GENEVA - The President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Jürg Lauber (Switzerland), has appointed Monia Ammar (Tunisia) and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin (Republic of Ireland) to serve as members of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. They join Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro (Brazil) who has served as chair of the Commission since it was established.
The Commission of Inquiry on Syria was established on 22 August 2011 by the Human Rights Council with resolution S-17/1. The mandate of the Commission is to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law since March 2011 in the Syrian Arab Republic and to present public reports on its findings.
The Human Rights Council also tasked the Commission with establishing the facts and circumstances that may amount to such violations and of the crimes perpetrated and, where possible, to identify those responsible with a view to ensuring that perpetrators of violations, including those that may constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes, are held accountable.
The Human Rights Council has repeatedly extended the Commission's mandate since then, most recently for an additional year through resolution 58/25, which was adopted on 4 April 2025.
Biographies of the new members of the Commission of Inquiry
Monia Ammar (Tunisia)
Monia Ammar is a Tunisian judge and an internationally recognized expert in international human rights law and international humanitarian law, with a career spanning nearly four decades. She previously served as a senior judge at the Court of Cassation in Tunisia and was appointed Regional International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Cairo from 2014 to 2016. Earlier in her career, she was elected Chair of the Arab Independent Experts' Commission within the League of Arab States (2007) and Head of the Arab Women IHL Committee of the Arab Women Organization (2010). In 2019, she founded the Arab Center for International Law in Tunisia, a hub for legal research, training, and advocacy on human rights and humanitarian law. Ms. Ammar is also a writer and trainer, contributing numerous articles and co-authoring books on human rights, women's rights, and labor rights. Her expertise spans gender equality, combating violence against women, transitional justice, and rights-based governance. She has collaborated extensively with UN agencies, regional organizations, and civil society networks to advance legal reforms and strengthen human rights protections. She is a native Arabic speaker.
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin (Republic of Ireland)
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin is an international legal scholar and human rights advocate. She serves as a University Regents Professor and holds the Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy, and Society at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she also directs the Human Rights Center. She is concurrently a Professor of Law at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was appointed Kings Counsel (Hon) by King Charles III in 2024. From 2017 to 2023, Ms. Ní Aoláin served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, a role in which she worked closely with Member States and UN entities to ensure that counter-terrorism measures respect international human rights standards. Her tenure was marked by advocacy for accountability, transparency, and the protection of civil liberties in security contexts. Ms. Ní Aoláin received her LL.B. and Ph.D. in law from Queen's University Belfast, and an LL.M. from Columbia Law School. Her academic career includes visiting and teaching positions at Harvard Law School, the Geneva Academy, Yale University, Columbia University, Princeton University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was also a co-founder and former associate director of the Transitional Justice Institute at the University of Ulster between 2004-2018. Her research spans international law, human rights law, transitional justice, feminist legal theory, and emergency powers, and she has published extensively.
