A/HRC/40/69 I. Introduction 1. In its resolution 31/20, the Human Rights Council established the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan for a period of one year. The Commission submitted its first report (A/HRC/34/63) on 6 March 2017. 2. By resolution 34/25, the Council extended the mandate of the Commission for another year and requested it to continue to monitor and report on the human rights situation in South Sudan, to make recommendations to prevent further deterioration of the situation, and to report and provide guidance on transitional justice, including reconciliation. 3. The Council also requested the Commission to determine and report the facts and circumstances of, to collect and preserve evidence of, and to clarify responsibility for alleged gross violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes, including sexual and gender-based violence and ethnic violence, with a view to ending impunity and providing accountability. The Council further requested the Commission to make such information available to all transitional justice mechanisms, including those to be established pursuant to chapter V of the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan, including the hybrid court for South Sudan, to be established in cooperation with the African Union. 4. In its resolution 37/31, the Council extended the mandate of the Commission for an additional year. 5. The current members of the Commission, appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, are Yasmin Sooka, Andrew Clapham and Barney Afako, with Ms. Sooka as its Chair. 6. The Commission was supported by a secretariat based in Juba. It conducted missions to Bentiu, Dablual, Goli, Kuruki, Leer, Mayendit, Panyume, Wau and Yei within South Sudan, as well as to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Arua, Imvepi, Kampala and Kiryandongo in Uganda, Kakuma and Nairobi in Kenya, and El Daein, El Fasher, Khartoum, and Nyala in the Sudan. The Commission met with a range of victims, witnesses, government officials and members of civil society. It also organized a workshop on sexual and gender-based violence. 7. During the current mandate, the Commission took 135 detailed individual witness statements and gathered over 3,100 documents, including confidential records, covering incidents in South Sudan since December 2013. It also undertook analysis of material gathered in the previous mandate. All evidence is preserved in the Commission’s confidential database and archives. 8. The Commission thanks the Government of South Sudan for facilitating its missions. It is also grateful for the cooperation that it received from the Governments of Ethiopia, Kenya, the Sudan and Uganda during its missions to those States. It further appreciates the assistance and contributions of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), United Nations agencies, civil society organizations and experts. II. Methodology 9. The Commission focused on establishing the facts and circumstances of incidents occurring in 2018 in Unity, Western Bahr el-Ghazal and Central Equatoria states. In light of the mandate’s emphasis on accountability, the Commission focused on establishing the occurrence of violations and identifying the individuals bearing responsibility for those violations and crimes. It sought to identify command structures, patterns of conduct and indicators of control and discipline. 10. Factual determinations on specific incidents and patterns of conduct provided the basis for the legal qualification of human rights violations and, where appropriate, international crimes including war crimes and crimes against humanity. 2