UNIS/OUS/436
28 June 2023

Re-issued as received

Human Rights Council President appoints Vrinda Grover to serve as member of Ukraine commission of inquiry

GENEVA (23 June 2023) – The President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Václav Bálek (Czechia), has appointed Vrinda Grover of India as a member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, which was created by the UN Human Rights Council in 2022.

A practicing advocate in India, Grover has more than 34 years of experience in constitutional law, criminal law and human rights. She has appeared as counsel in landmark cases before the Trial Courts, High Courts and the Supreme Court of India as well as before commissions of inquiry and quasi-judicial authorities.

Grover has legally represented victims and survivors of sexual violence, custodial killings, torture, communal massacres, extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and mob lynching. She has also represented media practitioners, human rights defenders and death row prisoners.

Grover has actively engaged with women’s rights and broader human rights movements. Currently serving as the chair of the board of International Service for Human Rights, she is also a founding member and independent expert of the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN. She was a member of the UN Women Asia Pacific Regional Civil Society Advisory Group (2012-2016). In 2012, she participated in a fact-finding mission of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) and of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in the Philippines to investigate the situation of human rights defenders in the country.

The three-person Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine was created by the UN Human Rights Council on 4 March 2022 with a mandate to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights, violations of international humanitarian law and related crimes in the context of the aggression against Ukraine by the Russian Federation. On 4 April 2023, the Council renewed the mandate of the Commission for a further period of one year. Grover will join Erik Møse (Norway) and Pablo de Greiff (Colombia) who have been serving as Chair and Commissioner of the Commission of Inquiry since March 2022.

The Commission is scheduled to present an oral update to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-fourth session (September 2023), to submit a report to the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session (October 2023) and to submit a comprehensive report to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-fifth session (March 2024).

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For more information and media requests, please contact: 

Pascal Sim, HRC Media Officer, at simp[at]un.org,

Todd Pitman, Media Adviser, at todd.pitman[at]un.org,

David Díaz Martín, HRC Public Information Officer, at david.diazmartin[at]un.org

or Verena Bongartz, HRC Public Information Officer, at verena.bongartz[at]un.org