The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights has called for human rights issues to remain on the agenda of peace negotiations

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, stated that human rights must be at the heart of all peace negotiations and recovery efforts to ensure Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction is centred on human dignity.

Illustrative image. A boy stands next to a house damaged by Russian shelling in the Mykolaiv region. Photo: UNICEF

The Commissioner stressed that ignoring the suffering and the desire of Ukrainians to find justice would render any peace agreement short-lived.

To avoid this, O’Flaherty suggests that representatives of Ukrainian civil society, whose credibility among citizens is higher than that of the parliament, should be at the negotiating table.

Furthermore, more than a quarter of Ukrainians want to see civil society organisations initiate discussions on the post-war future.

“The human rights dimensions of peace will be better addressed if appropriate multilateral organisations are deeply engaged,” O’Flaherty believes.

Separately, the official recalled the importance of involving women in peace negotiations.

“It is not possible to have a good peace process if women are not equally represented and fully involved in all efforts towards peace,” he said.

O’Flaherty also believes that the world must not ignore the issues of the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians, the return of children forcibly deported to Russia, as well as the search for victims of enforced disappearances and all others missing due to the war.

Ukraine officially proposes to start peace negotiations with the exchange of prisoners and the return of children.

People in the centre of Kyiv near an improvised memorial honour the memory of soldiers killed as a result of the full-scale Russian invasion. Photo: Thomas Peter/ Reuters

“Perpetrators of gross violations of human rights and war crimes must be brought to justice… All victims of Russia’s aggression must obtain redress,” the Commissioner urged.

Ukraine has already called Russian ruler Putin’s proposal for a “peace agreement” involving the renunciation of territories occupied by the Russian Federation absurd. In addition, the public condemned the negotiations between the US and Russia without Ukraine’s participation.

Since the onset of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, experts have said that world leaders have abdicated their responsibility to protect human rights. They also do not pay sufficient attention to the problems of corruption, which is spreading worldwide and has a devastating impact on human rights.

In the three years of the full-scale war, the Russian army in Ukraine has killed over 12,000 civilians and at least 45,000 military personnel. Last year, due to the use of guided aerial bombs and drones by the Russians, the number of civilian casualties alone increased by 30%.

Among children, the number of war victims increased by 50% last year, and this only concerns officially known deaths.

Also, in three years, Russian forces, through massive shelling, destroyed most of the thermal and a third of the hydro generation of electricity in Ukraine. Investigators are considering such attacks on the energy sector as a component of genocide, and the UN calls them a likely crime against humanity.

Cover photo: AFP