Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if she will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the steps taken by the Government to meet the commitments in Section 2 of the 2020 UK Approach to the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict Situations, with particular reference to the monitoring and reporting of human rights.

The UK Government continues to be guided by principles set out in the updated Approach to Protection of Civilians paper published in August 2020. By way of example, in the past year, the UK has supported strengthening human rights provisions in the mandates for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) peacekeeping operations. Our deployment to MINUSMA has provided assurance enabling civilian UN human rights teams to conduct their investigations. We have supported human rights monitors in Syria and encouraged the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to promote humanitarian coordination there. We have drawn on UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) mandated investigations to inform and structure our approach to promoting civilian protection in Yemen and been consistent in our support for the work of the UNHCR Fact Finding Mission on Libya.