Renewing the Fact-Finding Mission's Mandate: Will the Evidence Pave the Way for Justice and Redress for Victims? – (2-2)

The responsibility of the international community toward war victims in Sudan is not limited to renewing the mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission and emphasizing the importance of its ongoing investigations. Rather, it requires translating this commitment into practical measures that strengthen the mission's ability to perform its tasks effectively and independently. This includes facilitating access to sites of violations, evidence, and witnesses, removing all obstacles hindering its work, and ensuring that the results of its investigations are utilized within legal and institutional pathways that support accountability and uphold the victims' rights to justice, redress, and reparation. This responsibility is particularly important given the ongoing conflict, the widening scope of violations, the multiplicity of affected areas, and the challenges this poses to field access and independent investigations. The existence of an international mission with an investigative mandate is not enough in itself to ensure the effectiveness of its work unless it can access sites of violations and sources of evidence and information. To achieve this, the international community must exert pressure on the parties to the conflict and relevant authorities to allow mission investigators to enter Sudan and ensure their safe and unhindered access to affected areas, detention centers, health facilities, and all other sites relevant to the investigations in areas under the control of the various parties to the conflict. However, the requirements for effective investigation are not limited to ensuring field access to violation sites; they extend to building safe and reliable communication channels with victims, witnesses, and affected communities, particularly the displaced and refugees. Many who possess critical information regarding violations may be unaware of the mission's mandate or how to contact it, while others are hesitant to provide testimonies due to fear of threats, retaliation, or a lack of trust in the utility of the investigations. Therefore, the mission must develop effective and secure communication mechanisms that allow those affected to provide their testimonies and information voluntarily, while taking into account their circumstances and needs, and taking necessary measures to minimize the risks that might arise from their cooperation. Sudanese civil society organizations can play a pivotal role in strengthening communication between the mission and affected communities, thanks to their knowledge of local contexts and their ties to victims, survivors, the displaced, and refugees. This role contributes to publicizing the mission's mandates, facilitating the flow of information and testimonies to it, and raising awareness about the importance of documentation in exposing violations. Activating this requires building institutional partnerships based on shared professional standards, utilizing local expertise and capabilities to improve the quality of documentation, coordinating efforts, and avoiding unnecessary repetition of victim interviews. It also necessitates providing training and technical support to human rights organizations and initiatives, enhancing their ability to handle sensitive information securely, storing it, and referring it to relevant authorities while respecting the privacy of victims. In this framework, the mission, in cooperation with Sudanese civil society organizations, must prepare a clear and simplified practical guide that defines its mandates, communication mechanisms, the types of incidents and information that can be submitted to it, professional foundations for documenting violations, and how to handle documents, photos, and video recordings and preserve their original files. The guide must include instructions on protecting the identity of victims and witnesses, methods for providing information securely, and appropriate procedures when faced with threats, as well as clarifying the limits of the mission's mandate and what can be expected from its investigations. It is essential to make this guide available and disseminate it widely in simplified written, audio, and visual formats, and in local languages and dialects appropriate for the affected areas, taking into account the needs of persons with disabilities and groups facing difficulties accessing information. Preparing and disseminating the guide should be a fundamental part of the mission's efforts to enable victims and witnesses to participate safely and informedly in the investigations. These efforts are particularly important when dealing with the most vulnerable groups, especially survivors of sexual violence, children, persons with disabilities, families of the missing, and the displaced and refugees. Their differing circumstances and needs require the adoption of safe and appropriate communication methods that respect the privacy of each case and honor the will of those involved and their right to voluntary participation. Furthermore, attention to victims should not be limited to collecting their testimonies and documenting the violations they were subjected to; it must extend to facilitating their access to healthcare, psychosocial support, legal aid, and urgent protection, in coordination with relevant authorities and according to their competencies and capabilities. In the context of supporting justice and accountability pathways, it is important to enhance practical integration between the Fact-Finding Mission and relevant regional and international mechanisms, particularly the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the International Criminal Court, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. This requires developing effective cooperation frameworks that allow for the exchange of information and expertise and the utilization of investigation results in accordance with the legal rules and mandates governing each entity, while ensuring the confidentiality of sources and protecting the rights of victims and witnesses. Reliable investigation results may form an important foundation for supporting justice pathways, which necessitates enhancing coordination between investigation and accountability mechanisms to contribute to moving from documenting violations to serious legal proceedings to hold those responsible accountable, while maintaining judicial independence and respecting fair trial guarantees. Investigations should not be limited to identifying those directly responsible for committing violations. They must extend, when evidence warrants, to investigating the roles of entities and individuals who may have contributed to financing these violations or facilitating their commission or continuation. This includes investigating networks of financing, arming, and other forms of support linked to violations, and determining potential responsibilities based on evidence and relevant legal standards, which allows for a more comprehensive picture of the parties involved and the nature of their contribution. The results of these investigations, once sufficient evidence is available, must support the initiation of necessary legal measures to pursue those responsible for violations and hold them accountable before competent judicial authorities, ensuring that those proven responsible do not escape punishment, regardless of their positions, status, or the entities to which they belong. the international community, especially the countries that supported the renewal of the mission's mandate, bears a special responsibility to translate their support into practical commitments that ensure the effectiveness and continuity of the investigations. This requires providing stable and sufficient funding for the mission, strengthening its institutional and technical capabilities, providing the necessary resources to protect evidence, information, and witnesses, and facilitating cooperation with relevant accountability mechanisms. The provision of these requirements must not remain dependent on temporary support or political calculations, as the seriousness of the international stance is not measured by voting for the resolution alone, but by the readiness to provide the resources and guarantees that enable the mission to perform its tasks with independence and efficiency, and support the use of its investigation results in achieving justice and redress for victims. Conversely, enhancing investigative capabilities should not come at the expense of the urgent responsibility to protect civilians and halt ongoing violations. Investigating crimes does not exempt the parties to the conflict from their legal obligations to protect civilian populations. Likewise, documenting the suffering of the displaced, the besieged, and those affected by the war does not replace the need to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid and meet their basic needs. Humanitarian response and investigation into violations should not be treated as conflicting tracks, nor should one be prioritized at the expense of the other; both are essential for protecting human life and upholding rights. True protection is not limited to saving civilians from immediate dangers; it extends to ensuring their right to know the truth, justice, and redress, and to hold those responsible for the violations they suffered accountable. The actual human rights value of the resolution to renew the mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan is not measured by the duration of the mandate or the continuation of the investigations alone, but by the extent of the mission's ability to contribute to achieving justice, providing redress for victims, and making reparations. The rights of those affected cannot remain hostage to successive renewal decisions without providing the resources, mechanisms, and guarantees necessary to turn investigation results into serious pathways for accountability. The issue transcends the future of a UN mission to the future of the rights of those affected by the war to truth, justice, and redress, and the extent of the international community's readiness to bear its responsibilities in the face of impunity. The true test for the international community lies not in its ability to ensure the continuation of investigations, but in its readiness to turn their results into tangible legal actions that lead to holding those responsible for violations accountable, providing redress for victims, and ensuring their rights to justice and reparation. Sustainable peace cannot be built on ignoring crimes and violations or bypassing the rights of those affected; it requires uncovering the truth, achieving justice, ending impunity, and providing reparation in a way that restores the dignity of victims. Therefore, the true value of renewing the mission's mandate depends on translating these principles into actual commitments and actions, so that justice does not remain a promise renewed with international resolutions, but a right that must be realized and enforced, and which should not be obstructed by political calculations or have the continuation of the war be a pretext for delaying it.