On Monday 3rd July, Every Casualty Counts attended #HRC53 in Geneva to participate in the Interactive Dialogue on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) report on the Impact of Casualty Recording. Members of our Casualty Recorders Network, as well as other associates and civil society organisations, made submissions to OHCHR to help with the preparation of the report.
At the Interactive Dialogue, we made an oral statement. We also submitted a longer written statement which can be downloaded here.
Oral statement
Every Casualty Worldwide (ECC) welcomes the High Commissioner’s report on the impact of casualty recording. To increase this impact, we encourage the Council and individual states to take the following steps:
- Support efforts to harmonize best practice internationally. ECC’s Standards for Casualty Recording and OHCHR’s Guidance on Casualty Recording provide the basis for a coherent, standardised, universally applicable framework for casualty recording. However, more work is needed to raise awareness of these existing standards and to encourage their further development and implementation among all parties involved in casualty recording.
- Ensure casualty recording is consistently embedded in all Council responses to situations of armed conflict or other situations of gross human rights violations. This should include incorporating casualty recording functions within all newly created or renewed Council mandates; requesting regular and comprehensive casualty reporting from all situations where OHCHR has a presence; supporting independent casualty recorders; and providing technical assistance to affected states as required.
- Recognise casualty recording as a fundamental component of states’ obligations under existing international human rights and humanitarian law; and
- Scrutinise states’ efforts to implement these obligations when considering situations under agenda item 4.
Thank you.
