Ethiopia’s human rights record is set to be examined by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review Working Group on Tuesday, November 12, 2024. The review arrives as calls grow for greater examination and oversight of the Abiy Ahmed regime’s horrendous human rights record in Ethiopia, particularly its record over the past 4 years.
In the last year alone, human rights organizations, including the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have sounded the alarm on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia, particularly in its Amhara region, where the Ethiopian authorities are engaged in a brutal war of aggression against the Amhara region and its people.
According to the latest human rights reports, the authorities are committing war crimes in the Amhara region, including extrajudicial killings and conducing drone strikes targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. Additionally, these gross human rights violations are being committed under the cover of an internet and telecommunications shutdown, which the government watchdog group Access Now has characterized as an attempt to silence voices amid escalating armed conflict and human rights violations in Amhara.
The United Nations Human Rights Council’s Periodic Review arrives at a time when hopes for accountability and transitional justice for the myriad conflicts and human rights abuses in Ethiopia have been dashed. According to the findings and warning of the United Nations International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, the Abiy regime is orchestrating a “flawed transitional justice process” and the regime is “unable and unwilling to administer a credible transitional justice process.” Since that assessment by the United Nations, not only have human rights violation continued unabated, but the human rights situation has worsened, while the Abiy regime makes a mockery of accountability, transitional justice, and the rule of law in Ethiopia.
In this context, it is imperative that the Human Rights Council’s Periodic Review not be a perfunctory exercise, but rather a robust and credible mechanism for the international community, the human rights community, the United States, and the European Union to recognize the gravity of the horrific human rights situation in Ethiopia—and actually hold the Abiy Ahmed regime accountable.
Ethiopian Policy Institute 