The latest effort at the U.N. to establish an independent investigation into war crimes committed in Yemen by all sides has failed:

The Netherlands and several Western allies have dropped their call for an international Commission of Inquiry to monitor human rights violations in war-torn Yemen.

A revision to a Dutch- and Canadian-led resolution Thursday at the Human Rights Council signaled the diplomatic heft of Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations who have helped fight rebels in Yemen and oppose any such commission.

The United States, France and Britain, key arms suppliers to the Saudis, showed little appetite.

The threats that the Saudis made against supporters of an international inquiry appear to have worked. The Saudi-led coalition and all other parties to the conflict have been able to act with impunity in the absence of any means to hold them accountable for their abuses and violations of international law. The Saudis and their Western backers, including the U.S., have stymied every attempt to remedy that problem, because they know that an independent investigation would present more damning evidence of flagrant disregard for civilian life by coalition forces. The “international community” has once again failed to do even the bare minimum for the people of Yemen, and war criminals on all sides of the conflict can continue to act with impunity. It has been clear for years that many Western governments are more concerned with keeping the Saudis and their allies happy than they are with protecting the lives of civilians in Yemen, and this latest failure at the U.N. just confirms that.