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‘A Meaningful Step towards Accountability’?: A View from the Field on the United Nations International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria
Abstract
The new United Nations International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) is an additional tool in the fight against impunity for the international crimes being committed in Syria. It arrives late and, at first glance, has no additional powers beyond those possessed by the multitude of existing justice actors who have been resolutely documenting crimes and building cases since 2011. Yet there are opportunities and real benefits that could be achieved. In order to live up to its billing as a meaningful step towards accountability, the IIIM will have to be creative and tailor itself to work in partnership with Syrian civil society actors and existing non-governmental organizations. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
... Given the Security Council deadlock, a new institutional experiment has been launched with the establishment of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (iiim), tasked with collecting, systematizing and analyzing the vast amount of information, preparing it for a future when, hopefully, more trials will be possible. 78 Important work is done by states, not only ngo s and international bodies. Germany is, in many ways, leading the charge. ...
Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, the war-time Bosnian Serb leaders, were first indicted by the UN Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1995. The two hid for many years, with their trials starting only in 2009 and 2012, respectively, after they were apprehended in headline-generating operations. Their continued evasion of trial was constantly critiqued. After all, thousands were killed, tortured, detained, raped, expelled, and robbed during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and these two men were widely seen as responsible. Pleas were made by survivors and frustration expressed on behalf of the victims, as many said, ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. However, as this article shows, the many years the two high-ranking individuals spent hiding were well-used to collect evidence which led to their convictions and life sentences. Contrary to conventional wisdom, delay can actually be beneficial in prosecuting leaders for atrocity crimes.
... Its most significant public exposure is the result of strategically placed media 'exposés', including in the New Yorker, 73 The Guardian 74 and in a Channel 4 documentary film, which are the result of CIJA accepting a certain degree of journalistic interest. 75 Given the absence of scholarly literature on CIJA at the time of researching (which has only been partially addressed more recently), 76 interviews were my best way of gaining detailed information about CIJA, and they offer personal reflections about the field's evolution as noted above in relation to the methodology of Dezalay and Garth. ...
This article argues that the crisis of governance generated by the Syrian civil war presents both a challenge and an opportunity to practitioners of international criminal justice. The article also argues that, irrespective of the Syrian case, international criminal law (ICL) institutions are in need of innovation and that increasingly ICL discourses display a blurring between public and private idioms. Evaluating the contribution of the Commission of International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) is one way then of assessing how ICL might evolve. This article characterizes CIJA’s work as exemplifying ‘entrepreneurial justice’, not only in Syria but also in a range of other (post-)conflict settings. We can define entrepreneurial justice as the identification of a gap or weakness in existing public accountability fora and the creation of a new private or privatized organization and/or approach that seeks to address (at least part of) this gap. Although questions remain about CIJA’s own accountability, along with its potential contribution to realizing accountability, this article suggests that its presence within the ICL field is a necessary one and that it has already started to have effects within Syria and beyond.
... This has included the General Assembly (GA), which has done so on a number of occasions, including in 2012.58 When the SC has not acted, the GA, despite its constraints, has even taken steps to collect potential evidence for future accountability processes -such as setting up a process in 2016 to investigate atrocities in Syria.59 The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has at various times also argued that the SC is not doing what is expected with regard to these matters. ...
This article reviews R2P from the point of its rebirth, or renaissance, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and its alleged move to becoming a global norm. It focuses on the question of why it is only used in relatively few places around the world to stop or prevent mass human rights abuses. This is not to argue that R2P is not used - it is - the issue is that it is not being used in the most important and most difficult cases. The article reviews why R2P language is often resorted to, and while it has three pillars, its pillars of prevention and rebuilding are used continually, but the practical application of it (as far as the third pillar relating to reaction) remains limited, when it comes to actually dealing with ongoing massive human rights violations. The article reviews what is happening around the world to argue that R2P is not being used in the sense that it was designed for. The argument is that there are so many places with massive violations that R2P has been unable to respond to.
The article argues that much of the blame today for the high level of atrocity crimes in so many places, in many cases for years if not decades, can be placed at the door of the Security Council (SC). It is argued that it is the role that the SC plays, or rather, does not play in putting a stop to massive violations, that is crucial to understanding why R2P is not playing the key role that was envisaged when it was reborn some twenty years ago. For this reason alone (although there are many other reasons why reform is needed), it is argued SC reform is urgently needed.
... This has included the General Assembly (GA), which has done so on a number of occasions, including in 2012.58 When the SC has not acted, the GA, despite its constraints, has even taken steps to collect potential evidence for future accountability processes -such as setting up a process in 2016 to investigate atrocities in Syria.59 The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has at various times also argued that the SC is not doing what is expected with regard to these matters. ...
This paper first reviews the developing international legal framework that recognizes the prevalence of violence against women and girls in armed conflict, establishes its illegality, and calls for more involvement of women in the prevention and resolution of armed conflict. I then discuss the announcements made by the Canadian government at the Vancouver UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial Conference in November 2017, and analyze how Canada's evolving peacekeeping agenda integrates feminist concepts into the principles underlying R2P. The development of R2P from an aspirational framework to an international legal norm relies in part on establishing state practice and opinio juris, that is, a recognition among states that a certain practice is obligatory. Thus, the actions of Canada can influence the integration of the rights of women and girls into R2P as a legal norm, and enrich the very concept of state sovereignty.
Should Germany be prosecuting crimes committed in Syria pursuant to universal jurisdiction (UJ)? This article revisits the normative questions raised by UJ—the principle that a state can prosecute serious international crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed by foreigners outside of its territories—against the backdrop of increasing European UJ proceedings regarding Syrian conflict–related crimes, focusing on Germany as an illustrative example. While existing literature justifies UJ on the basis of universal prohibition of certain atrocities, this creates residual normative issues. Alternatively, this article applies the “two-tiered test” derived from the “dual foundation” thesis of the Eichmann judgment, in which the normative appropriateness of UJ is evaluated against both accounts of universal prohibition and the specific politics surrounding the prosecution. It contends that the large number of Syrian refugees in Germany means that Germany, in particular, should initiate Syrian conflict–related UJ proceedings to prevent continued harm and recognize the political agency of refugees. Ultimately, the article suggests UJ should normatively be thought of as a domestic, rather than international, political event.
Too little is provided, not only in international law, but also by the United Nations, for victims around the world. This article therefore argues that a new paradigm is needed. It uses the conflict in Syria since 2011, specifically focusing on how enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions have been used, to examine these questions. It has been reported that at least 150,000 people have been affected by these practices, but the number may be as high as a million. Because the state has used these practices methodically, they amount to a widespread and systemic attack on the civilian population and, therefore, to crimes against humanity. While the Syrian regime is primarily responsible, non-state actors have also been committing these types of crimes.
The article discusses the general processes that have been set up to deal with the conflict in international law and by the United Nations in places like Syria. It finds that very little has been done to end the conflict in Syria, other than mediation. The article then reviews the international processes dealing with disappearances and detentions in Syria that families can report to, and the role these institutions have played so far. It again finds that very little has been achieved. The article also examines other countries where processes have been set up to deal with missing and disappeared persons, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, and Georgia, to learn the lessons from these past processes for the Syrian situation.
It is argued that, generally when mass atrocities occur, the UN on rare occasions will create an accountability process, but never creates a process that focuses on the needs of victims: finding their loved ones, getting them released from custody if they are alive, or finding the truth about what happened to them and where their remains are. The article therefore argues that a new mechanism is needed for Syria (but also for other places) to get people released, and to find information on others whose whereabouts are unknown due to the conflict and/or the mass human rights abuses. It contends that the mechanism could be set up by the UN, and if not, by a regional actor such as the European Union, or by several states. It is reasoned that the mechanism ought to have a Board made up of a representative each from the International Committee of the Red Cross ( ICRC ), the International Commission on Missing Persons ( ICMP ), the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances ( WGEID ), the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions ( WGAD ) and a Syrian organisation, elected each year.
This book explores, through the lens of the conflict in Syria, why international law and the United Nations have failed to halt conflict and massive human rights violations in many places around the world which has allowed tens of millions of people to be killed and hundreds of millions more to be harmed.
The work presents a critical socio-legal analysis of the failures of international law and the United Nations (UN) to deal with mass atrocities and conflict. It argues that international law, in the way it is set up and operates, falls short in dealing with these issues in many respects. The argument is that international law is state-centred rather than victim-friendly, is, to some extent, outdated, is
vague and often difficult to understand and, therefore, at times, hard to apply. While various accountability processes have come to the fore recently, processes do not exist to assist individual victims while the conflict occurs or the abuses are being perpetrated. The book focuses on the problems of international law and the UN and, in the context of the many enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions in Syria, why nothing has been done to deal with a rogue state that has regularly violated international law. It examines why the responsibility to protect (R2P) has not been applied and why it ought to be used, generally, and in Syria. It uses the Syrian context to evaluate the weaknesses of the system and why reform is needed. It examines the UN institutional mechanisms, the role they play and why a civilian protection system is needed. It examines what
mechanism ought to be set up to deal with the possible one million people who have been disappeared and detained in Syria.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) emerged from the ash of unsolved political, religious and sectarian conflicts in the Middle East that motivated many extreme terrorists around the globe to join their ugly, savage, inexplicable, nihilistic, valueless, barbaric actions by using their self-interpretation and extreme verses of Quran, then became the greatest threat to the humanity in recent years. It started invading a big swath in Iraq and Syria and committing most core international crimes, including the crime of genocide against Yazidi community in 2014, war crimes, crimes against humanity, specifically sexual and gender-based violence, abduction, use of prohibited weapons, extrajudicial killings, torture, indiscriminate attacks, recruitment and use of children, attacks against religious and ethnic groups, displacing civilian people.
As a response to the threat of ISIS, the international community formed a global military coalition to defeat them in Sep 2014, and the United Nation Human Rights Council on 22 Aug 2011 established the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria (IICIS) to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law since Mar 2011 in Syria, which since the emerging of ISIS, the Commission recorded the crime of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Then the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2017 created the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh (UNITAD) to support domestic efforts to hold ISIS accountable by collecting evidences in Iraq of acts to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by ISIS.
During the fighting against ISIS many ISIS fighters were captured by different states and authorities, the Iraqi and Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) judiciaries convicted at least 7,374 ISIS suspects, In northeast Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) hold about 12,000 suspected of ISIS affiliation, including 4,000 foreigners from almost 50 different nationalities. Turkey holds 2,280 ISIS members, and many ISIS-linked suspects were arrested in western countries. All these individuals are being dealt differently according to different legal systems, but none has been convicted for committing core international crimes yet.
This chapter focuses on two areas in the field of international criminal justice—loosely defined as the international criminal tribunals that prosecute core atrocity crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes). The chapter examines the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the recent creation of three mechanisms created to compile evidence of atrocity crimes committed in Syria, Iraq, and Myanmar. As to the ICC, the chapter examines the particular challenges presented by prosecuting state actors. As to the mechanisms, the chapter considers whether the creation of such mechanisms, which have no capacity to conduct prosecutions, represents a retreat for the field of international justice. Such a pessimistic conclusion, however, may be premature, because, as to each, there are possibilities for ensuring accountability, although the most direct routes appear blocked. The challenge will be to ensure eventual accountability includes state actors, and that, as to trials that do occur (for all perpetrators), they are conducted pursuant to internationally recognized fair trial standards and do not result in implementation of the death penalty.
This book offers a novel and contemporary examination of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) doctrine from an international legal perspective and analyses how the doctrine was applied within the Libyan and Syrian conflicts as two recent and highly significant R2P cases.
The book dissects each of R2P’s three component pillars to examine their international legal underpinnings, drawing upon diverse legal frameworks – including the laws of the UN, laws of international organisations, human rights law, humanitarian law, criminal law, environmental law, and laws of State responsibility – to extract conclusions regarding existing and emerging host and third-State obligations to prevent and react to mass atrocity crimes. It uses this legal grounding to critically examine specific aspects of the Libyan and Syrian R2P cases, engaging with some of the more traditional debates surrounding R2P’s application, most notably those that pertain to the use of force (or lack thereof), but also exploring some of the less-researched non-military methods that were or could have been employed by States and international organisations to uphold the doctrine. Such an analysis captures the diversity in the means and actors through which R2P can be implemented and allows for the extraction of more nuanced conclusions regarding the doctrine’s strengths and limitations, gaps in enforceability, levels of State support, and future trajectory.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the field of international law and human rights law.
This article uses the case study of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) and its work on Syria as a way to reflect on the challenges international lawyers face in conducting research in relation to secret, highly constrained spaces. In particular, the article engages with debates within anthropology on the nature of para-ethnographic research as a way to think about research relationships between international legal scholars and practitioners as conducive of collaboration, (inter)dependency and dialogue. Yet this type of research, especially without the grounding of legal texts, raises questions about the legal researcher’s integrity and author(ity). Thus, the article’s core concern is to explore the inter-relationship between a variety of risks that can occur for both scholars and research subjects operating in secret spaces.
There has been near-universal condemnation of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict. The international community has nevertheless struggled to make progress on holding the perpetrators to account. This article reviews developments at the international level in terms of Syrian chemical weapon justice between 2011 and 2017. It argues that there have been substantive disagreements between states on the rationale and means of justice in the Syrian case. It also argues that international initiatives have been tightly intertwined with developments in chemical disarmament and conflict resolution processes as well as the broader war. The article describes progress and challenges to chemical weapon justice in a number of distinct formal international mechanisms during the period studied. The analysis concludes by contextualizing international responses—including the U.S. tomahawk strikes against a Syrian airbase—to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attacks of April 2017.
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