High Commissioner for Human Rights should monitor the situation in Guinea … by an
appropriately significant presence, in both quantitative and qualitative terms, to serve
as a deterrent to potential violators of international law”,98 OHCHR opened an office in
Conakry in May 2010. The country office has based its priorities on the recommendations
in the report to focus on security sector reform, combating impunity through strengthening
of the judicial sector and providing technical support on transitional justice.
International bodies have continued to keep some situations that were the subject of
international investigations on their agenda, with reports being presented by the SecretaryGeneral and the High Commissioner for Human Rights. For example, the SecretaryGeneral submitted a report99 to the General Assembly on follow-up to Gaza (2009) and
the High Commissioner submitted a report to the Human Rights Council on Libya.100
At the national level, implementation has been less consistent. An example of highly
successful follow-up is Timor-Leste (2006). The report recommended that cases related
to the events it had examined should be investigated by an international prosecutor and
tried before a mixed panel of local and international judges. With the support of the
United Nations an international prosecutor was appointed in the Office of the Prosecutor
General to head the Special Crimes Investigations Team, which had completed 335
investigations by December 2012, and several cases were tried before a hybrid court.
The report on Guinea (2009) contained a number of recommendations: that there be
institutional reform of the military and judicial systems; for the Guinean authorities to take
truth initiatives (including information on the disappeared), launch prosecutions and provide
compensation to victims. The Government of Guinea set up the National Reconciliation
Commission in 2011 and, together with the Peacebuilding Commission, agreed on a joint
strategy to promote national reconciliation.101 In 2010, the Government appointed three
investigating judges to look into the cases investigated by the Commission of Inquiry on
Guinea (2009) (following also a National Commission). The panel of judges has charged
several senior officials, including senior military officers, with various crimes arising from
the events in 2009. In 2011, a joint communiqué was issued by the Government of Guinea
and the United Nations on the fight against impunity for sexual violence, in which the
Government made a commitment to implement the recommendations of the Commission
and initiate a dialogue with the victims of sexual violence.
98
S/2009/693, para. 276 (a)(ii).
99
See, for example, “Second follow-up to the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict”
(A/64/890).
100
See, for example, “Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on assistance for Libya
in the field of human rights” (A/HRC/22/40).
101
See “Statement of mutual commitments on peacebuilding in Guinea between the Government of Guinea and the Peacebuilding
Commission” (PBC/5/GUI/2).
GUIDANCE AND PRACTICE
103
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