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The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria (COI) has documented and reported on the most grotesque rights violations, from public executions to the recruitment of children to be used as soldiers, child marriage and sexual abuse, but beyond this, the Commission has done its best to call the international community to action and has given voice to the sense of hopelessness in the face of impunity many now feel when faced with the horrors of the war in Syria. In March 2014, Mr. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the head of the COI was very clear about the failings of the international community: “the Security Council bears responsibility for not addressing accountability and allowing the warring parties to violate these rules with total impunity”.
CRIN, too, has been reporting on the conflict and the horrendous impact it has had on children across the region since the conflict first erupted (you can read CRIN’s “spotlight on Syria” from last November for full background on the conflict). To mark the grim fourth anniversary of the war, this piece won’t rehearse these facts, but will look at the issue of impunity and what is being done around the world to hold perpetrators responsible for human rights violations committed during the conflict in Syria.
Impunity and the search for justice
The UN, and particularly the Security Council (UNSC), has been widely castigated for its inaction on Syria. The Security Council is uniquely placed to implement measures to put pressure on combatants but also to lay the groundwork to hold those responsible for human rights abuses in the future. In 2014, the Security Council passed resolution 2139 recognising the need to end impunity and bring perpetrators to justice, but this has so far led to no concrete action. Last week, the Security Council passed a resolution condemning the use of toxic chemicals such as chlorine in Syria and calling for accountability, but also falling short of concrete action.
The COI has called time and again for the UNSC to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) or an ad hoc international tribunal. Most recently during the 28th session of the Human Rights Council Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro reiterated the Commission’s dedication to “not only bringing forth the voice of victims but also to finding a path to justice for them” through a Security Council referral to the International Criminal Court.
Yet despite its potentially crucial role in setting in motion an investigation that may one day hold those responsible for rights violations in Syria to account, in May 2014, the UNSC rejected a resolution that would have referred the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. Syria has not ratified the Rome Statute or itself referred the situation in the country to the ICC, so the only way that the Court would be able to consider human rights violations that have taken place during the conflict would be for the Security Council to refer the situation to the Court. To date, two joint UN-Arab League envoys have resigned in the face of the intractable crisis, while the Arab League has suspended Syrian membership of the organisation but failed to press toward a meaningful peace process or take steps to hold perpetrators to account.
In the absence of international justice, the available mechanisms to hold perpetrators to account dwindle, but are not extinguished. In certain circumstances, the national courts of other States will have jurisdiction over crimes committed in Syria. In the most straightforward cases, States may be able to prosecute their own citizens when they return home after being directly involved in the conflict or for providing support or assistance while within their home country.
It may also be possible to hold non-citizens to account under “universal jurisdiction” which, when part of a national legal practice, allows prosecutors to pursue individuals who have allegedly committed grave international crimes in other countries even if neither the victim nor accused is a national of the prosecuting State.
Not a solution but what is left
One of the functions of the COI has been to identify a confidential list of alleged perpetrators of human rights abuses and to record evidence linking those perpetrators to crimes or violations. The Commission reported in February that it has provided national authorities with information collected during its investigations in order to support national prosecutions and would be willing to supply information to national courts asserting universal jurisdiction where the relevant State was able to meet international fair trial standards.
Read the full article.
Further reading:
Resources on children’s rights and the conflict in Syria:
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CRIN, Spotlight on Syria
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CRIN, Spotlight on Iraq
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Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, 9th report to the Human Rights Council
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Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, Rule of Terror: Living under ISIS in Syria
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Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, Conclusions on children and armed conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, 26 November 2014
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Human Rights Watch, “Maybe we live and maybe we die”: recruitment and the use of children by armed groups in Syria, June 2014
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Human Rights Watch, Safe no more: students and schools under attack in Syria, June 2013
Also on Syria, UNICEF’s spokeswoman, Juliette Touma, stressed last week that any government with influence over militant groups in the Syrian conflict, including Islamic State (IS), should be pressing them to permit aid workers entry to all areas where access has been denied.
Asked at the news conference how UNICEF and other aid groups should deal with the group, Ms. Singer said: “They refuse to talk to the UN [...]. But at the same time, it’s not the responsibility only of the humanitarian agencies. This is a political responsibility, and for the political parties to talk, to put pressure and start a dialogue with [IS].”
Senior UN officials in Jerusalem have been accused of caving in to Israeli pressure to abandon moves to include the State’s armed forces in a UN list of serious violators of children’s rights.
They reportedly backed away from recommending that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) be included in the list following telephone calls from senior Israeli officials. The Israeli authorities allegedly warned of serious consequences if a meeting of UN agencies and NGOs based in Jerusalem to ratify the recommendation went ahead. Although Jerusalem-based officials cancelled the meeting, the UN complained to Israel about the intimidation of its staff.
During the 28th session of the Human Rights Council, Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG) presented her annual report and held a side event on the subject. While covering all aspects of the issue, of particular interest was Ms Zerrougui’s comment on the deprivation of liberty of children captured in the course of military operations and tried over their alleged involvement with an armed group. These children, she said, are often brought before military courts which are “particularly inappropriate forums for hearing cases involving children, given that they do not fully recognise the special status of juveniles in conflict with the law.” Not only this, but the courts do not even apply basic standards of a fair trial, with children being held in poor conditions without being brought before a judge and are not given access to a lawyer.
On Wednesday 25th March, the UN Security Council (UNSC) will hold an Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict. The theme of the Open Debate will be child victims of non-state armed actors (ANSAs).
Read more on children’s rights at the Human Rights Council’s 28th session
Read more about children and armed conflict at the UNSC.
A nine-year-old child is facing trial before a military court in Egypt alongside his father for allegedly attacking security forces and burning electricity transformers in protests following the ousting of president Morsi in 2013. While Egypt has recently taken steps to promote some children’s rights, trials of children before military courts persist, with 43 children believed to have been investigated and tried in the military justice system between 2011 and 2012.
Palestinian children are also subject to “widespread, systematic and institutionalised" ill-treatment within the Israeli military justice system, according to a new UNICEF publication. Despite recent legal reform, evidence collected since 2013 shows continued and persistent reports of ill-treatment against Palestinian children by Israeli forces. This second update by UNICEF on its engagement with the Israeli authorities regarding children in military detention covers the period from March 2013 to November 2014. Also read a CRIN article on this subject.
Rwanda's high court on Friday upheld the life sentence of the genocide-era justice minister Agnes Ntamabyariro, who was convicted six years ago for her role in the 1994 slaughter in which 800,000 people were killed. Most of those killed in the genocide were minority Tutsis or moderates from the Hutu majority.
Ntamabyariro is the only senior official in the former government to have been brought to justice in Rwanda. Others were tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
Read CRIN’s article on Children and International Justice.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will file a disclosure lawsuit this week for secret Obama administration documents specifying, among other things, the criteria for placement on the so-called “kill list” for drone strikes and other deadly force.
Information sought by the ACLU includes long-secret analysis establishing the legal basis for what the administration terms its “targeted killing program” and the process by which the administration determines that civilians are unlikely to be killed before launching a strike, as well as verification mechanisms afterward to establish if the strike in fact has caused civilian deaths.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, US drone strikes have killed between 180 and 207 children since 2002.
Read more on the issue in “Drones: No safe place for children”.
Following a visit to Mali this month Suliman Baldo, the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Mali, noted the fragility of the cessation of hostility agreement signed in Algiers on February 19.
Recent terrorist attacks have led to five civilian deaths in the capital, Bamako, and to an attack against a barracks belonging to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) in Kidal that killed two children and a peacekeeper, and injured 11 peacekeepers and three civilians.
“All parties involved in the conflict have committed serious violations, including violations of the right to life, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, arrests and arbitrary detentions and violations of the right to property. In recent months, entire communities have been forced to move in order to protect themselves from imminent collective punishment,” Mr. Baldo said.
According to the latest human rights report released by the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the surge in fatalities in Ukraine has continued despite successive ceasefires as Government and rebel forces have escalated their fighting in recent weeks, particularly near the airport in Donetsk and in the area around the town of Debaltseve. The clashes have resulted in hundreds of deaths, both civilian and military, and “an untenable situation” for those trapped in the strife-torn areas.
The fighting has also sparked a massive outflow of refugees and displaced persons. Last month, the UN refugee agency reported at least 943,500 internally displaced persons (IDPs). Meanwhile, over 600,000 Ukrainians have fled the country, seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, particularly the Russian Federation, but also Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Romania, since February 2014.
Many civilians find themselves trapped in the conflict zone with freedom of movement extremely limited because of unavailability and unaffordability of transport, insecurity along exit routes and administrative barriers preventing civilians from reaching safety.
Ukrainian authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people, including over 2,240 children, from Donetsk and Luhansk but the UN Refugee Agency reports that many civilians in conflict areas feel abandoned.
UN representatives met with officials in South Sudan to discuss reports of continuing child recruitment in the country.
A UNICEF education team had recently reported that 89 children were abducted in Wau Shilluk, where thousands of people have been internally displaced by the ongoing conflict. The actual number, however, could be higher. According to witnesses, armed soldiers surrounded the community and searched house by house. Boys older than 12 years of age were taken away by force.
“I stressed the importance of holding accountable all those who engage in this unacceptable practice, and I shared with the Deputy Governor the assurances given by President Salva Kiir Mayardit to me last month that the boys would be rescued”, Ms. Løj said.
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