Massive and flagrant violations of human rights in the territory of former Yugoslavia
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 3 February 1993 (26th Sitting) (see Doc. 6743, report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Rapporteur : Mrs Haller). Text adopted by the Assembly on 3 February 1993 (26th Sitting).
- Thesaurus
1. The Assembly declares its profound consternation at the massive and flagrant violations of
human rights in the territory of the former Yugoslavia and at the perpetration of crimes against
humanity such as the murder of innocent victims, concentration camps, torture, the systematic
rape of women belonging to minority groups, and in particular to the Muslim population, as a
deliberate means of destroying these minorities, ‘‘ethnic cleansing'' and the deportation of
entire populations.
2. The re-emerging currents of xenophobia and racism and racial and nationalist ideologies in
Europe are endangering human rights to a degree not witnessed in western Europe since the
second world war ; this in turn affects the fundamental values of democracy and the rule of
law and may have fateful consequences both inside and outside Europe.
3. The Assembly considers that the Council of Europe's most important and urgent task, in the
light of its vocation and experience, is above all to provide legal enforcement mechanisms in
the field of human rights, something the Council of Europe, alone among European
international organisations, is in a position to do.
4. The Assembly refers to the work of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and in particular to the reports on the human rights situation in the territory of the former Yugoslavia,
drawn up by Mr Tadeusz Mazowiecki as Special Rapporteur, as well as to the work of the
commission of enquiry to establish war crimes in Yugoslavia that has been set up by the
United Nations Security Council. It welcomes the decision of its Committee on Legal Affairs
and Human Rights to create an ad hoc sub-committee on the human rights situation in the
former Yugoslavia.
5. Accordingly, the Assembly :
5.1 launches a solemn appeal to all parties involved in the conflict in the territory of the former
Yugoslavia to respect the Geneva conventions on humanitarian law ;
5.2 condemns most strongly the massive and flagrant violations of human rights in the territory of
the former Yugoslavia, committed mainly by the Serbian militia in Bosnia-Herzegovina ;
5.3 strongly supports the efforts of the international agencies working to restore peace in the
former Yugoslavia and in particular the International Conference on Peace in Former
Yugoslavia ;
5.4 reaffirms its determination to exclude national delegations of member states or states whose
parliaments enjoy special guest status, if these states are shown to break the embargo against
Serbia and Montenegro.
