Letter sent on behalf of more than 500 OHCHR workers says failure to describe the war as a ‘genocide’ undermines the global rights protection system.
Hundreds of United Nations staff have made an appeal to the body’s human rights chief Volker Turk to publicly describe the war in Gaza as a “genocide”, saying his office’s failure to do so undermines the global rights protection system.
The appeal was made in a letter, signed by the Staff Committee on behalf of more than 500 employees at the Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and sent to Turk on Wednesday. A copy of the letter was obtained by Al Jazeera.
The letter said “a broad cross-section” of OHCHR staff believed that the legal threshold for genocide had been met in the case of Israel’s nearly two-year war in Gaza, “based on extensive reporting by UN mechanisms”, as well as independent experts.
Concerned staff felt that the OHCHR should “reflect this assessment more explicitly in its public communications”, and that the failure to do so “risks eroding OHCHR’s credibility as leading authority on human rights for everyone everywhere”.
