and contributed to soaring inflation. With the necessity of importing 70% of Yemen’s food supply, food prices on average soared to 150 percent higher than before the conflict began in 2015. An estimated 81 percent of Yemenis are now living below the poverty line. The final nail in the coffin was the air, land and sea blockade. This enabled the Saudi coalition to seal the country against the entry of food, fuel, medicine, and commercial goods. The impact of this action has considerably worsened the humanitarian crisis. In examining the UN response to Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, this paper focuses on two UN entities, the Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN Security Council (UNSC) because of the specific roles they are supposed to play in situations of conflict. OCHA, considered the humanitarian arm of the UN, is responsible for seeing that humanitarian activities address emergency relief needs coherently and efficiently. In fulfilling this role, OCHA prepares an overall emergency framework for a country and then brings together the relevant UN agencies to work within this framework. OCHA also plays a pivotal role in supporting partners to catalogue, analyze, and overcome any operational challenges. In the case of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. OCHA faces immense challenges, not only because of the huge numbers of people they need to reach but also because of the

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deliberate obstacles imposed by the Saudi Emirati coalition. One such obstacle is preventing humanitarian vessels that have already passed the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM) from docking in Yemen. This is a violation of international law. The delay often lasts several months causing food and medicine to spoil, thus compounding the humanitarian crisis and wasting millions of dollars of an already tight budget for emergency relief. The UN Security Council (UNSC) has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and is supposed to take the lead in finding ways to resolve conflicts.The UN Security Council is composed of 15 members, including five permanent members -- the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and -- and 10 members elected by the General Assembly for a two-year term. The permanent members have a special status in the Security Council due to their historic role as victors in the Second World War, and because of their role in establishing the United Nations and its Charter. As a result, they are key to maintaining international peace and security. In this role they are granted special powers to veto any actions. During the last four years of war in Yemen, the UN Security Council has adopted nine resolutions, the most significant being Resolution 2216, which primarily imposes an embargo and travel ban on only four individuals. The Saudi coalition often uses Resolution 2216 to justify their unilateral attack on and blockade of Yemen. However, they attacked Yemen on the 26th of March 2015 while UN Security Council Resolution 2216 was adopted on the 14th of April 2015. The time gap between these events is significant. First, the Saudi coalition’s unilateral attack on Yemen began three weeks before the adoption of Resolution 2216, and therefore cannot be justified by the resolution. Second, the Saudi coalitionbombed Yemeni civilians and civilian infrastructure for three weeks while the UN Security Council remained silent. Furthermore, even though the UNSC adopted Resolution 2216 as a response to the war, it makes no mention of the Saudi coalition's airstrikes on Yemen or the blockade, which is in violation of international humanitarian law. Furthermore, the UNSC permanent members, particularly the USA, the UK, and France are the main suppliers of jet fighters, bombs, air re-fuelling, intelligence, training, and logistical support for the Saudi coalition, and are therefore supporters of a war that has no UN mandate to justify it.T herefore, they are in violation of international law. Additionally, all 9 UNSC resolutions and statements regarding the war, neithercondemn nor even address the Saudi coalition’s airstrikes that kill children in school buses, or civilians killed in funerals, market places, etc. Instead, the permanent members continue to shield the Saudis and Emiratis from any criticism expressed by other members of the UN Security Council. The General Secretariat for Humanitarian Affairs has frequently updated the UNSC on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and advocated for a political solution to the conflict, a re-

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opening of Sana’a Airport, and ceasingattacks on Hodeida as the port that is the country’s lifeline. They frequently also remind all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law. The UNSC response to these humanitarian calls has focused on Yemeni parties, particularly the Houthis, with no mention of the role the Saudi coalition played in the war. The UNSC was also given early warnings of the impact the blockade would have on Yemen’s fragile food supply. As early as 2015, the Secretary General's Special Advisor to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, stated at a Security Council briefing on the situation in Yemen: "I reported to the Security Council on the deteriorating humanitarian situation with thousands of people killed, many of whom are civilians. More than 150,000 people internally displaced and critical public infrastructure and civilian facilities damaged.” A few months later, in August 2015, the head of the International Red Cross also warned that months of intensified warfare and limits on imports because of the blockade were contributing to "catastrophic" conditions. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen reiterated this by stating that the continuous blockade of food, fuel, and medicine was dramatically increasing the number of vulnerable people in need of help, and warned that 8.84 million Yemenis were only a step away from famine.

The gravity of the situation appears not to have been enough to compel the Security Council permanent members, particularly the U.S. and the U.K., to demand that the coalition lift the blockade andopen Sana’a airport, or stop the indiscriminate airstrikes on civilians. Neither did the looming humanitarian catastrophe deter the U.S., U.K., and France from continuing their arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, despite strong advocacy from the UN humanitarian agencies, human rights group, and NGOs. Nor did the fact that their arms were being used to kill innocent civilians-- a violation of international law and their own state

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laws— deter them. Even when members of their own governments began to voice their concerns about complicity in the war, it was not enough. By early 2017, the Saudi coalition military and economic war in Yemen had become what the UN declared was “the single largest humanitarian crisis in the world.” UN agencies estimated that17.8 million people were experiencing food insecurity, in addition to the effects of the public service collapse that left more than 16 million Yemenis without access to safe water and sanitation, and 16.4 million without proper healthcare. All these factors played into an outbreak of cholera in 2017 that surpassed 1 million suspected cases by December 2017, the largest cholera epidemic ever recorded in a single year. In response, the UNSC held nine briefings and consultation sessions, yet no new resolutions were adopted-- only one Presidential Statement which is considered less significant than a resolution was passed. I apologize as I’ve run out of time and will not be able to talk about the Stockholm agreement. So, I’ll conclude by saying that the UNSC permanent members actions concerning the humanitarian crisis in Yemen raises serious questions about their objectivity in finding a solution that ends the war. Are they only posturing to make it appear they are doing something? Can they be arms dealers and peacemakers at the same time? Obviously, there's a conflict of interest and innocent Yemenis are paying the price.

Keith Vaz, MP I'm sorry I had to cut you short, but we're trying to get all our speakers in, so we're most grateful for that. Helen Lackneris a frequent visitor to the All PartyG roup and she has been a consultant on rural development for over 40 years, specializing in Yemeni development and peace studies. She's a research associate at SOAS and has written seven books about Yemeni development, most recently the one published in 2017 — there we are, free advert. My copy actually was taken by legal deposition with my consent. Or somebody else has taken my copy. I think that just makes me buy more copies every time. Anyway, there was one in the library at the House of Commons as well. It's entitled "Yemen in Crisis, Autocracy, Neo- liberalism, and the Disintegration of a State." Helen will speak for about 10 minutes.

Helen Lackner, Research associate at the School for Oriental and African Studies Good evening. I'm not going to give you a long historical lecture, but I want to start with 1990. For Yemenis, the main event in 1990 was unification of the YAR and the PDRY into the Republic of Yemen, but another event affected Yemeni leaders and also the population's attitude to the UN happened later that year when

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Yemen refused to join the US sponsored resolution supporting military intervention to put an end to ’s invasion of Kuwait. Unfortunately for Yemen, it then had a seat on the Security Council and, for different reasons, it voted against the resolution. The country as a whole was promptly punished for this, losing massive amounts of aid and, basically, being put on a blacklist of nations for the next four or five years. This was perceived as extremely unfair by Yemenis, leaders and population alike, and certainly contributed to a skeptical attitude to the UN as a political organisation. This did not prevent Yemen from participating in all UN institutions or signing most international agreements. So it is important to remember this when examining how Yemenis perceive UN political institutions, the UNSC in particular, since the current crisis started.

Coming to the present decade, when we look at what has happened in 2011, we first note that senior UN personnel were part of the group of ambassadors who were active in attempting to solve the crisis. As early as April 2011, the first Special Envoy was active in sponsoring what became known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreement. And over the following four years, the UN political department and the special envoy took a leading role, working almost independently from the group of ambassadors rather than in alignment with them.

Basically the UN supported the Agreement and then, from 2012 to 2014, it was deeply involved, in particular in the National Dialogue Conference (NDC). The UN Department of Political Affairs and the special envoy had a daily presence with senior staff. NDC members had high expectations from the UN, many of them disappointed. I remember being surprised one day at the NDC when a Yemeni friend asked me if I knew anybody who could come and advise the conference on an issue, pointing out that the UNDPA was not providing the kind of experts requested but instead sent the friends of their staff, talking to the conference about things they didn’t want to know about. The support that the UN gave the national dialogue conference was inadequate: for example, they did not help to focus the agenda on solving the problems. Lots of very interesting things happened in the NDC and I hope that some of them will have a long term impact, but they did not address the urgent problems that needed to be solved to prevent a deterioration of the situation. By the time it ended, it had failed on the two most crucial issues, the Huthi and the southern one. At the end of the NDC, which coincided with the official end of the two-year transition period of the GCC Agreement, its tasks were clearly uncompleted. The Special Envoy unilaterally extended the presidency of Abdu Rabbuh Mansour Hadi for an unclear period. The year 2014 saw the unravelling of the agreement and the gradual take-over of the capital Sana’a by what was then the alliance between the Huthis and the forces of former-President Saleh who retained control of the country’s main political institution, the General People’s

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Congress. As the civil war worsened, and the Saudi-led coalition started its military involvement, UN intervention took the form of UNSC Resolution 2216, approved in April 2015 which is still the fundamental international decision guiding UN actions in Yemen. It is un-implementable. It might conceivably have been applicable in 2015 the earliest days of the war. By the time the then Huthi-Saleh forces consolidated their control, it became completely unrelated to reality on the ground. Some of its elements could still form the basis for negotiations: for example, there are 1800 recommendations of the National Dialogue Conference so there is plenty of scope for agreement on a fair number of them. Another is respecting the GCC agreement: here again, there are points which are quite flexible and therefore open to debate.

But the main issue which prevents it from being a basis for a solution is that it effectively demands the Houthis need to withdraw their forces. Now if you translate that into plain English, it's called surrender. And the Houthis were not likely to surrender in 2015 and I think unfortunately, and I will say it again, unfortunately, they are not about to surrender today either because they have made very considerable gains. I talked to some people recently who think that they are actually making progress, which is extremely sad and unfortunate and something most of us here would deeply deplore. But surrender is not on the cards today or in the foreseeable future. So I think this is a very, very fundamental issue.

As Mouna has pointed out, the UNSC has been remarkably lacking in independence and has been basically following the advice of the coalition states. We are here in the British House of Commons where we are only too aware that the priority for the British government is to remain as friendly as possible with the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Since I don't have much time I will move on to a few words about Stockholm and the current situation. There were no negotiations for 27 months between the failure of the Kuwaittalks in 2016 and the meeting in Sweden in December last year. When the September meetings failed to happen, I thought there would be no negotiations for very long time. I had not predicted the main event which changed this situation, namely the killing of Khashoqji. The Khashoqji] effect brought about US pressure for a cease fire with a deadline of 30th November. The US decided that something had to be done about Saudi Arabia, and Yemen was it. In addition, the humanitarian situation had become catastrophic an there was public outrage. So, the US put pressure on Saudi Arabia and the UAE and forced the UN special Envoy to hold a meeting in December.

That is why the meeting happened, that is also why the meeting produced what it did, namely an agreement, which is too vague to be implemented. Even then, the only thing that

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was actually signed in Stockholm was the agreement on the prisoner exchange, which has made as little progress as the others today. This is another indication of the weakness of the United Nations. The UNSC followed the lead of the US and held a meeting which was little more than a public relations media exercise. People shook hands and it looked as if something was going to happen. Do read the agreement, it will not take long: the main section on Hodeida is one and a half pages and the other two items are each half a page, It is so vague that what has happened since was predicted, namely that everybody interpreted it exactly the way they want. So the meeting was rushed, and we now have a situation where, indeed, fighting has reduced considerably in the Hodeida area, but no other progress has been made.

By now most people are now, at best, talking about ‘how to save the Stockholm agreement.’ The next UNSC meeting on Yemen on the 15th of May is likely to be a very important one, as different parties involved are threatening to resume military action if no progress has taken place on withdrawal of forces by both sides in Hodeida. But fundamentally there is no progress: on one side we have the internationally recognized government consistently reasserting alignment to its three references without any willingness to compromise. On the other the Huthis claim agreement and implementation of the agreement,but do little. Both sides are using delaying tactics. Moreover, the current US administration does not see Yemen as a confrontation between the Huthis versus the coalition. It sees Yemen as the site where it will beat , imagining that getting more involved in Yemen will drive out the Iranians. This is a problem, because the Iranians aren't really there. Basically, further attacks on Yemen will not solve the U.S.-Saudi -Emirati problem with Iran. It will just mean far more and lasting death and suffering for Yemenis. And that's allI have to say, thank you.

Keith Vaz, MP And copies of Helen's book are available at the end. Our next speaker is professor Gerry Simpson., who is chair in public international law at the LSE having previously taught at the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University. He's also served as a visiting professor at Sydney Law School and Harvard. So thank you for fitting us in all these busy professorships. Most grateful. Thank you for coming.

Professor Gerry Simpson, Professor of Public and International Law at LSE Well, thank you very much. Thank you Maya for inviting me and to International UN Watch for the important work they're doing. I was asked to speak about a possibility of war crimes prosecution in relation to the war in Yemen and

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the history of war crimes prosecution since the beginning of the 20th century. That's rather a lot to fit into 12 minutes. Letmemake some preliminary points. First one is that much of the information I have has been derived from the recent report, which has been adverted to in this meeting by the route of regional and international experts appointed by the human rights council and including Charles Garroway an experts in international humanitarian law and International Criminal Law, and that report I think makes rather solitary and somewhat grim reading on the subject of war crimes violations and violations of international humanitarian law.

I think it's probably the most authoritative account we have of the possibility and prospect of some sorts of trialin the future in relation to events currently taking place in Yemen. That's the first point. Second point would be to emphasize thatthough I've been asked to speak about war crimes trials — war crimes trials aren't really an answer to the problem of human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian role in Yemen. They're at best a partial ex-post -facto solution. In fact, war crimes trials very often happen when nothing else has happened. That may have been the lesson of the InternationalCriminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Where there was a failure to intervene in Yugoslavia and various civil and international armed conflicts that took place in the former Yugoslavia in the 1992's. B ut a very vibrant war crimes prosecution. So, I think it's important to place war crimes trials in that sort of context.

I think it's also fairly important to realize the many of the violations of human dignity that would take place in Yemen and on a daily basis don't constitute war crimes. They are violations of human rights and in plain language simply assaults on human wellbeing and human dignity. So, one of the figures, that is included in the report talks about the number of people in need of assistance and in Yemen out of a population of 29 million, 22 million people are in need of assistance. 11 million are in need of acute assistance. So, I'm not sure if this has nothing to do withwar crimes trials, but rather has a lot to do with the political economy and geostrategic calculations around the Yemen conflict.

Okay, let mesay something about the history of war crimes trials very briefly and trying to apply that history to the Yemen situation. At the Nuremberg war crimes trials in 1946, a remarkable thing happened. For the first time in human history, individuals were put on trial for having committed grave violations of human rights in times of armed struggle. And it's really worth emphasizing how transformative this moment is in human history. That hadn't been a single war crimes trial, certainly not an international war crimes trial, prior to that point. So that the trials that took place at Nuremberg of the leading Nazi war criminals and a

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little bit later in Tokyo of the Japanese A Class war criminals were the first of their kind. And one of the most famous quotes from the Nuremberg war crimes trial is when the occurs, when theprivate, you know, talks about who commits crimes of saying the crimes are committed not by abstract entities but by men. Crimes are committed not by abstract entities, but by men. I think in the case of Yemen, the impression I have is that crimes are being committed by both by abstract and entities, i.e. states, and by men and women with individual responsibility for those crimes.

The other thing I would emphasize just as part of this history is that there are many other forms of accountability that exists alongside war crimes trials. So if we consider that history of this field and what might be done like human rights violations in retrospect or after the fact that what we notice is that there are a whole number of different techniques available in the international system for dealing with violators of core norms of humans in the city and international legal principles. So, I'm thinking of truth and reconciliation commissions, of the type that we saw still in South Africa, forms of purging as we saw in Germany after the Second World War and a whole host of otherdiplomatic solutions to the problem of mass atrocity. So again, it's, it's extremely important to think of war crimes trials as one of a number of different answers to the problem of violation in a place like Yemen.

So, because I'm a lawyer, I'm supposed to say something technical about these issues. Let mejust say something about how lawyers might approach the problem of accountability in the Yemen. And one of the first things that lawyers do and consider isa question of what sort of war is occurring in the Yemen, because different rules and principles of international humanitarian law apply in different conflicts. So I mean for example, the rules and norms of international humanitarian law apply to international armed conflict are much more comprehensive than those that apply in what used to be called civil wars but are no called, non-international armed conflicts. And most legal experts seem to believe that the Yemen conflict is, or qualifies, as a non-international armed conflict under international humanitarian law. Even though obviously as many of you will know, it has a number of internationalized elements.

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In that sense, it resembles wars like the war in Bosnia, which was also understood to be at times a non-international armed conflict, but which clearly had a number of different international elements. The rules of non-international armed conflict are found largely in the Geneva Convention Common Article Three. So there are four Geneva conventions applying to different modes of warfare. There's a common oculus three in each of these Geneva Conventions, which applies to non international armed conflict and which prohibits, and now since at least the 1990s, criminalizes certain abuses of international humanitarian law. So, it's that body of law combined with something called additional protocol 2 to the Geneva Conventions, signed and adopted in 1977, that we largelyapply to the war in Yemen along with the rules of international criminal law found in the 1998rule statue. What do these rules do? They prohibity the sort of behavior we have seen, over the years in Yemen and the render to go back to International Criminal Law, much of that activity on all sides of the conflict, criminal. So, I mean, for example, the use of child soldiers in the conflict is a breach of the rules that shoots article eight provisions prohibiting the use of child soldiers in war. The first prosecution, the first successful prosecution, for the ICC was the prosecution of a man who had deployed child soldiers in the conflict in the Congo. And this seems to be a practice that's quite prevalent in the Yemen. There are what I would call obvious violations of international humanitarian law like torture and enforced disappearance and starvation that are also being carried out in the Yemen. But I think from our point of view, it might be interesting to think about the crime of using force, particularlyfrom the air, that qualifies as disproportionate or indiscriminate. So,the use of air warfare in an indiscriminate or reckless or disproportionate manner, in other words, in a manner that involves the killing of many civilians alongside a very limited military advantage, , with the knowledge of those making the attack, very often is defined as a war crime and the jurisprudence of International Criminal Law. And so this will undoubtedly apply to the whole tactics and strategy warfare deployed by the Saudis and United Arab Emirates from the air in Yemen. So war crimes aren't simply shooting the POW's or acts of torture by individuals against other individuals in concentration camps or wherever, but also include methods of warfare that are prohibited by international humanitarian law.

So, I'll just finish with the question of accountability. There are a number of different places in which war crimes trials might be carried out. I'll just mention three or four because they all strike me as possibilities in the case of Yemen. One would be, and I realize that this is somewhat unlikely at this point, along with a Security Council decree or a Security Council- created international criminal court of the sort we saw in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. Sometimes these are called ad-hoc tribunals because they're created by the Security Council for a specific purpose and a specific period of time and a specific territory. Very often

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when people suggest that these war crimes trials in Rwanda or Yugoslavia, other people came along and said that it was highly unlikely that such trials would take place or that the politics of the Security Council would render is highly unlikely.

And this is one of the stories of international criminal law, and the crimes. V ery often the prospect of war crimes trials has met with skepticism, but war crimes trials then follow, because the political situation or the diplomatic situation changes. So there is room for optimism in this field. N o one ever thought that General Pinochet on his way to have tea with Margaret Thatcher and receive medical treatment in the United Kingdom would end up the subject of extradition proceedings before the House of Lords. So this is a law of unintended consequences, no one can be sure that they won't be tried for grave violations of a war crimes. That goes for people who commit those crimes on the ground, those who commit them from the air, and those who aid and are complicit in those war crimes. S o, I'll leave it at that.

Keith Vaz, MP Thank you. Thank you very much, Gerry. Our final speaker is Dr. Maria Holt from the University of Westminster. She's been working as a political lobbyist and a parliamentary researcher before beginning an academic career focusing on the role and place of women in the Middle East. She has written on British colonial rule in southern Yemen and continues to conduct research into refugees and the effects of violence on Arab women. Dr. Maria Holt.

Dr. Maria Holt, Reader in Politics at the University of Westminster Thank you very much and thank you for inviting me. To remove the focus again to talk about, women and other particular problems that they face. So, going back againto 2011 .I n April 2011, Ali Abdullah Saleh who was president criticized women for inappropriately mixing in public with men at demonstrations that were taking place at that time in several cities across the country. Yemen was judged to be the worst place on earth to be a woman. At the time, a journalist, Rachel Cook, suggested that male power is total. So, well there obviously is some truth in that, I think that the reality of women has been more complex than that. And that despite the many restrictions of a conservative society, women in Yemen has a history of activism. So, too, in 2011, and in the face of female outrage, the president at that time quickly backed down, stating instead that women should be full participants in the political affairs of the nation. However of course, since the relatively optimistic days of 2011 , things have got considerably worse for all Yemeni citizens,but especially for women.

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So, what I will talk about here is why are women particularly hard hit by war? As elsewhere in the Arab world, Yemeni women have engaged in protest movements and social change going back to the 1960's. So women in the south of Yemen played a very important role in their country's national liberation struggles against British colonial rule. A woman who was active with the Front for the Liberation of occupied South Yemen, recalled that in 1963 when the revolution started, there were girls, women, men, of ages, all of us, so everybody was protesting at that time. Before unification in 1990, the form of People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, the PDRY, was regarded as being unusually progressive in terms of women's rights. An the southunited in 1990, the conservative values of the north took precedence and this, I think it was much to detriment of women.

And there was one moment after unification, they picked only the negative aspects of the north and south. Women's mobility and choices were reduced. And even their freedom of dress was limited. Islamic dress became the norm. Then in 2012, actually a 20 year old woman posted the following comment on her Facebook page and she said, my face is not shameful. I have every right to walk in the street without covering my face and not be cussed or harassed by people. S o that comment attracted some support but others were more critical and one man said you can't under any circumstances question our Islamic teachings. You just have to take them as they are. Of course we know that Republic of Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world and has very high birth rates and low literacy, and this is especially true for women. Over 70% of Yemeni women are illiterate. According to Human Rights Watch, 14% percent of Yemeni girls are married before the age of 15, or 52% before the age of 18.

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This makes it difficult for girls to get access to education. It's bad for their health as they have a large number of pregnancies with no possibility of controlling them, and thus keeps them in the category as second-class citizens. There was a survey on the violence against women that revealed that 55% have been abused physically, 34% have been victimized financially, and 17% have been victims of sexual violence. Most of them in psychological damage as a consequence of the abuse and hardly ever seek help from the police. In addition, it was revealed that many women regard the violence they suffer as ordinary. Many regard society's as in principle against them and favoring men.

So as I said, during the 2011 revolution in Yemen, the visibility of women in the public sphere became an iconic symbol of women's empowerment. Women came from various backgrounds and locations and they participated at all levels. They were present on the front line and also volunteered for various committees and at varioussquares. They nursed the wounded, prepared food to the revolutionaries, documented the uprising, encouraged family matters to be steadfast. In the words of a journalist, thanks to the uprising of 2011, the visibility women in Yemen has skyrocketed. The cultural stigma against Yemeni women's participation in the profits sphere has suddenly disappeared. And as I said, joined the revolution, at the start of the revolution. Mixingof the sexes was usual as we saw in other places such as and , so many fathers, brothers and husbands encouraged their female relatives to participate. This inclusive approach slowly started to change as what they call Islamic hardliners started to assert their power in the public square. So some women report being beaten, women were subjected to rumors, threats, and harassment by religious and political forces in attempts to silence them. And as I said, there were attempts to segregate the women.

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The discussions following the overture of President Saleh in 2011, women's political participation was then seen as a priority. However, many women started to feel that the dispute in political parties is one issue, and that's excluding womenis another issue. At the same time, there were more positive signs. According to the country's Transitional Prime Minister in 2012, Yemeni women are important factors in our development, and Yemen will prosper only if women are fully involved. Demands by women's organizations that quota should beintroduced requiring 30% of all elected non-elected decision-making decisions be held by females.

So of course life in Yemen for all Yemenis has dramatically declined since that period. Following the revolution, the civil war and external attack have devastated the country. Under such conditions women tend to be more vulnerable to violence and exploitation. The war has impacted on all levels, including personal lives and relations. As the international rescue committee on argues, war has the unique impact of women and girls, exacerbating preexisting vulnerabilities and inequalities, rooted in patriarchal structures and norms. Human Rights Watch notes that women activists have played a prominent role during the conflict, advocating for better rights protections and protesting mistreatment. But some of them have been threatened, subjected to smear campaigns, beaten and detained in retaliation. W omen in Yemen face severe discrimination in law and practice. Forced marriage rates, intriguing child marriage increase, Yemen has no minimum age of marriage. Women cannot marry without the permission of their male guardian, and they do not have equal rights to divorce, inheritance or child custody. Lack of legal protection leads to women being exposed to domestic and sexual violence.

Even before the war, as I already said, Yemen was one of the hardest places in the world to be a woman. And violence against women was widespread, but the conflict has worsened the situation where the abuse and assaults against women increasing by 63% according to the UN. The patriarchal society such asYemen and the words of the IRC, men have been providing a protective layer for families. Without such protection, women are exposed to physical attacks and sexual harassment. There has been a sharp increase in domestic violence. Washington Post describes the conflict as man-made war paid for by women and children. They are the ones most likely to be displaced and abused. They report that more women are being widowed by the war each day left without the educational skills to support that families. Rape and domestic violence are increasing. Girls are being pulled out of school to be married off for money. Children are falling sick from diseases that were long ago eradicated elsewhere in the world, and pregnant women and newborn babies are succumbing to starvation.

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So, looking toward the future, it's important that every effort is made to resolve the unbearable conflict in Yemen. This is a particular agency for women and girls. And understanding the underlying causes that make women particularly vulnerable in situations of armed conflict are suggested. First of all, highlight different dimensions of violations and discrimination suffered by women in armed conflict and get government and non government organizations to address the specific needs of women in such situations. Second, reassert the need to ensure gender sensitive justice. Third, in line with the UN resolution 1325, develop strategies to involve women in decision-making in conflict-resolution and post- conflict reconstruction. Fourth, strengthen the networking of women's groups in the region on issues of violence against women. Fifth, enable conditions in the form of basic social, economic and cultural context within which women may be able to live their lives with dignity. Finally, as women and girls are paying the price for the war in Yemen, it is recommended that humanitarian actors should increase the priority given to the needs of females with a specific focus on the prevention on gender-based violence. Thank you.

Keith Vaz, MP Thank you very much, all our speakers have made a big contribution to our knowledge of the situation in Yemen. I'm most grateful for all of them for participating. We've got a few minutes left before we have to close the meeting. Are there any issues that people want – we don't really want long speeches, we want quick comments. It could be really helpful if you did that. Then I can get everyone in, and if you say who you are, we will write it down so we know what you've said. Yes sir. You need to have this microphone. I think Chris, could you pass.

Audience member 1(No name given) Thank you very much for explaining and for enriching our knowledge. But the point that you haven't addressed is the role of Britain in fueling that war. It's shameful what's going on. 6 billion pounds of weapons were sold in, yet you're talking about humanitarian, saving the children. Stop selling Saudis and the Emirates weapons. Fight for peace. It's your country of birth, Mr. Vaz, I think Aden. You should do more, please. There's nobody else that are going to be left if this continues. We're reaching the point of extinction. There's nobody going to be left there. Stop your weapons, stop the sale of your arms in Yemen. Please, please, stop the war.

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Keith Vaz, MP. Pass it along, that would be great.

Audience member 2(No name given) Thank you for this great event. I learned a lot. I have comments and questions. First to Dr. Mouna Hashem, you listed a lot of atrocities carried out, which I do agree with a lot of them, I agree with the principle. The Arab nations need to be held accountable for many violations in Yemen. But you totally ignored what is being done by the other side as well, which I think doesn't make a balanced view and impartial representation of facts. I think at this juncture of war, we need to come with a realistic understanding of the events on the ground. Ignoring what is committed by one side, doesn't help peace. A lot of facts which are committed by Houthis. According to the UN, 73 child soldiers are recruited by Houthis. 1000 land mines have been implanted by Houthis. We got religious oppression for other faiths and religious groups. We have a lot of atrocities. Please stop addressing one side and highlighting only one side. We need a balanced view, which willbring honor to the expertise that you have. When you speak only one side that doesn't help. Thank you.

Audience member 3(No name given) Thank you very much. And I'll just make mine short. Yo u mentioned about the UN involvement or rather the lack of involvement with the national dialogue, and the only hope that you have time to elaborate on this visit was very interesting. And my question is, you mentioned the 2216 Security Council resolution. My question is about the nature of the Security Council resolutions. Are they only concerned about what is likely to happen or they must also address what should happen?

Audience member 4(No name given) We have heard the contribution of all speakers, thank you for all these things. You have clarified there is a problem, a crisis in Yemen, a disaster. The main issue that we have acknowledged is the issue of the south, south Yemen or south Arabia. So the main conflict in the north is about power and control. Whereas in the south it is about identity and destroying their state. So I think if the international community [inaudible] want to stop the war and want to [inaudible] the life, the situation in Yemen in all and also in the region. I think the national security is a state in the south. Until now all the proposals started from proposals of the, uh, from the coalition during

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their initial dialogue [inaudible] and also the old resolution of the UN Security Council. We haven't heard anything about the south – why? We still have human rights now, we are insisting on and we are demanding. Since 1994 we were out under the occupation of Yemen. So what is my question now? What is the contribution or the road map of the international community in order to secure and protect the human rights of the south Secondly, why you did not implement the UN Security Council resolution, in particular 2216, and the last two or so, 2451 and 2452. In particular there is a barrier about the uh, defense minister Mahmoud al-Subaihi, who is still now in prison, so four years ago and his colleagues. Until now we haven't heard from the UN about any of this.

Keith Vaz, MP. None of us are sitting on the Security Council so none of us could implement the resolution ourselves, I get the point. Just very briefly.

Audience member 5(No name given) Just very briefly, which is regarding the UN. I found the talk about the UN, the analysis of it was very deep indeed, but regarding the UN, we are heading now to the fifth year in this war, with many thousands of people dying. The humanitarian situation is getting worse. This roadmap for the UN in terms of Yemen, there's nothing that's clear. Is that because the UN are using simplistic approaches to try and deal with it or is it because there are partners within the UN, particularly those in power, that don't want this war to end. Or is it because the UN simply doesn't understand the complexity of the conflict. I'd be very grateful to know what the reason is because the UN is not producing the goods at the moment, and people are dying every day.

Keith Vaz , MP We're going to go to the final comment by the ambassador. Sorry, we're going to have to leave the room at 7. So, Excellency, if we can be as brief as possible. You're very helpful.

Ambassador Yassin Saeed Noman Ahmed Thank you so much. I have written down some comments in order to see. The only thing which is surprisingly that Helen, she tried, she tried to set out or explain 2216 as it were. We, asking the Houthis is to surrender. I don't know what is what, what, what does she mean exactly by theword surrender. She used the, the role, I mean the word here, she's talking about them as if they were still in Sada. Before running out the whole country by force. The

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Houthis nowadays it's something different. They are an incredible force. The 2217 is trying to bring back Houthis to the process, and that was the only explanation for this resolution. That's why I was completely surprised by this expression of my dear Helen. Thank you so much.

Keith Vaz, MP Thank you so much. I think in fairness to the panel I'm going to do is just ask them to very briefly, I mean very briefly, comments that have been made. We don't want to restart the entire discussion because we're back again tomorrow. There's another meeting tomorrow by the Nobel Prize winner in the house tomorrow. Another meeting that we are dealing with at 12 tomorrow. So we can return to this. And of course we have other meetings. This is specifically about the UN and the points that have been raised on the UN . And let's start with Maria this time and end with, Helen. Unbelievable. That's the first time you ever heard that in this House of Commons. Thank you. Gerry will also.

Maya Garner We had a lot of comments. I'm not entirely sure which one to start with. I do think that as spokesperson for International UN Watch, I would say that we definitely are in favor ofholding the UK accountable for its arms exports, in howeverreasonable way would be to do that.

Keith Vaz, MP That's very helpful. Unfortunately, I'm not the so I can'tmake the decision, but it is an issue that needs to be addressed. Of course it does. This is why the parliamentary group keeps having debates. Why we keep saying the things we say, because we want to make sure that it changes. But we, parliamentarians unfortunately don't make the final decisions, it's made by governments. But we kept what you see on board. Mouna or Helen, I will allow you to decide. Mouna.

Mouna Hashem Since we're short of time. I agree with your point and I could understand why you may see this a little bit misconstrued towards only the Saudi coalition, butbecause of time and because of the subject is that I looked at the UN Security Council and how the UN Security Council's has behaved or conducted their responsibility in order to find peace and security for Yemen. And so when you look at the

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nine resolutions they have adopted in these four years, the Houthis are always included. They're always accused. I need, for example, starting with 2216, the Houthis are accused that they have takenunilateral action and that they area threat to their neighbor states. And it goes in every other resolution. So they are already mentioned. However, the point that I was making, but to be fair-handed, or even-handed, the UN Security Council has never included the Saudi-Emirati coalition in their resolutions except one time when they were thanking them for the donations for humanitarian assistance. But that's really it. So, I think it's really the reverse of what you were saying.

Helen Lackner Thank you. Thanks for your comments. Because this reminded me of something I wanted to say earlier, which is that if you look at the UNSC and the fact that there has recently been a lot of criticism of it in general, what people are usually complaining about is the fact that it's really dividing between east and west and on the one hand the Russians and on the otherhand and the three, France, Britain, and the U.S. What happens if you look at the actions with respect to Yemen, the divisions are to a larger extent now,particularly since the new administration saying that actually the division is more between the Brits and the French on the one hand, and the Americans on the other. And did you look at, for example, why the Brits have not come up with a new resolution, even though people have been suggesting this needs to be done for a long time now? There has been partly under the influence of the Saudis and the Emiratis, but also now, because the US is becoming much more invested on the Yemen issue. So I think that's really all I can say. I mean, I'm not sure about simplicity and the workings of the, of international politics is a peculiar thing, I think in my book, I don't think I can claim to understand it. Dr. Yassin, I think we, when I say surrender, you know, the Houthis were in Sana as you well know, they were in Sana thanks to the help of Ali Abdullah Saleh, but also thanks to the fact that President Hadi didn't really tried to soften. But basically you know... But the point is that now they are where they are and we need to recognize that and work on the base that one can't put the clock back and that's something we can't go back. You know, they'll have to be dealt with. You hate them. I hate them. We all hate them, probably. I think, you know, they are where they are, and we can't pretend that they're not there.

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Keith Vaz, MP My thanks to Maya, to Gerry, to Helen, Maria and Mouna. Reminder that Yemen day is the 22nd of May here in the house of the foreign secretary and the leader of the opposition and 13 other members of parliament, so please come along if you wish to. I know we have a big delegation from Sheffield on that occasion. We've put it in through a debate on that very day and then after to discuss Yemen. And then on the 22nd of June, we are going to Edinburgh where we are hosted by the government of Scotland for our second international conference. It's the 20th of June. A nd we've invited parliamentarians, including congressman Ro Khanna from California, who's been leading this in Congress and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, who has agreed to come along in principle subject to dates, times, plans, and Trump. Anyway, thank you for coming. Good luck to all the Tottenham supporters for tonight, but we hope to see you again. We will continue to strive to support the country.

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