CIJA Joins Call for Greater Accountability for Atrocities in Syria

On the eve of next week’s Conference of the States Parties of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), CIJA has joined 14 Syrian and international organisations urging states to adopt enhanced justice and accountability measures in response to atrocity crimes in Syria.  

Signatories call on states to “explore individual and collective options to hold more perpetrators to account—by widening the scope of criminal jurisdiction, providing greater resources for victim and witness protection, greater resources for war crimes prosecutors, and considering the creation of a treaty-based tribunal for Syria”. While the statement acknowledges recent advances towards criminal-justice accountability, such as the first crimes against humanity verdict against a former Syrian Regime member, it stresses that “justice is still not commensurate to the injustices suffered” by the Syrian people. The joint statement further urges that states demand immediate release of detainees from Regime detention centres and information on the fates of disappeared persons, while supporting measures to provide greater psychological support for survivors.

At the upcoming OPCW session, states parties will discuss a 46-state backed proposal to suspend Syria’s rights and privileges in the organisation over its use of chemical weapons. The Assad Regime’s responsibility for chemical weapons attacks has been investigated by the OPCW’s Investigation and Identification Team (IIT). CIJA is proud to have assisted the IIT by providing evidentiary and analytical materials in support of the Team’s first investigation and subsequent report on the role of the Syrian Arab Air Force in the incidents in Ltamenah, Syria in March 2017.

CIJA has been conducting criminal investigations in Syria since 2011. Thus far, CIJA has collected over one million pages of Syrian regime documentation and it is currently supporting thirty-two law enforcement agencies from over a dozen democratic countries in addition to a number of multilateral bodies. CIJA’s evidence and testimony have been used in five completed trials pertaining to both Syrian regime and Islamic State criminality. Additionally, CIJA is currently assisting fifteen ongoing investigations by law enforcement agencies.

Read the full statement here: Joint Statement in Advance of the 25th Session of the Conference of the States Parties of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)