Jean-Pierre Lacroix
Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations
United Nations Headquarters
405 East 42nd Street
New York, NY, 10017, USA
Re: Reform of vetting processes for peacekeeping personnel
Dear Under-Secretary-General Lacroix,
We are reaching out to urge you to immediately uphold United Nations due diligence standards in the vetting of UN peacekeepers.
Human Rights Watch has repeatedly raised concerns that UN protocols for vetting of peacekeeping personnel are insufficient to screen and disqualify personnel – including from Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka – who are likely implicated in war crimes or serious human rights abuses. Governments in these countries deny or cover up security forces abuses, and therefore fail to meet UN standards on human rights when they nominate personnel for a peacekeeping role.
A comprehensive report in May 2024 by DW, Netra News, and Süddeutsche Zeitung showed multiple instances in which persons implicated in serious rights abuses have served in UN peacekeeping. They found more than 100 instances in which personnel from Bangladesh’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) served as peacekeepers, and that at least two RAB members deployed to UN peacekeeping missions had previously held command responsibility in the unit’s infamous Intelligence Wing, which is known to have operated torture cells across the country.
We have previously written to you about concerns with Bangladesh personnel serving as UN peacekeepers. We have raised concerns with your office and with UN member states about the RAB in particular, and risks associated with utilizing Bangladesh military and police personnel who may have served in the unit, which has been implicated in abductions, enforced disappearances, and torture. Human Rights Watch and other groups have extensively documented abuses by the RAB and issued numerous reports on specific abuses and alleged perpetrators.
During the recent protests in Bangladesh, reports and images show the Bangladesh military engaged in the ongoing violent crackdown using vehicles bearing UN insignia. Some former UN peacekeepers are alleged to have been responsible for rights violations against protesters, showing the cost of inaction. When the UN raised concerns, Bangladesh authorities said that failure to remove the logo from the vehicles was a simply an error. However, this goes beyond a reputational risk that the UN faces in employing abusive security forces from a troop contributing country. The fact that Bangladeshi security forces displayed UN symbols while committing human rights violations shows a clear disregard for human rights. Many activists and victims are calling on the UN to halt the deployment of Bangladeshi troops for peacekeeping until the authorities have achieved clear benchmarks on security forces accountability and reform.
You should insist that the UN’s relationship with Bangladeshi forces makes it incumbent that they do not violate human rights. In March 2021, then-United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet noted that “[a]llegations of torture and ill-treatment by the Rapid Action Battalion have been a long-standing concern.” And in December 2021, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances expressed concern that “members of the RAB would be eligible to participate in UN peacekeeping operations, without any previous investigation into their alleged involvement in the commission of human rights abuses or a thorough vetting process.”
On Sri Lanka, we have raised concerns with your office, including in a letter of April 27, 2023, about the inadequacy of vetting of peacekeepers, and risks that UN peacekeeping operations might utilize personnel implicated in war crimes and other abuses committed in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan peacekeepers have been implicated in abuses during UN operations in Haiti and Mali in 2007 and 2013. A May 2024 report from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Sri Lanka called for “careful screening for bilateral military exchanges and training programmes as well as deployment to UN peacekeeping, or other UN roles,” the latest of numerous such recommendations over recent years.
Human Rights Watch has also called for the UN to appropriately apply the UN human rights screening policy, which requires governments, alongside the UN, to ensure their nationals serving with the UN have not violated human rights laws.
As we have previously noted to your office, vetting should also be conducted by entities that are independent from the Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka governments, possessing adequate resources, and to require personnel to disclose all previous assignments regardless of rank. The national human rights commissions of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal are operating under legal frameworks limiting their purview over security forces and are not adequately independent or resourced for such vetting.
Bangladesh’s commission is politicized and cannot credibly vet the RAB, especially considering that the commission’s legal framework limits its purview over security forces effectively exempting them from any independent oversight. And as we noted to you in 2023, the Sri Lankan government in 2020 amended the constitution to deprive the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka of its independence from the president. As a result, the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) in October 2022 downgraded the Sri Lankan human rights commission because it was no longer in compliance with the UN Principles relating to the Status of Human Rights Institutions (the “Paris Principles”), which require independence from the government.
The governments of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal continue to obstruct attempts at accountability for past human rights abuses and international humanitarian law violations, with some senior officials even denying such abuses have taken place at all, despite extensive reporting by Human Rights Watch, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other UN mechanisms.
Recommendations:
Human Rights Watch strongly urges that your office consult with relevant UN agencies, member states, civil society groups, and other sources, and urgently implement enhanced vetting on all security personnel from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, including contingency forces, and a ban from UN deployment on all Bangladesh personnel with a history of RAB-affiliation.
As a first step towards improved vetting, we urge that you immediately review all senior officers on deployment, to disqualify all Bangladesh personnel associated with RAB, as well as all Sri Lanka personnel who served during Sri Lanka’s civil war.
We understand the challenges that implementing these measures will represent, but we deem them necessary to ensure that those who have engaged in abuses at home are not rewarded with deployments with UN missions abroad. My colleagues and I stand ready to discuss these matters with you and your team in further detail at your convenience.
Sincerely,
Elaine Pearson
Asia Director
Human Rights Watch
Cc: Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary Dicarlo, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze Brands Kehris
