On 6 July, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Syrian Arab Republic presented its oral update to the 47th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC). The COI has been mandated since 2011 by the UN to investigate serious violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) in Syria, and has produced over 20 mandated reports so far. While the most recent report A/HRC/46/55 focuses on arbitrary imprisonment and detention, the report from January 2021, A/HRC/46/54, analyses the key recurrent human rights concerns during the almost 10-year-long conflict in Syria.
The conflict in Syria, which passed the legal threshold for a non-international armed conflict in February 2012, has led to more than half of the pre-war population to be displaced, with 6.2 million internally displaced people and 5.3 million registered refugees. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, the Chair of the COI for Syria, summarised the current situation:
“Ten years the people of Syria have been devastated by war.”
Pinheiro described how the impact of COVID-19 and the economic crisis had “inflicted new dimensions of suffering on Syrians”. Stating
“Today, the war continues (…) and rampant human rights violations and abuses are carried out with impunity by armed actors who prey on civilians in their areas of influence. Five international armies, their proxies and other non-state actors continue to fight in Syria to this day, including the air force of the Russian Federation, the United States and Israel.”
Although the Syrian government and associated militias have regained significant territory with the help of Iranian and Russian forces, parts of the country remain under the control of different anti-government groups, backed by the US or Turkey. Additionally, Israel carries out airstrikes against Iranian or Lebanese Hezbollah-linked targets. Hence, despite the ceasefire from March 2020 still largely in place, there are currently five foreign militaries active in Syria.
In the interactive dialogue, Syria pointed out the “enormous human suffering” caused by the actions of other states “that seek through misinformation and lies to justify interventionist policies and acts of military and economic aggression against Syria”. It also blamed these actions for “Syrian’s migration and displacement inside and outside Syria.”
Moreover, the Syrian delegation opined on human rights violations committed by the US and Turkey, classifying the US actions as “acts of aggression” and Turkey’s actions as “support for terrorist organisations” that hinder Syria’s continued effort “to assure the liberation of those who have been kidnapped or taken as hostages by terrorist groups”. Syria also called out the HRC for being motivated by political considerations:
“The council (…) continue[s] to make accusations against Syrian authorities and ignore[s] the crimes and practices of the Turkish and American occupation forces and their mercenaries that violate human rights.”
The 2021 report condemned the Syrian government and pro-government forces for conducting hostilities in violation of IHL and IHRL, by indiscriminately bombing civilian populated areas, using cluster munitions in civilian areas and prohibited chemical weapons, deliberately targeting protected objects, such as hospitals and schools, pillaging, and not taking any precautions to spare civilians from harm. Furthermore, the COI observed various armed groups and the US-led coalition conducting indiscriminate attacks, and failing to take all feasible precautions to avoid and minimize the loss of civilian lives.
In addition to these war crimes, sieges, the denial of access to humanitarian aid and economic sanctions resulted in Syrians across the country suffering from violations of their rights to health, food, adequate standard of living, housing and education. According to the World Bank, 60% of Syrian were living in extreme poverty in 2017.
The Syrian representative accused Erdogan’s water war of depriving “a million of Syrians (…) of drinking water [and threatening] the lives and the food security of millions of Syrians and [preventing] them from having access to water and electricity.” The Syrian delegation also attacked some states for ignoring “the profound impacts of unilateral, coercive measures that directly violate the basic human rights of the Syrian people, and hinder the work of humanitarian agencies”, calling out the lack of water security and attacks on aid.
Mr. Pinheiro criticised the “deprivation of housing, land and property rights’ where government security forces had destroyed houses or auctioned the property of displaced civilians “for monetary gain (…) without the involvement of their owners”. He further noted that,
“women and girls in particular, in cases of protracted displacement continue to face additional challenges assessing land and inheritance rights, as well as obtaining documents such as death, and marriage certificates”.
Sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls had increased disproportionally. Boys as young as 12 had been detained and subjected to torture by government forces, and girls as young as 9 were subjected to sexual slavery by ISIL. Many children have not had their birth registered, leaving them at risk of becoming stateless, and 2.8 million children are currently out of school.
The report finished by addressing the issue of accountability for all the grave crimes committed by the conflict parties since March 2011. The COI has compiled initial information on more than 3,200 alleged individual perpetrators with sufficient credible information on 121 individuals. However, there is a lack of domestic accountability, and a Chinese and Russian veto prevented the Security Council from referring the situation to the International Criminal Court in 2014. Subsequently, the international community turned to third-party states’ national jurisdiction to achieve justice for the victims. The investigations by the judicial authorities of a third-party state on war crimes committed in Syria led to the first conviction in 2016.
The COI further called for a mechanism to coordinate information concerning the 100,000 missing and disappeared persons; the release of all persons arbitrarily detained by any entity; the immediate and unfettered access of independent international monitors to all places of detention; a comprehensive countrywide moratorium on executions; the introduction of identity determination procedures; and the removal of obstacles to sustainable returns, including the ability of displaced Syrians to reclaim their property.
The second report, complementing this overview over the Syrian conflict, raises concern over crimes against humanity committed in the context of detention. The use of arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, enforced disappearances and summary executions characterize the situation of detained people in Syria. The consistency of these violations has led the COI to the conclusion that they were committed with the knowledge of the relevant chains of command within the government forces. Not only government and pro-government forces, but also non-governmental forces, such as the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian National Army, or the Syrian Democratic Forces, terrorist organisations, such as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or ISIL, have unlawfully deprived individuals of their liberty and subjected them to torture in order to intimidate and punish people, or for a monetary gain.
With very few exceptions, conflict parties have failed to investigate the conduct of their own forces. The COI criticised states with influence over conflict parties for not doing enough to change abusive behaviour on the ground, and for even being complicit in those abuses. The Croatian delegation responded to the report with a call to “alleviate the suffering” of family members and called on all parties “to disclose information and help repeal the fate and the efforts of forcibly disappeared persons and to enable them to communicate with their families.”
The commission responded by implored states to support “an effective mechanism” to document the missing and called on “the Syrian state and other actors detaining people to provide the names were about an access to those they are holding and immediately release all persons detained arbitrarily, so they may reunite with their kin without further delay.”
Additionally, Commission chairman Pinheiro reported on the “inhumane conditions” of Al Hol and other camps in Northeast Syria whose inhabitants are 90% women and children, with an estimated 40,000 children, as “an outrage.” He listed the murder rate in Al Hol just in 2021 as “possibly as many as 60 murders” and noted that, “While some member states have repatriated their child citizens with their mothers, others continue to evade their obligations.” Pinheiro echoed the call of IOHR and many civil society organisations stating that.
“All of these children are victims, first and foremost, and these must be the starting point in addressing this crisis.”
He reiterated that although some of the women may have been ISIL sympathisers and should be investigated, others were “also victims of abuse [who] have been coerced or groomed into joining the group ISIL. States’ refusal to repatriate further victimises them while adding to the trauma of their experience.”
The Syrian delegation reaffirmed its commitment to humanitarian aid and cooperating with the UN and the ICRC, and also demanded Western governments,
“to repatriate their nationals who are ISIS terrorists and their families to their countries in accordance with the rules of international law.”
Like many other European delegations, the representative from Malta aligned himself with the statement of the European Union and condemned the “massive human rights violations and abuses in the Syrian Arab Republic [that] continue with perpetrators not being held to account”. To ensure accountability for grave crimes committed, Malta reiterated its support for the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism. “In the wake of the deteriorating humanitarian situation”, Malta called upon the UN Security Council members to renew “Resolution 2533 on cross border assistance and thus guarantee unimpeded access to life saving assistance for the Syrian people.” Malta’s final statement was a call for peace:
“We join the Commission and other partners in calling for an immediate and prominent nationwide ceasefire, endorsed by the Security Council, which would provide the space for Syrian-led negotiations, and the conditions for a meaningful peace.”