Washington, Mar 14 | Jeff Sagnip ((202) 225-3765)

The House of Representatives voted today urging the U.N. Security Council to immediately establish a Syrian war crimes tribunal.

   H Con Res 121—sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04)—calls upon the Administration to pursue this policy goal including using America’s voice and vote at the UN.

   During debate in the House Smith said, “Past ad hoc/regional war crimes tribunals—including courts for Sierra Leone, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia—have made a significant difference holding some of the worst mass murderers to account with successful prosecutions followed by long jail sentences.”

   The resolution passed 392-3.

   “An ad hoc or regional court has significant advantages over the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a venue for justice,” Smith said. “The ICC has operated since 2002 but boasts only two convictions. By way of contrast, the Yugoslavia court convicted 80 people; Rwanda, 61; and Sierra Leone, 9.  Moreover, a singularly focused Syrian tribunal that provides Syrians with a degree of ownership could significantly enhance its effectiveness.”

   “I chaired a congressional hearing in 2013 on establishing a Syrian War Crimes tribunal, which included David Crane, the former chief prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone and founder and chairman of the Syria Accountability Project,” Smith said. “As Mr. Crane testified, the Syria Accountability Project has collected data ‘and built a framework by which President Assad and his henchmen along with members of the opposition can be prosecuted openly and fairly.’  He and his team have developed a ‘crime base matrix which catalogs most of the incidents chronologically and highlights the violations of the Rome Statute, the Geneva Conventions as well as domestic Syrian criminal law.’”

   Smith said that Crane’s leadership held even heads of state to account.

   “Who can forget the picture of the infamous former President of Liberia—Charles Taylor—with his head bowed incredulous that the Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2012 meted out a 50-year jail term for his crimes against humanity and war crimes,” Smith said.

    Tomorrow, March 15, marks the fifth anniversary of the Syrian War, which has taken the lives of many innocents.

     Smith said, “Rigorous investigations by a new Syria court followed by prosecutions, convictions and serious jail time for perpetrators of crimes on all sides will not only hold those responsible for war crimes accountable, but will send a clear message that such barbaric behavior has dire personal consequences. The victims—and their loved ones—deserve no less.”

   “Can a U.N. Security Council resolution establishing a Syrian war crimes tribunal prevail?” Smith asked during the debate, “Yes. With a serious and sustained diplomatic push by the United States and other interested parties, past success in creating war crimes tribunals can indeed be prologue. Notwithstanding Russia’s solidarity with Serbia during the Balkan war, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was unanimously approved. Ditto for the special court in Sierra Leone in 2002. The Rwanda tribunal was created in 1994, with China choosing to abstain rather than veto.” 

   Smith concluded, “Accountability that is aggressive, predictable, transparent and applicable to perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity on all sides of the divide must be pursued now.”

   The House also adopted a resolution today by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (NE-01) calling on the Obama Administration to designate the horrific crimes against Christians and other minority beliefs in Syria and Iraq as “genocide.” 

   During debate on that resolution Smith stated, “We cannot let the cries of the victims go unheeded, as we once did when we were confronted with evidence of genocide in Rwanda.”

   On Dec. 9, 2015, Smith chaired a hearing entitled “Fulfilling the Humanitarian Imperative: Assisting Victims of ISIS Violence,” where witnesses cited widespread violence targeting religious minorities such as Christians and Yezidis (a non-Islamic religious minority) in territory controlled by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. 

   “In very powerful testimony Mr. Ismail, himself a Yezidi leader who stated that his people were ‘on the verge of annihilation,’ called upon the Administration not to neglect others who are also under the sword,” Smith said. “He reminded us that the Yezidis were not alone in facing this barbaric onslaught, but that the ‘Yezidis and Chaldo-Assyrian Christians face this genocide together.’”  

   Smith said the Syria resolution has broad bi-partisan support, and received input from the State Department as well as a panel of experts at a 2013 hearing he chaired entitled “Establishing a Syrian War Crimes Tribunal.” Click here for information from the hearing, or click here to view a transcript of the hearing. Smith’s resolution was approved at a March 2 hearing by the full Foreign Affairs Committee.

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Tomorrow, 15 March 2016, marks five years of devastating and deadly conflict in Syria. Since 2011, more than 260,000 people have been killed, over 11 million displaced from their homes and 13.5 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Because of the civil war the multi-ethnic, multi-religious fabric of Syrian society has been torn apart and ordinary Syrians are trapped in the largest humanitarian crisis of our time.   After five years of misery there is now some dim hope, with a cessation of hostilities that has largely held since 27 February and intra-Syrian talks restarting today in Geneva. Two task forces created by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) are overseeing the cessation as well as the delivery of desperately-needed humanitarian aid to thousands of Syrians in besieged areas. The UN Security Council has endorsed these efforts.   But a cessation is not a permanent ceasefire, and the Syrian civil war is far from resolved. Monumental diplomatic efforts will be needed to sustain progress. Syrians cannot afford for the cessation to collapse or for the international community to retreat into passivity in the face of recurring atrocities.   Throughout the course of Syria’s civil war, every major principle of international law has been violated with impunity. The Syrian government has deployed illegal chemical weapons and cluster munitions, deliberately bombed hospitals and dropped barrel bombs on civilians. All parties to the conflict, including the government, have tortured detainees, perpetrated sexual violence, deliberately blocked humanitarian aid, and used food as a weapon to starve besieged communities. Crimes against humanity and war crimes continue to be perpetrated.   For five years the Syrian government has waged war against its own people, and has utterly failed to uphold its Responsibility to Protect. The government has contravened every resolution passed by the UN Security Council with regard to its attacks on armed rebels and unarmed civilian populations presumed to be supporting them.   In the midst of the civil war, the so-called Islamic State has gained territory and influence and has itself carried out crimes against humanity, including mass executions and sexual enslavement. The group poses an existential threat to all religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and must be held accountable for mass atrocity crimes committed in areas under its command and control. All other armed opposition groups who have perpetrated atrocities must also be held to account.   The world is fully aware of atrocities in Syria. But as Syrian refugees flee the country in unprecedented numbers, they now find it increasingly difficult to find sanctuary. Various governments have ignored their obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, and many desperate Syrians find international borders closed to them.   Syrians did not need to suffer this fate. For nearly five years the international community, and especially the UN Security Council, has watched the Syrian conflict deepen and deteriorate. The Security Council has been consumed with internal political divisions that have crippled its ability to respond to the Syrian crisis, and it has failed to uphold its responsibilities to the Syrian people. On this solemn anniversary we therefore call upon the Security Council to:   Demand full and immediate compliance with Resolution 2268, endorsing the cessation of hostilities, the ISSG initiative and a Syrian-led political process, in accordance with the Geneva Communiqué of 30 June 2012;   Authorize targeted sanctions against all government and non-state actors who are responsible for mass atrocity crimes;   Impose an arms embargo on Syria; and   Refer the Syrian situation to the International Criminal Court for investigation.   Finally, we call upon all 193 members of the UN to sign the ACT Code of Conduct regarding the Security Council and mass atrocities. No Security Council member should ever vote against a credible resolution aimed at preventing or halting mass atrocity crimes. And no people should ever again have to endure the suffering and death that has been inflicted upon the Syrian people as an ineffective UN Security Council has abdicated its responsibilities.

Dear Readers, Welcome to the weekly Syria Deeply newsletter. We’ve rounded up the most important stories and developments about Syria and the Syrians in order to bring you valuable news and analysis. Meet the Doctors Keeping Aleppo Alive For the past four years, a small team of dedicated medical professionals has held together a skeletal network of bombed out and underground hospitals across opposition-held Aleppo, providing life-saving treatment to the civilians caught in Syria’s deadly war. Truce Tests Relations Between Islamist Giants The U.S.-Russian brokered truce remains deeply controversial among rebels. Hardline jihadis have condemned the peace process, while more pragmatic Islamists have endorsed it. Now, a jihadi crackdown on demonstrators in rebel-held Idlib is testing the alliance between two of the insurgency’s most powerful factions. An ‘Empire of Women’ in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley As young Syrian refugee students celebrated International Women’s Day in the Bekaa Valley this week, education advocate Nora Jumblatt highlighted the increasingly important role of women throughout the refugee community. The war in Syria, despite its chaos and sadness, she said, has given rise to a “little miracle.” More Recent Stories to Look Out for at Syria Deeply: Op-Ed: The Syrian Revolution Lives Again The First Syrian Astronaut Is Now a Refugee What About the Detainees? Q&A with Wissam Tarif Find our new reporting and analysis every weekday at www.syriadeeply.org. You can reach our team with any comments or suggestions at info@newsdeeply.org.

Since the UN Security Council endorsed the United States and Russia’s Joint Statement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Syria on February 26, civilian deaths and violence appear to have decreased substantially. Although reports of violence have been reported, it has been difficult to assess how many of the reports are credible ceasefire violations due to the agreement’s lack of clarity on monitoring mechanisms.  

Ceasefire agreements should generally include strong provisions on how to monitor compliance. In the context of civil war, however, there is no standardized best practice for monitoring, and mechanisms vary greatly from country to country. Lessons from other contexts would suggest that when the monitoring is well-planned and civil society is incorporated into the design of the monitoring mechanism, the ceasefire is more likely to hold. Syria’s ceasefire agreement is quite flimsy on this point and alludes only briefly to monitoring, suggesting that the parties develop a mechanism that includes a communication hotline and, if appropriate, “a working group to exchange relevant information.” It does not describe a method for civil society contributions or a process for investigation and verification of violation claims.

As a result, individuals and groups have set up ad hoc mechanisms for monitoring through social media and websites in order to collect information on incidents that might amount to ceasefire violations. The US State Department has also established a hotline that Syrians can call to report violations. The result of this information-gathering is unclear and neither Russia nor the United States has confirmed or denied that violations have occurred, leading to growing frustration that the violators can act without rebuke. An international or joint Russia-US monitoring mechanism to investigate and verify claims could work to give Syrians a sense that the international backers are taking the agreement seriously.     

Even with a formal mechanism, verification of claims will be difficult because the parties have not agreed to a map of territorial control. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra are exempt from the agreement, so attacks targeting or committed by these two groups are not violations of the ceasefire. Thus, each side can easily justify a violation by claiming that they were merely targeting ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra. Without an agreement on which groups control what territory, it could be difficult to discredit such justifications.

Since there is no international monitoring presence in Syria, the work of civil society monitoring is even more important. To effectively assist with ceasefire monitoring, civil society can draw on human rights documentation principles. The most important of these principles include accuracy and impartiality. If an organization publicizes information that is proven false or biased, its own reporting will be discredited and civil society’s credibility may be harmed as well. Monitors should also be working transparently in a way that benefits their own communities while improving the security of opposing sides. This is a difficult task due to the deep hatreds that have developed since 2011, but will be necessary to lasting peace. Methods of human rights documentation can also be employed to monitor ceasefires, including the use of photographs, videos, and interviews to document and verify violations. Including metadata can help verify times and locations in pictures and videos that will lend credibility to claims.

Unlike documenting human rights abuses, however, ceasefire violations are not necessarily violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, but rather violations of the ceasefire agreement itself. An incident that is not a violation of humanitarian law might still be a violation of the agreement, depending on the agreement’s provisions. In the Philippines, for example, civilian ceasefire monitors developed Terms of Reference focusing on particular ceasefire-related incidents and their impacts on civilians’ safety and security to guide the monitoring process.  

In addition to ceasefire monitoring, civil society groups can monitor the humanitarian situation to ensure that aid is reaching conflict-affected communities and basic needs are being met. Linking humanitarian aid to ceasefire agreements is essential to the success of ceasefires because the more needs that are met, the more likely Syrians are to commit to peace over renewed fighting. Civil society can also take advantage of the relative calm to educate conflict-affected communities on the peace process and begin the difficult task of building trust across communities to ensure an inclusive process that fosters peace from the ground up.

It is yet to be seen whether the current agreement on Cessation of Hostilities in Syria will have a lasting effect on the conflict. What can be guaranteed, however, is that its impact and long-term success will be greatly increased by a robust monitoring plan that includes civil society.

For more information and to provide feedback, please contact SJAC at info@syriaaccountability.org.