Long Read: How the Syrian War Changed How War Crimes Are — Syria Deeply
▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/syria/articles/2017/06/01/long-read-how-the-syrian-war-changed-how-war-crimes-are-documented
The Syrian war is probably the most documented conflict ever, but with no end in sight, the civilians and activists who have collected millions of photos, as well as thousands of videos and casualty lists, are quickly losing faith in international accountability mechanisms.
Over the past six years, armed largely with determination and basic research and documentation skills, many local NGOs have been gathering evidence of alleged war crimes and conducting their own investigations violations of humanitarian law, in the hopes that perpetrators will be accountable for their crimes – justice that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has so far failed to guarantee in Syria.
The United Nations set up the Independent International Commission of Inquiry of the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI) just a few months into Syria’s anti-government uprising, in August 2011, to gather evidence of human rights violations for future use in a criminal court. But the CoI’s work was hamstrung by its inability to send any investigators into Syria, instead heavily relying on the work of Syrian grassroots organizations monitoring and documenting violations. As the amount of data quickly piled up, local NGOs had to step up to the task of gathering, cross checking and compiling this evidence.
Nearly seven years later, there are now over 400 individuals and local groups supplying various Syrian documentation centres with information. They, in turn, collaborate with international NGOs documenting human rights abuses, according to Mohammad Al Abdallah, the director of the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC), a D.C.-based nonprofit that “promotes justice and accountability in Syria.”