UN Creates Special Team To Prepare Cases On Syria War Crimes
MEP: The United Nations General Assembly has voted on Wednesday to launch a special team for Syria’s war crimes in order to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence.
The team will work on preparing cases of war crimes and human rights abuses committed during the conflict in the war-torn country.
The General Assembly adopted a Liechtenstein-drafted resolution to establish the independent team with 105 in favour, 15 against and 52 abstentions.
The team will work in coordination with the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry.
Liechtenstein UN Ambassador Christian Wenaweser told the General Assembly ahead of the vote: “We have postponed any meaningful action on accountability too often and for too long.”
He said inaction has sent “the signal that committing war crimes and crimes against humanity is a strategy that is condoned and has no consequences.”
The special team will “prepare files in order to facilitate and expedite fair and independent criminal proceedings in accordance with international law standards, in national, regional or international courts or tribunals that have or may in the future have jurisdiction over these crimes.”
The UN resolution calls on all states, parties to the conflict, and civil society groups to provide any information and documentation to the team.
“The establishment of such a mechanism is a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of a UN member state,” Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari told the General Assembly before the vote.
UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian crisis since March 2011. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
