Transitional Justice in the Syrian Context
Diaspora Mobilisation and the Invention of Spaces for Justice
p. 297-324
Note de l’auteur
My sincere thanks go to the editors, Myriam Ababsa and Valentina Napolitano, for their helpful comments, as well as to Briony Jones, Brigitte Herremans, Susanne Buckley-Zistel and her team, and Espen Stokke for providing feedback on earlier drafts of this chapter. I am especially grateful to all interview partners for their time and generosity in sharing their views and experiences with me. This research was funded by a Postdoc Mobility Fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Texte intégral
1In the context of the Syrian uprising in 2011, human rights defenders and civil society actors in Syria started early on to engage with the notion of transitional justice, in the hope of an imminent political transition (Haid 2017). “When we were talking about transitional justice […], we always had this in mind, […] we were thinking that it was the end of an era, that it was the end of the Assad regime”, recalled the co-founder of the Syrian League for Citizenship and intellectual, Hassan ʿAbbas.1 At that time, transitional justice (TJ) was imagined as a way of building a new Syria, including through addressing crimes committed in the past such as the 1982 massacre in Ḥamā. In the wake of the violent repression from the Syrian regime, engagement for TJ was gradually relocated to various host countries outside of Syria, as activists and human rights defenders were forced into exile. As the conflict escalated further and intensified into a multi-layered armed conflict involving foreign powers and non-State armed actors, the focus of TJ discussions also shifted to the grave human rights violations that were—and continue to be—committed since 2011. Syrian and international actors, donors, long-established but also newly created non-governmental organisations (NGOs) became involved in the conversation on, and efforts for, TJ in the Syrian context,2 whilst the sites for activism and the implementation of criminal justice processes and civil society projects increasingly turned outside of Syria.
2By the time of the Syrian uprising, TJ had been established as a distinct field of policy-making, practice and research. Although it initially emerged in the specific context of the transitions from authoritarian regimes during the third wave of democratisations in Latin America and Eastern Europe, TJ has since spread as a global norm that is used in increasingly diverse contexts, encompassing a diverse set of “tools” and approaches, from judiciary to non-judiciary mechanisms. It has become institutionalised as part of the post-conflict response of the United Nations (UN), which defines TJ as the “full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation” (UNSG 2004: 4).
3This chapter proposes to analyse diaspora mobilization for TJ over time, in the Syrian context of forced displacement and ongoing violence. Whilst the concept of diaspora is being used as an object of enquiry in the Syrian context (Stokke & Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2019, Diker & Ragab 2019), including as part of efforts to map its roles in the future of Syria (Jaber & Kodmani 2018), its undifferentiated use is also contested when it comes to describing heterogeneous generations of Syrian migrants and refugees, with different trajectories and motives for migration (Meininghaus & Mielke 2019), or to refer to Syrian activist networks, with internal divisions and little formal organisational structures (Fourn 2020). In this chapter, I use the term of diaspora to refer specifically to Syrian activists in exile who are mobilizing for TJ through transnational networks and formalized organizational structures since 2011. In doing so, I draw upon the mobilization approach to diaspora studies, which foregrounds the socio-political dynamics at play in the construction of diaspora groups through mobilisation (Adamson 2012), in a turn away from essentialist understandings of individual and group identities. This scholarship emphasises the transnational and translocal dimension of diaspora mobilisation, its temporal and spatial dynamics, and the intersecting positionalities of diaspora actors (see e.g., Koinova 2018).
4This chapter therefore pays particular attention to the specific locations of diaspora members and the variations in the spaces available for diaspora mobilisation for TJ in different host-country contexts. Whilst the space for mobilization is shaped by the international geopolitical context as well as developments of the conflict in the home country, there is a striking difference across host countries between the so-called ‘near’ diaspora, located in the immediate region, and the ‘far’ diaspora (Adamson 2016) in Western countries. The space for mobilisation of Syrian activists and NGO members is indeed much more restricted in the immediate region compared to European host countries, amongst others because of the legal precariousness and political instability of host countries neighbouring Syria (Diker & Ragab 2019, Fourn 2020). This chapter proposes to reflect upon how this has played out specifically in the context of diaspora mobilization for TJ.
5In order to do so, I draw upon qualitative, semi-structured interviews and conversations conducted with about 30 Syrian and international activists, members of NGOs or survivor-led associations mainly in Lebanon and Germany, between November 2018 and January 2020, and from (non)participant observation of TJ events and workshops that have taken place in Lebanon, Germany and cyberspace since November 2018. Lebanon and Germany represent two countries of the ‘near’ and ‘far’ diaspora respectively, which host large numbers of Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers—respectively 1.5 million (UNHCR et al. 2023) and 923,8053—and offer very different political, legal, social, and economic environments for Syrian refugees. To a much lesser extent, I also draw from insights from qualitative interviews conducted with about 80 Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Germany who are less mobilized for, or involved in, TJ efforts. Given this focus on diaspora mobilization for TJ primarily within the Lebanese and German contexts, this chapter does not provide an overview of all efforts to pursue TJ in the Syrian context across host countries.4 Finally, I draw upon the rich literature on diaspora mobilization for TJ, in particular research examining the role of donors (Stokke & Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2019), motivations (Stokke & Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2020) or digital communication technologies (Tenove 2019) in diaspora mobilization for TJ in the Syrian context.
6This chapter is divided in two sections. In the first part, I argue that although connecting with the field of TJ initially provided significant resources for Syrian diaspora mobilization, this has changed over time as established avenues for international criminal justice and a political transition in Syria both appeared increasingly out of reach. In this difficult context, Syrian lawyers, activists, and NGOs, along with international partners, started to explore alternative avenues for international criminal justice under extra-territorial jurisdiction. It is to these efforts that the second section turns. I argue that the trajectories of Syrian refugees and transnational mobilization of activists allowed the invention of new spaces for justice across various host countries of the ‘far’ diaspora. To highlight the relevance of these spaces, which goes beyond the legal sphere, I use Jeffrey’s (2011) notion of “invented spaces”: spaces invented and mediated by civil society actors that are more open and deliberative than the courtroom, which may remain an elusive option for most victims in the Syrian context. Most significantly, these spaces are increasingly being shaped by the transnational survivor-led associations that emerged and consolidated over the past few years. The invention of these new spaces for justice has, however, also come with specific challenges, in terms of uneven geographies of access both across and within the various countries hosting Syrian refugees.
Mobilising for transitional justice in exile
Connecting with the field of transitional justice: resources and constraints
7In the context of the 2011 uprising in Syria, activists and civil society actors started to look into the notion of TJ to prepare for what was thought to be rapid political change. This initially included reflecting upon how to address the grave human rights violations of the previous regime under Hafez al-Assad. Whilst mobilisation for TJ multiplied in the context of the 2011 uprising, a few human rights activists had already turned to the notion of TJ earlier on, inspired particularly by the Moroccan truth commission experience (Stokke & Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2020).
8As many Syrian civil society members and activists were forced to flee Syria and relocate their work into exile, TJ enabled the formulation of demands for the future of Syria in a way that resonated with this internationally established field. It provided the opportunity to connect with international practitioners and access donor funding, while offering the possibility for activists to redefine their roles and find meaning in new forms of work in exile.5 Initially, a lot of focus was put on the development of roadmaps for the period following the foreseen ousting from power of Bashar al-Assad (see e.g., TDA 2012, SCPSS 2013). Some NGOs such as The Day After in fact emerged out of these efforts to outline TJ for the Syrian context. These roadmaps reflect the holistic approach now established in the field of TJ: they identify comprehensive sets of judicial and non-judicial processes, covering all areas of TJ identified in UN policy-making. This holistic approach, however, may have come to the detriment of sequencing and prioritisation strategies (Haid 2017: 12–13). Especially in the first years, numerous TJ training sessions were also conducted, within activist and NGO circles, and gradually with larger groups of the population in Syria and with refugees. This led to processes of internationalisation and professionalisation similar to those at play in the reconversion of Syrian activists within the humanitarian field in Lebanon (Fourn 2018). This included for instance processes of reviewing “lessons learnt”, “best practices” and “tools” used in TJ processes in other contexts, to such extent that conversations on TJ amongst activists and NGO members are now punctuated by references to other cases. Many initiatives of Syrian diaspora CSOs (Community Service Organisations) also consisted in consulting various segments of the population to identify priorities in TJ claims (see e.g., Dawlaty 2017).
9Connecting with international organisations and donors active in the TJ field, however, did not come without limitations. Stokke and Wiebelhaus-Brahm (2019) have shown that donor funding had not only enabling but also detrimental effects for diaspora mobilisation for TJ: it contributed to a significant fragmentation amongst Syrian CSOs working on TJ and made it difficult for those highly reliant on donor governments, such as USA government grants, to build their legitimacy. During my field research in Lebanon, Syrian NGO actors observed that international organizations only briefly came in for training and then left, whilst short donor funding cycles did not allow for the necessary long-term strategizing and engagement. Some respondents criticised that the dominance of legal approaches in many training sessions and discussions limited the imagination of other options, or that the issue of statelessness regarding the Kurdish or Palestinian population in Syria were simply left out.
10The training sessions, workshops, or consultations also raised expectations. As these could not be met, it led some people ultimately to lose “faith in the notion of TJ”.6 Some activists or NGO actors started to prefer using terms other than TJ, such as the “fight against impunity”, or foreground verbs (e.g., “promoting human rights”, “defending victims”) to highlight actions taken in the present.7 Others further observed how, at times, international NGOs or trainers, with little context knowledge of Syria, focused on cases that are fundamentally different, or emphasized notions of reconciliation,8 amnesty and forgiveness (see also Aboueldahab 2018). Given the context of ongoing violence in Syria and the Syrian regime’s problematic use of the notion of “reconciliation” (muṣālaḥa), this led some participants to turn away from the notion of TJ. Whilst the term of reconciliation is known in the TJ field to be particularly susceptible to instrumentalisation by political elites, in the Syrian context the regime uses this term to refer to local ceasefire agreements facilitated by Russia’s military involvement. As Sosnowski (2019: 2) has shown, these “reconciliation agreements” function as “tools of subjugation and control”: they enabled the Syrian regime to “violently retake property” and “triage the populations of reconciled areas into those the regime considers able to possess restricted citizenship rights and those not entitled to any”.
11The constantly evolving and escalating situation in Syria also made it difficult for Syrian NGOs to adapt their TJ work (Haid 2017), with those working on human rights feeling compelled to turn to humanitarian support.9 With a political transition to a post-Assad Syria becoming increasingly out of reach, some actors also started to feel “being stuck”10 with their work on TJ, as the notion of TJ is linked to the teleology of a political transition towards liberal democracy. In that changed political context, funding for activities framed as TJ also decreased, with donor countries increasingly perceiving a trade-off between peace and justice,11 and donors’ priorities shifting towards humanitarian aid and counterterrorism in the context of the rise of ISIS. Finally, given the protracted conflict and ongoing violence in Syria, a few activists and members of NGOs experienced or are experiencing phases of depression and burnout. In Germany for instance, an activist explained to me that he had decided to leave his professional and full-time engagement for the documentation of human rights violations and accountability to others, in order to preserve his well-being and mental health, and focus on building a new life in Germany.12 In his research on the trajectories of Syrian activists in France and Lebanon, Fourn (2020) also observed that many referred to the term of ‘depression’ (iktiʾāb) to qualify personal experiences in exile, whilst processes of self-distancing from activism were shaped by decisions to focus on reconstructing oneself in exile.
A strong, yet contested focus on documentation
12Throughout this evolving context, diaspora mobilisation for TJ has been characterised by an exceptionally strong focus on documentation. This challenging work emerged early on, through transnational collaborations between networks of citizen journalists and NGOs documenting alleged crimes and gathering documents and testimonies in Syria, and Syrian NGOs and activists outside collecting the testimonies of refugees and preserving the information (Dawlaty & NPWJ 2013) and crowdsourced documentation (Tenove 2019). By now, the Syrian conflict is referred to as being the most documented so far, although efforts have often covered crimes committed by the regime or ISIS, neglecting violations committed by other Syria-based actors and external actors (Nassar & Rangelov 2020).
13The documentation of human rights violations was also for a long time the focus of multilateral efforts at the UN. In August 2011, the UN Human Rights Council appointed the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI) with the mandate to investigate alleged violations of international human rights law in Syria committed since March 2011. It was also tasked with identifying “those responsible with a view to ensuring that perpetrators of violations, including those that may constitute crimes against humanity, are held accountable”. This was later expanded to investigate violations that may amount to war crimes.13 By 2021, the CoI had compiled information on 3,200 alleged individual perpetrators, although it has not made these public so far.14 Following allegations of chemical weapon attacks in Syria, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) established a Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) with the mandate of “establishing facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals […] for hostile purposes”.15 In August 2015, the UN Security Council (UNSC) established the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the UN and the OPCW, which goes a step further with the mandate of identifying those responsible for the use of chemical weapons in attacks in Syria identified by the FFM.16 The JIM produced several reports, identifying both the government and ISIS as responsible for certain chemical attacks in Syria.17 It functioned until 2017, when Russia blocked its renewal by the UNSC. After the expiration of its mandate, the OPCW established the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) in 2019, tasked with the identification of those responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria in the attacks identified by the FFM, which were not covered by the JIM.
14Documentation is widely recognised in the field as providing the foundation for any type of TJ process, yet the intended purpose strongly shapes the focus and process of documentation efforts. In the Syrian context, strong debates emerged on this issue. Syrian and international actors with a professional background in law or international criminal justice criticized existing documentation efforts for not meeting the necessary standards of proof for international criminal justice processes, or for focusing on the collection of victim statements rather than evidence that could more strongly prove criminal linkage (Rankin 2018). In this context, some actors moved away from citizen journalism and human rights documentation to focus on providing evidence and building cases for future criminal justice processes (Rankin 2018). Others attempt to highlight the value of documentation processes in the context of memorialisation, efforts to address the right to truth or the acknowledgement of victims (e.g., Kabawat & Travesí 2018). For example, in 2016, Syrian NGOs Dawlaty and Women Now for Development started the Syrian Oral History Archive Project, gathering the testimonies of young Syrians and of women whose relatives have disappeared or are in detention. This archive aims to provide visibility to marginalized voices and build a collective memory on the 2011 peaceful uprising and the conflict.18 The Syrian CSO The Day After has, amongst others, focused on collecting and preserving property deeds which, in the context of legal obstacles such as Law no. 10 enacted in Syria in 2018, provide a basis for future claims for housing, land and property rights or future reparation processes. Amnesty International, in collaboration with, amongst others, Syrian Archive, developed an interactive online platform documenting the impact of the military operation of the US-led Coalition in Raqqa, which has recently been made available in Arabic.19 In light of ongoing disinformation campaigns and misinformation, some NGO actors further argued that documentation efforts in fact constitute an accountability mechanism in itself.20 Aboueldahab (2018) also portrays it as “a stand-alone TJ mechanism”, arguing that its significance lies in it being a “form of non-violent resistance to ongoing, violent conflict” which “resists the hijacking of narratives and the destruction of evidence, history and memory”.
15Beyond highlighting diverging views on the purposes of documentation and priorities for TJ in the Syrian context, this debate illustrates more generally how the very construction of the field of TJ around a “holistic” approach, which encompasses a diverse set of judicial and non-judicial processes, belies the existence of competing visions of justice and strategies that differ quite starkly along professional or disciplinary lines. Indeed, TJ brings together professionals, policy makers, and researchers with diverse backgrounds around an endorsement of a set of tools, from truth commissions to criminal justice, framing them as complementary when these refer to political choices that can be deeply contradictory (Lefranc & Mouralis 2014).
16Besides this debate regarding the purposes of documentation, this work also raised other concerns. With refugees and victims of international crimes interviewed multiple times by multiple actors, there are concerns regarding the risk of re-traumatisation,21 or of the discrediting of testimonies for future criminal justice processes.22 Syrian refugees and activists also voiced their frustration that despite providing information multiple times, they were not seeing any tangible result in terms of accountability nor any end to the violence in Syria.23 Over time, this affected the readiness to provide information in such interviews.24
17The discrepancy between the unprecedented extent of documentation on the one hand, and the absence of political will for pursuing international criminal justice or for effectively ending the violence in Syria on the other hand, has been disheartening for many involved. In fact, for some international actors committed to the TJ field, the context of Syria epitomises the ways in which the “TJ dream”, born out of the optimism of the post-Cold War period, finds itself “in crisis” (Hazan 2017). It has certainly rendered the inadequacy of existing mechanisms for international criminal justice in contexts such as Syria even more visible.25
Blocked avenues for criminal accountability
18Because of the absence of a political transition, a number of options for criminal accountability remained out of reach at the national and international levels. First, this includes a domestic criminal accountability process in Syria, an option that many Syrian NGO actors and lawyers would ideally prefer (see e.g. TDA 2012).26 The establishment of a so-called “hybrid tribunal” in Syria, composed of international and national staff applying international criminal law and due process standards in combination with domestic law, is also hardly possible in the current context (Lattimer et al. 2015). Hybrid or mixed tribunals have emerged as a pragmatic alternative to the international ad hoc tribunals for ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda, which were criticised for being too expensive and disconnected from the crime sites and affected communities, even though the experiences of hybrid tribunals have also since been critically assessed. Many Syrian analysts and lawyers consider a hybrid tribunal the best option after a complete cessation of violence (e.g., Ziadeh 2020, SCPSS 2013),27 whilst international actors also promoted this idea.28
19In the absence of a political transition, the architecture of international criminal justice that emerged in the post-Cold War context offers other avenues at the international level. First, the establishment of an ad hoc, international tribunal. However, this option requires the approval of the UNSC under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which is unlikely given the positions of Russia and China so far. The establishment of an ad hoc tribunal in the Syrian context has also been critically assessed by international actors.29 Some, such as Van Schaack (2016) favoured this option, arguing that the mandate of an international tribunal could be tailored to address more directly the specific crimes committed in Syria and cover a larger number of cases than would be possible at the International Criminal Court (ICC). It could, moreover, cover crimes committed before 2011. In June 2019, the Swedish government, with initial support from the Netherlands, proposed the establishment of an international tribunal, but only for crimes committed by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. International and Syrian NGOs quickly voiced their strong concerns that such a tribunal would do more harm than serve justice, because it would strengthen the Syrian regime’s narrative of counterterrorism and sideline claims for justice from victims of crimes committed in Syria by perpetrators other than ISIS.30
20The final option remaining from the post-Cold War architecture of international criminal justice is that of the ICC. International actors warned that opening an investigation into Syria at the ICC, which is already “overextended”, would pose “the steepest challenge yet to the institution”.31 It nonetheless constituted an important demand from survivor-led associations, as put forward by, for example, Wafa ʿAli Mustafa, a member of Families for Freedom, during her July 2020 address to the UNSC.32 However, since Syria has signed but not ratified the Rome Statute, the only way to open an investigation is through a referral from the UNSC.33 Various actors have called repeatedly for such a referral over the years. The matter was only put forward for a vote in May 2014 when the French delegation submitted a draft resolution to the UNSC, rallying support after organizing an informal, closed-door session displaying the so-called “Caesar Photos”34 in April 2014 (Van Schaack 2020). The resolution was, however, vetoed by Russia and China.
21In this context, some NGOs sought alternative ways to access the ICC. In 2019, the Guernica Centre for International Justice and the law firm Stoke White made submissions to the ICC. They argued that the ICC could exercise jurisdiction over the alleged deportation of up to one million civilians from Syria into Jordan since Jordan was a State Party to the ICC and part of the crime against humanity of deportation took place in Jordan. These requests drew from the “Myanmar precedent”, in which the ICC Prosecutor was authorized to start an investigation regarding the alleged crimes against humanity of deportation of the Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar (not a State Party to the ICC) to Bangladesh (a State Party to the ICC). It remains to be seen whether this will be a successful option to launch an investigation at the ICC for the Syrian context (Sweeney 2019). Whilst it would represent an innovative pathway to bypass blockages at the UNSC, this option would nevertheless be limited in terms of the types of crimes that could be examined and the possibilities for the arrest and trial of identified high-level suspects. In June 2023, the Netherlands and Canada made the most recent attempt to put forward crimes committed in Syria before a UN body. Both countries submitted an application to initiate legal proceedings against Syria for violation of the Convention against Torture at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, seeking legal determination of State responsibility for torture. In November 2023, the Court, mandated to settle disputes between States, ordered Syria to take all measures possible to prevent acts of torture and other abuses; as well as to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of any allegations falling under the Convention against Torture (ICJ 2023). While the resolution of the case may take years, it has been widely acclaimed by Syrian activists and survivor-led associations (see e.g. Impunity Watch 2023).
The invention of spaces for justice in the Syrian context
Legal avenues for justice: the use of extra-territorial jurisdiction across Europe
22In this difficult context, Syrian lawyers, and NGOs, along with international partners, started to explore alternative avenues for accountability, including through the principle of universal jurisdiction (UJ). In its ‘pure’ form, UJ grants a national court the competence to try suspects of international crimes, irrespective of the location of the crime and the nationality of the victim or perpetrator, based on the rationale that certain crimes such as genocide, torture, war crimes or crimes against humanity are so grave that they affect the global community. Whilst Germany and Sweden provide far-ranging provisions for UJ, other countries can address international crimes committed in Syria with some limitations, when a nexus between the crime, perpetrators or victims and the State exists. France, the UK, and Spain for instance require that the suspect must be present and/or a resident on their territory. In addition to UJ, other forms of extra-territorial jurisdiction are also used, as in France, where cases have been opened if the victim of an international crime is of French citizenship. In 2016, for instance, Obeïda Dabbagh, brother and uncle of the victims, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Human Rights League (LDH), with the support of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), filed a complaint in France regarding the case of Mazen and Patrick Dabbagh, two French-Syrian citizens arrested in 2013 by Syrian Air Force Intelligence officers.35 In 2018, the investigative judges in charge of the case issued international arrest warrants against Jamil Hassan, ʿAli Mamluk and ʿAbdel Salam Mahmoud, three high-ranking officials of the Syrian Intelligence Services. In March 2023, the investigating judge ordered their indictment before the Paris Criminal Court for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes in this case. Another significant procedure that took place in France concerned Rifʿat al-Assad, the brother of the former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad and former commander of the Defence Brigades, then residing in France, although it focused predominantly on crimes committed prior to 2011 (Trial International 2023). In June 2020, Rifʿat al-Assad was tried and sentenced to four years in prison and to the confiscation of some of his assets for organised money laundering, aggravated tax evasion and misappropriation of Syrian public funds between 1996 and 2016. The French Court of Appeal confirmed his conviction in September 2021; however, he was able to flee to Syria in October 2021. Proceedings were also initiated against him in 2013 in Switzerland regarding his alleged responsibility for the 1980 attack of the Tadmor prison and murders of hundreds of prisoners, as well as the 1982 massacre of several thousand persons in Ḥamā (Trial International 2023).
23However, the majority of cases concerning Syria so far has consisted of charges against lower-level defendants located in European countries: former regime officials, former rebel fighters or members of non-State armed groups (e.g. the Free Syrian Army). Moreover, most cases focus on individuals affiliated with extremist Islamist groups (e.g. ISIS or Jabhat al-Nusra), including nationals of the countries in which the investigations are taking place who joined these groups, but also friends or relatives who lent support. According to SJAC’s March 2020 mapping of proceedings under extra-territorial jurisdiction related to Syria, these cases represent 62% of all identified cases (60 of 92 cases) then taking place in 18, mainly European, countries (SJAC 2020). This focus on non-State armed actors led to significant frustrations amongst Syrian activists, given the lack of proceedings concerning crimes committed by officials of the Syrian regime, whilst also raising concerns of an over-reliance on terrorism charges in alignment with States’ interests in counterterrorism (HRW 2017). In my fieldwork in Germany and Lebanon, however, I found that Syrian refugees or activists not mobilising for, or professionally involved in, TJ efforts were often unaware of these cases.
24The recent investigations and trials of former members of the Syrian regime have been celebrated as rectifying this bias towards ISIS- and terrorism-related cases (see e.g. Kaleck & Kroker 2023). In April 2020, the so-called “al-Khatib trial” of Anwar R. and Eyad A., former members of the Syrian General Intelligence Service, was opened in Germany, which has played a leading role in UJ proceedings on Syria (Buckley-Zistel 2020). In February 2021, the Higher Regional Court of Koblenz sentenced Eyad A. to 4.5 years of prison for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity, in a verdict celebrated as historic for being the first instance of a court confirming that acts of the Syrian government and its officials, including torture, constitute crimes against humanity (Trial International 2023, Kaleck & Kroker 2023). The Federal Court of Justice confirmed Eyad A.’s sentence. In January 2022, the Koblenz Court further sentenced Anwar R. to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity. Other important cases include the case of ʿAbdulhamid Chaban in France, a former member of the General Intelligence Directorate charged with complicity in crimes against humanity, and the case of Alaa M. in Germany, a doctor who formerly worked in Syrian military hospitals and a military intelligence prison and is accused of crimes against humanity (Trial International 2023, Kaleck & Kroker 2023). The German and French authorities are able to process such complex cases since they both opened so-called structural investigations into international crimes against high-level suspects in Syria (see Van Schaack 2020, Kaleck & Kroker 2018). These are investigations that focus not on individual suspects but on structures in which international crimes have been committed, although they will allow national authorities to move quickly against specific individuals as soon as they come within their reach. In September 2011, the German Federal Prosecutor opened a first structural investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria since 2011, and in 2014 a second structural investigation regarding international crimes committed by ISIS and other non-State armed groups operating in Syria and Iraq. In France, a structural investigation based on the Caesar Photos was initiated in 2015 and is being conducted jointly with Germany since 2018 (Trial International 2023).
25Besides these efforts of European national prosecuting authorities, the blockages of established avenues for international criminal justice in the Syrian context led to significant innovation at the UN. In December 2016, the UN General Assembly established the “International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011” (IIIM). Not tasked itself with the prosecution and trial of those responsible for international crimes, the IIIM works to collect, consolidate, and preserve evidence and to develop criminal case files for ongoing or future legitimate accountability processes at national, regional, or international level. The establishment of the IIIM initially raised various concerns, in terms of a diversion of funding away from Syrian NGOs, the use of Syrian NGOs as providers of information rather than equal partners, and lost time and resources in building a new UN institution instead of expanding the mandate of the existing CoI.36 Since then, the IIIM has signed memoranda of understanding with Syrian NGOs and started to consult victim groups, in accordance with its “victim/survivor-centred approach”. Here again, new forms of transnational collaboration have emerged, with Syrian NGOs and activists in exile submitting documentation to a UN institution, which itself forwards it, together with additional evidence and its analysis, to national prosecuting authorities working under UJ.
26By now, the use of UJ regarding Syria has been unprecedented in terms of the number of war crimes units and countries investigating the same situation of crimes; the number of witnesses and victims who provided their testimonies; the amount of material evidence gathered and the level of judicial coordination amongst States.37 Diaspora mobilisation has been essential in pushing these cases forward before national authorities across European host country contexts. As Wiebelhaus-Brahm (2016) observed in other contexts of diaspora mobilisation for TJ, several factors were arguably of particular importance here: the timing of forced displacement—when Syrians fled—; the transnational trajectories of Syrian refugees—where Syrians fled to—; and finally, the characteristics of diaspora members—who fled.
27First, at the time when forced migration happened in the Syrian context, the use of UJ had been established and tested in various European countries. In the aftermath of the arrest of Pinochet in 1998 in London, and a series of controversial cases against senior officials, several States revised their legislation to restrict the application of UJ, amidst concerns of the politicization of UJ laws and diplomatic and economic repercussions (Han 2017, Langer 2015). Although this limited the possibility of exercising pure forms of UJ, an increasing number of States have nonetheless been declaring their relative jurisdiction over an increasing number of crimes, with a growth in UJ trials and their geographical scope (Langer & Mackenzie 2019). Rather than a decline of UJ, there has arguably been a shift from a “global enforcer” approach—in which states pro-actively take political risks to try international crimes—to a “no safe haven” concept in which States refuse to provide refuge for alleged perpetrators (Langer 2015, Kaleck & Kroker 2018), while European war crimes units have improved their cooperation and professionalism. In the context of the arrival of large numbers of Syrian refugees, these units initiated investigations upon receiving important information on international crimes from immigration authorities (HRW 2017).
28Second, as in previous cases of exiles in the context of Latin American dictatorships, activists and lawyers who moved to European host countries were able to take advantage of “friendly legal systems” (Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2016). These offer various avenues for extra-territorial jurisdiction, including pure UJ as in the case of Germany and Sweden, the European countries hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees. Moreover, some countries allow for the participation of victims in the proceedings. As in Germany, this may include the possibility for victims or third parties to initiate investigations through the submission of criminal complaints (FIDH, ECCHR and REDRESS 2020). In this context, the dispersal of Syrian refugees and activists across multiple host countries in Europe is used as a resource to activate all possible avenues for UJ across host countries and prevent them from becoming a ‘safe haven’ for alleged perpetrators. Syrian lawyers Anwar al-Bunni and Mazen Darwish, the Caesar Files Group and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) for instance, jointly submitted seven complaints in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Norway (ECCHR 2020). Syrian Archive, SCM and Justice Initiative also submitted a criminal complaint on behalf of victims of the 2013 and 2017 sarin attacks on Eastern Ghūṭa and Khan Shaykhun to the German Federal Prosecutor in Karlsruhe in October 2020, followed by a criminal complaint submitted in France in March 2021 regarding 2013 chemical weapons attacks on Dūma and Eastern Ghūṭa.
29Third, the characteristics of the Syrian diaspora members were also decisive in the invention of legal spaces for justice. Given the targeted repression of activists, human rights defenders, and NGOs in Syria, those who fled included “highly educated individuals with histories of activism and connections to transnational networks”, with “abilities to forge relationships with activists and policymakers during exile” and to scale up demands for justice and accountability from the local to the global level (Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2016: 26). Some Syrian lawyers, such as Anwar al-Bunni, had previously been in touch with human rights actors in Europe involved in UJ proceedings in the early 2000s.38 As in other contexts, which highlighted the importance of personal alliances (Roht-Arriaza 2006), Syrian lawyers and activists such as Joumana Seif, Ibrahim al-Kasem, Mazen Darwish and Anwar al-Bunni, joined forces with European-based organizations specialized in strategic litigation as a tool to fight against impunity of international crimes. This includes e.g., the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), or the Geneva-based Trial International. Whilst Syrian lawyers provide crucial context expertise, access and trust building to witnesses and survivors, the European lawyers bring their domestic legal expertise and previous experiences in cases of extra-territorial jurisdiction.
30Together, they focus on the submission of complaints that bring forward crimes that had been sidelined in accountability efforts. This includes complaints against high-ranking members of the Syrian regime, as a response to the bias towards terrorism charges and cases against affiliates of ISIS or extremist groups. With the support of the ECCHR, the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research, and SCM, Syrian torture survivors for instance filed a criminal complaint in Germany in November 2017, identifying ten high-ranking officials of the National Security Office and Air Force Intelligence. In 2018, following this and other complaints, the German Federal Court of Justice issued an international arrest warrant against Jamil Hassan, then head of the Air Force Intelligence, and ʿAli Mamluk, head of the National Security Bureau (SJAC 2020). Here, we can observe a ‘contentious’ use of law (Agrikoliansky 2012). Syrian lawyers, activists and NGO members do not portray these UJ cases as important only for justice purposes and upholding human rights principles that anyone responsible for crimes should be held accountable. They also use these cases as part of a larger repertoire of contention, to counter premature attempts to force the return of Syrian refugees, to prioritise “peace” before justice and accountability, or to focus primarily on counterterrorism when dealing with the situation in Syria.39
31Another focus of these transnational alliances concerns crimes that often remain invisible in international criminal justice and TJ processes, beyond the Syrian context: economic crimes and sexual- and gender-based violence. In June 2020, the ECCHR, the Syrian Women’s Network and Urnammu filed a criminal complaint in Germany to bring to light how sexual- and gender-based violence constitutes a crime against humanity in itself, and to lobby authorities to integrate a gender analysis in their work.40 Survivors’ lawyers in the Koblenz trial of Anwar R. also successfully requested that the charges of rape and sexual assault be considered not as individual crimes, but as constituent of the indicted crimes against humanity, to account for the systematic nature of sexual violence in Syrian detention facilities (El-Hitami 2021). Complaints submitted across Europe by these transnational networks further targeted the responsibility of business actors for aiding and abetting international crimes committed in Syria. Criminal complaints were submitted against various European tech companies (e.g., Qosmos, Utimaco), manufacturers of building materials (LafargeHolcim) and companies from the chemical industry—though with varying degrees of success so far (see e.g. Trial International 2023).
“Invented spaces” of justice and the emergence of survivor-led movements
32In light of the blocked avenues at international and domestic level for criminal justice processes, cases under extra-territorial jurisdiction, in particular UJ, spurred new hope amongst the Syrian diaspora. Whilst the international and Syrian activists and lawyers involved all emphasize that UJ proceedings do not replace the need for a comprehensive accountability process for Syria,41 others criticised that they are raising expectations that cannot be met (see e.g., Abdallah 2020). The significance of these new spaces for justice, however, goes beyond the legal sphere. The proceedings can provide a platform for sharing survivors’ testimonies, for advocacy, for amplifying TJ claims and for debating questions such as the meanings of individual responsibility, justice, or legitimate sentences.
33In February 2019 for instance, Syrian and European lawyers and human rights activists organised a conference after submitting a complaint in Stockholm against 25 individuals responsible for torture in the Syrian security apparatus.42 The conference featured the intimate testimonies of two Syrian plaintiffs who survived torture and detention. The use of digital communication technologies —a Facebook livestream in English and Arabic—allowed it to have a transnational reach. Whilst these earlier events may have been followed mainly by Syrians already involved in TJ mobilisation, the “al-Khatib” trial in Germany, which has drawn the attention of international media and civil society and featured important testimonies of torture survivors, has possibly been followed by the larger Syrian communities in Germany and beyond—although restrictive decisions of the judges regarding translation and outreach were certainly not helpful (see e.g., Kaleck and Kroker 2023). Since the opening of the trial, and despite restrictions in access and travel related to the Covid-19 pandemic, members of victims’ associations organised sit-ins in front of the Courtroom with pictures of disappeared or detained relatives. They also used the February 2021 verdict in the case of Eyad A. to remind policymakers and the public that torture, imprisonment and enforced disappearance continue until today, to press for the release of detainees and those forcibly disappeared, and relentlessly to put forward their demands to know the fate of their loved ones.43
34These spaces can be analysed as “invented spaces” (Jeffrey 2011), i.e. spaces beyond the courtroom that allow for more open and deliberative practices and discussions of TJ, and for addressing the different claims of survivors that go beyond criminal justice in European host countries. Most importantly, these spaces are shaped by the transnational survivor-led organizations that emerged over the past few years. In 2017, Haid (2017: 10) observed that “unlike other TJ efforts, working with victim groups is by far the least developed field” in the Syrian context, amongst others because allowing such initiatives to emerge organically requires time. Since then, early survivor-led movements have been further consolidated and institutionalized, whilst new groups have emerged.
35Families for Freedom was established in mid-May 2017. It is led by a steering committee of eleven women and includes 250 families located in Germany, Lebanon, UK, Turkey, Netherlands, and Syria who lost relatives to enforced disappearance and/or detention in Syria.44 The Caesar Families Association also brings together relatives of forcibly disappeared and/or detained people, however, members of this association have painfully learned of the death of their loved ones through the Caesar Photos. After founding meetings in 2018 in Berlin, the Caesar Families Association officially registered in Germany in 2019 and includes 80 members in Europe, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Australia, Canada, and the USA. More recently, the Coalition of Families of Persons Kidnapped by ISIS, also called “Massar”, brings together relatives of persons abducted by ISIS. Massar was formally established in Paris in May 2019 and comprises 15 families, with members in Syria, Germany, France, and Turkey. Besides these associations of relatives of victims of enforced disappearance and/or detention, former detainees also set up their own associations. The Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison, established in 2017 and registered in Turkey, had 138 members by March 2021—former detainees of Sednaya prison and relatives of detainees— who are mostly based in Turkey and Northern Syria, but also Europe, and further away (e.g., Malaysia). Ta’afi is a survivor-centred initiative launched in 2017 and hosted by the NGO Kesh Malek. It consists of a network of 150 survivors of detention, torture and enforced disappearance, living mainly in Turkey, north-eastern Syria, and Europe.
36These associations use UJ proceedings as part of a larger repertoire of contention, their efforts being dedicated to highlighting the urgency of addressing detention and enforced disappearance in Syria and related claims for truth and justice. This includes sit-ins and protests, meetings with policymakers and public interventions before various UN bodies, the organization of side events in key policy locations such as Geneva or more recently Brussels, media interviews, online campaigns, petitions, and publications. Some performances of contention, such as displaying photos of disappeared or detained relatives, symbolically evoke movements of families of the disappeared from other contexts, whilst others draw more specifically from the Syrian context, such as the bus symbol used for the transnational tour of the “Freedom Bus” across European capitals (see e.g., Enab Baladi 2017). Such efforts also provide a way to “translate anger” and pain in a positive way.45 For those taking a leading role in establishing these associations, navigating being deeply and personally affected whilst accompanying others to join the process can be emotionally draining. At the same time, the establishment of these associations provides survivors with access to solidarity and support networks.
37Sharing a deep connection, based on personal experiences of detention, torture, and enforced disappearance, and acknowledging the synergies in their respective mobilisation, these five associations came together to coordinate and consolidate their TJ claims, with the support of Syrian and international NGOs. After a drafting process of about 1.5 years, they launched their “Truth and Justice Charter” in February 2021, which outlines their “common vision on the question of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention in Syria”.46 The Charter lists comprehensive claims in the order of priority and urgency, differentiating between demands for “short-term” and “long-term” justice from the immediate release of detainees and revealing the fate of the forcibly disappeared, to criminal accountability and the reform of Syria’s security and judicial institutions. By December 2022, five additional associations joined the Charter.
Uneven geographies of access
38The invention of these spaces of justice has, however, come with challenges in terms of unequal access across geographies of exile and forced displacement. The “invented spaces” are clearly more accessible for Syrians in European host countries than for those in countries neighbouring Syria. First, given the humanitarian crisis which affects many Syrian refugees in e.g. Lebanon or Turkey, many of them do not have the material means to participate in volunteer-based advocacy, as they face daily struggles to meet their basic needs. This has been an issue of debate amongst some associations, where the question of whether members should receive financial support for partaking in advocacy actions was raised. Second, experiences of fear can prevent Syrian refugees from participating publicly in these “invented spaces” for justice, in the context of political repression or authoritarianism in countries neighbouring Syria. Pearlman (2016) has also shown that, although relocated to relative safety, many refugees in Jordan and Turkey continued to experience acute fear as the conflict in Syria persisted and they had to cope with displacement from the “reality once called home”, as well as trauma, injury, separation from, or death of loved ones and destroyed livelihoods and properties.
39In this context, the UJ cases taking place in European host countries may further exacerbate such differences. Although Syrian refugees living in Lebanon have the right to testify as witnesses or even to join as plaintiffs in the legal proceedings in Germany, several barriers prevent them from doing so. This includes the lack of access to a visa or to guarantees of security and protection. In Lebanon for instance, some Syrian refugees who were aware of the UJ cases brought forward in European courts and wanted to join them were unable to do so. As a Syrian NGO actor in Lebanon observed, this situation feels particularly “unfair”, because it is those “who already have a chance” who then, additionally, get access to participating in UJ proceedings in Europe.47 Syrian refugees in Lebanon are often those who did not have the necessary financial means or the transnational networks to secure refuge in Europe. In addition to facing an extremely dire humanitarian situation, which has become even more acute in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, with difficult access to legal immigration status and safety and the means to cover basic needs, they become de facto excluded from these new avenues for criminal accountability.
40Unequal access to participation in the UJ cases, however, also takes place regardless of host country context. Lawyers and NGO actors working with Syrian refugees or asylum seekers in Germany, for instance, observed that many are afraid because they still have relatives in Syria and do not want to put them at risk by publicly taking position, or are afraid of negative repercussions if they were to be sent back to Syria if it becomes classified as a ‘safe country’ for return. This was also an issue for witnesses appearing in the ‘al-Khatib’ trial (see e.g. Karkoutly 2023). Some members of survivor-led associations are also not participating in public actions in European countries or online for these reasons. The spaces for justice in European host countries thus also remain shaped by the ongoing violence and repression in Syria and the Syrian regime’s transnational repression practices (Moss 2016). In this context, the ‘intersecting positionalities’ of members (Koinova 2012) of the survivor-led associations informed early mobilisation strategies and the types of claim-making. The Caesar Families Association, formed by members who painfully learned of the death of their loved ones through the Caesar Photos, were for instance in a position explicitly to voice demands for criminal justice early on. Families for Freedom, whose members most often did not know about the fate of their loved ones, focused their demands on the right to know, at least initially, in order not to put them at risk through more “radical” demands for criminal accountability.48 Since then, these associations came together to draft the joint Truth and Justice Charter, which entails demands related both to the right to know (revealing the fate of the detainees/forcibly disappeared and returning the remains of those killed in that context), and criminal accountability, although the priority is given to the former, and to the immediate release of detainees.
41These uneven geographies of access can then create some frictions amongst survivor-led groups, as some are placed in the spotlight whilst others have to remain on the margins during public actions.49 However, the survivor-led groups have been working on ways to meaningfully include those who cannot come forward publicly.50 Moreover, those members who are speaking publicly remain acutely aware of their responsibility to speak on behalf of others.51 The interweaving of sharing personal stories with the effort to represent those in Syria or elsewhere who cannot speak constitutes a noticeable feature of public interventions by members of survivor-led groups. Nonetheless, this shows that some of the key preconditions for participation in TJ as listed by the former UN Special Rapporteur on TJ, most prominently safety, remain unfulfilled (de Greiff 2016). Some of these challenges may be addressed through the efforts of host countries, such as the provision of a visa or legal immigration status and comprehensive witness protection measures. The UJ cases and the mobilisation of victims’ and family members’ organizations may also encourage Syrian refugees to join, through a ‘multiplier effect’ that has taken place in other contexts of victim participation in TJ (Williams et al. 2018). However, the access and degree of participation of Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers in TJ efforts in host countries will continue to be shaped by the situation in Syria. Having been separated from their relatives in Syria for many years, if not more than a decade by now, their willingness to participate in such processes may decrease as some decide not to compromise any future possibility of visiting their loved ones.52
Conclusion
42The mobilisation for TJ of the Syrian diaspora has taken place in an extremely difficult context, in which Syrian NGO actors and activists in exile had to navigate the foreign policies and immigration policies of host countries, as well as the unfolding geopolitical, regional, and domestic developments affecting the situation in Syria. The transnational mobilisation of diaspora in various host countries has allowed the invention of spaces for justice around the use of extra-territorial jurisdiction, the significance of which goes beyond the legal sphere. These spaces are increasingly shaped by survivor-led associations. Syrian diaspora NGOs and activists also use them for advocacy purposes directed towards the immigration and foreign policies of host countries, in the context of contested discussions on the return of refugees and the reconstruction of Syria.
43Today, these efforts have led to a very dynamic context, with the first UJ cases demonstrating the systematic use of torture by the Syrian regime having moved to trial in European host countries. In light of previous research showing that contexts of prolonged crisis can lead to low levels of mobilisation over time (Mavroudi 2018), this situation may help to sustain or even encourage high levels of mobilisation for justice and accountability amongst Syrians in exile. However, this will require addressing the uneven geographies of access to these legal and invented spaces of justice, and how they shape questions of voice, agency, and inclusion. It will remain to be seen what meaning the UJ cases can have for the survivors involved, but also for the wider Syrian refugee community, in a context in which years of repression, violence and war have led to a fragmentation of Syrian society both in Syria and abroad (Longuenesse & Ruiz de Elvira 2016), and to concerns of a disconnect between those inside and those outside of Syria.
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Notes de bas de page
1Interview, Hassan ʿAbbas (Syrian League for Citizenship), 7.12.2018, Beirut.
2Ibid. See also Stokke & Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2020.
3See Statista Research Department (5 May 2023) “Ausländer aus Syrien in Deutschland bis 2022”; available at: <https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/463384/umfrage/auslaender-aus-syrien-in-deutschland/>.
4For such a comprehensive overview, see Van Schaack 2020 or SJAC 2023.
5Interview with a Syrian activist working on TJ, 22.04.2019, Lebanon.
6Conversation with a member of a Syrian NGO working on TJ, 20.11.2018, Beirut. See also Haid 2017.
7Ibrahim Olabi (Guernica 37), conference Getting to Accountability: The Role of Diasporas in TJ in MENA, organised by the Arab Reform Initiative on 24.02.2021, <www.arab-reform.net/event/getting-to-accountability-the-role-of-diasporas-in-transitional-justice-in-mena/>.
8Participant observation of a TJ workshop in Lebanon, December 2019.
9Interview with a member of a Syrian advocacy NGO, 23.04.2019, Beirut.
10Conversation with a member of a Syrian NGO working on TJ, 20.11.2018, Beirut.
11Interviews, Hassan ʿAbbas, 7.12.2018, and Ola al-Joundi (Women Now), 13.04.2019, Lebanon. See also Stokke & Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2019.
12Interview, 22.02.2019, Berlin.
13UN Human Rights Council resolution 21/26, 28.09.2012.
14See Report of the Independent CoI on the Syrian Arab Republic, 21.01.2021, UN Doc. A/HRC/46/54.
15<www.opcw.org/fact-finding-mission>. See also Van Schaack 2020, pp. 90–101, on efforts to address the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
16See UNSC Resolution 2235.
17See e.g. “Seventh Report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons – UN Joint Investigative Mechanism”, UN Doc. S/2017/904, 26.10.2017, <www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_2017_904.pdf>.
18Rola al-Rokbi (Women Now), Presentation of the report Shadows of the Syrian Disappeared, Issam Fares Institute, Beirut, 13.11.2018. Notes on file with author.
20This was, for example, the argument of Mai El-Sadany (Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy) at the 05.02.2020 Accountability in Syria panel, Arab Center Washington DC: <http://arabcenterdc.org/events/accountability-in-syria-achieving-transitional-justice-in-a-postconflict-society/>.
21Interview, Ola al-Joundi, 13.04.2019, Lebanon.
22Interview, Syrian lawyer, 23.04.2019, Beirut. Interview, Syrian lawyer Ibrahim al-Kasem (ECCHR and Caesar Files Group), 18.02.2019, Berlin.
23Participant observation of transitional justice workshop with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, December 2018 and November 2019. Interview, Fadwa Mahmood (founding member of Families for Freedom), 23.02.2019, Berlin.
24Interview, Ibrahim al-Kasem, 18.02.2019, Berlin.
25See e.g. Mai El-Sadany, <http://arabcenterdc.org/events/accountability-in-syria-achieving-transitional-justice-in-a-postconflict-society/>.
26Interviews with Syrian lawyers Anwar al-Bunni (Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Researches), 15.02.2019, and Ibrahim al-Kasem, 18.02.2019, Berlin.
27Interview, Anwar al-Bunni, 15.02.2019, Berlin.
28See e.g. the so-called ‘Chautauqua Blueprint’, the draft statute for a ‘Syrian Extraordinary Tribunal’ prepared by a panel of jurists and scholars in 2013.
29CoI, A/HRC/22/59, 5.02.2013. See also Hearing of the US House of Representatives on the “Immediate Establishment of Syrian War Crimes Tribunal Resolution”, 30.10.2013, <www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113hhrg85316/pdf/CHRG-113hhrg85316.pdf>.
30Impunity Watch, PAX, SCM (2019) “ISIS-only tribunal: selective, policitised justice will do more harm than good”, Policy Brief.
31Dicker 2013, p. 66.
32Syria Campaign, 23 July 2020, Briefing to the UN Security Council by Wafa Mustafa: <https://diary.thesyriacampaign.org/briefing-un-security-council-wafa-mustafa/>.
33Without such a UNSC referral, the ICC could still have jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of Syria by nationals of ICC States Parties.
34More than 50,000 photos documenting the killings under torture in secret detention facilities of the Syrian regime were smuggled out of Syria by the former photographer of the Syrian military police, identified by the code name of “Caesar”, after his defection in August 2013.
35For an overview of this case, see FIDH, 04.04.2023, “Q&A on the Dabbagh Case”, <https://www.fidh.org/en/issues/international-justice/universal-jurisdiction/q-a-on-the-dabbagh-case-french-judges-order-the-trial-of-three-senior>.
36Interview, Ola al-Joundi, 13.04.2019, Beirut. See also Stokke & Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2019.
37.Bectarte 2020.
38Interview, Anwar al-Bunni, 15.02.2019, Berlin.
39This could be, for instance, observed during the 08.03.2017 conference How to do Justice? Accountability for Mass Atrocities in Syria organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin.
40ECCHR, Syrian Women’s Network and Urnammu, 18 June 2020 Press Release: <www.ecchr.eu/en/press-release/germany-must-investigate-sexual-and-gender-based-violence-in-syria-for-what-it-is-a-crime-against-humanity/>.
41Bectarte 2020.
42The press conference was organised by the German civil society organisation ECCHR and the Swedish organisation CRD in Stockholm on 20.02.2019. Notes on file with author.
43See e.g. Wafa ʿAli Mustafa in DW News, 24.02.2021, “Reminding the world of Syria’s disappeared”, <www.dw.com/en/reminding-the-world-of-syrias-disappeared/av-56669677>.
44SJAC, 11.06.2020, “The women left behind”, <https://syriaaccountability.org/updates/2020/06/11/the-women-left-behind/>. The information regarding the other associations is based on communications with representatives in February / March 2021.
45Interview, Ahmad Helmi (Taʿafi), 06.12.2019, Berlin.
46The Charter can be found at: <https://www.impunitywatch.org/grassroots-voices/truth-and-justice-charter-syria/>.
47Interview, Ola al-Joundi, 13.04.2019, Lebanon.
48Interview with a member of a Syrian advocacy NGO, 23.04.2019, Beirut.
49Interview, Syrian activist working on TJ, 22.04.2019, Lebanon.
50Interview, member of a survivor-led association, 15.09.2019, Berlin.
51Interview, member of a survivor-led association, 23.02.2019, Berlin.
52Conversations with Syrian NGO member, 21.02.2019, Berlin, and with a lawyer specialised in asylum law working with Syrian refugees in Germany, 05.06.2019.
Auteur
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Julie Bernath
swisspeace and University of Basel
julie.bernath@swisspeace.ch
Dr. Julie Bernath is a political scientist and senior researcher at Swisspeace and the University of Basel. Her research focuses on transitional justice; diaspora mobilisation and victim participation; and the politics of international interventions in “(post)-conflict” contexts —in particular in the Cambodian and Syrian contexts. She is the author of the book The Khmer Rouge Tribunal: Power, Politics and Resistance in Transitional Justice (2023, The University of Wisconsin Press). Julie has been co-chair of the Steering Committee of the Standing Group on Human Rights and Transitional Justice of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) since 2015. From June 2018 until January 2021, she was a visiting post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Conflict Studies of the Philipps University of Marburg and the Issam Fares Institute of the American University of Beirut. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Basel.
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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