Publications

By Maryna Tkachenko “Today, the Yazidis have largely been abandoned” — Nadia Murad, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Yazidi survivor August 3, 2014 changed the Yazidi community of Sinjar forever. The terrorist group Daesh killed and enslaved thousands of Yazidis, members of a small religious minority in northern Iraq that have been historically persecuted for being “devil worshippers.” In addition to carrying out coordinated attacks of violence against the group as a whole, Daesh explicitly targeted women and girls by inflicting widespread sexual violence in the form of rape, torture, and forced marriage. These gendered acts of the Yazidi genocide served as tools for recruitment, conversion, and forced indoctrination. Five years later, despite a growing body of evidence, no Daesh fighter has been prosecuted for genocide of the Yazidi. In 2016, the United Nations recognized the attacks as a genocidal campaign, but Yazidis are still waiting for justice, hoping to return one day to their homes on the Sinjar Mountain. “There is no Sinjar without Yazidis; and there are no Yazidis without Sinjar,” says Shreen, a survivor of Daesh sex slavery. “Part of the genocide is the displacement and division of families. The more we are closer, the more we feel we are alive.” Sinjar is an essential part of the Yazidi identity, and until the group can return, no justice is possible. While investigation and documentation of the complete scope of the atrocities of Daesh continue, it is estimated that 10,000 Yazidis were killed. More than 3,000 remain missing, their status unknown. Beyond the directly targeted, nearly 200,000 Yazidis are still stranded in Kurdistan—unable to leave due to conflicts among local armed groups. While some survivors were able to flee to Europe or the US, many are living in displacement camps in Iraq or refugee camps in Syria, facing an uncertain future. Although Kurdish forces have liberated the area from Daesh, there is no sign of reconstruction. The region remains in ruins. The Yazidi cannot return if there are no schools, hospitals, electricity, or clean water. Ultimately, those who choose to return to Sinjar have no source of income or assistance. Since the Yazidi Supreme Spiritual Council decided that children born of rape are not to be accepted in the community, many Yazidi women who gave birth in Daesh captivity are afraid to go back due to social stigma. Further, Yazidi rape survivors and those who witnessed Daesh’s heinous crimes suffer from persistent trauma. Without urgent psychosocial support and holistic care, the prospects of sustainable peace and reintegration of the group are slim. In fact, suicide is becoming more common among those Yazidi survivors who lack access to comprehensive healthcare. The Iraqi government is failing to deliver basic services that would ensure the Yazidi’s safe return. Most critically, without international protection and more robust demands for justice, the group is incapable of rebuilding its shattered community. Addressing the US State Department’s recent conference on religious freedom, Murad stressed the importance of acting before it’s too late: In 2014, the international community rallied behind the Yazidi cause. Today, the Yazidis have largely been abandoned. While there is some support and empathy, there are no real efforts focused on the most important objective that would end the genocide and allow the Yazidis to heal — enabling my community to return to our ancestral homeland of Shingal and rebuild our lives in a safe, healthy environment. The Yazidi community wants to return home. They want to start over — to rebuild their homes and farms and to create new lives with their families. They want justice for the trauma they have suffered. However, they cannot achieve this without the support and partnership of the international community. Instead of taking photos with survivors, states and international institutions should employ a combination of efforts to hold perpetrators of the Yazidi genocide accountable. There are multiple potential venues for legal action—from Security Council referral of the situation to the International Criminal Court to establishing a hybrid court. Equally as important, any prosecution must center on the sexual and gender-based violence committed by Daesh, thereby upholding the international human rights guaranteed to women and girls. The global focus must shift to Daesh accountability and the time for action is now. As we mark the fifth anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, offering survivors pity and understanding is not enough. How many more times do Yazidis need to repeat horrific stories of Daesh brutality for the world to finally take tangible steps toward full accountability and justice? How many more years do Yazidi families need to look for refuge everywhere but their home in Sinjar? Whatever approach is taken, turning a blind eye to persistent impunity for mass atrocity crimes is not an option. PHOTO: U.S. Department of State

By: Sofia Garcia In 2008, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. It states that sexual violence in war and armed conflict constitutes a war crime as well as a threat to international peace and security. Ten years later, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize to Nadia Murad and Dr. Denis Mukwege for their continued efforts to end sexual violence in conflict and focus international attention on these war crimes. Recent international crises such as the Yazidi genocide by Daesh and the Rohingya genocide in Burma have again reminded us of the ongoing fight against sexual violence in conflict and rape as a weapon of war. Ms. Murad and Dr. Mukwege are leaders of the international efforts to bring justice to victims of these heinous crimes and build a world in which women and girls are protected from the sexual and gender-based violence in conflict. Their courageous work has fostered discourse around wartime rape and sexual violence, bringing victims one step closer to justice and perpetrators one step closer to accountability. Nadia Murad became an advocate for the Yazidis after she escaped enslavement by Daesh fighters in 2014. She is a part of the Yazidi ethno-religious minority targeted by Daesh during the genocide. That year, she was one of more than 6,700 Yazidi women taken prisoner by Daesh in Iraq. She is the founder of Nadia’s Initiative, an organization dedicated to “helping women and children victimized by genocide, mass atrocities, and human trafficking to heal and rebuild their lives and communities.” Ms. Murad’s tireless advocacy to ensure that sexual violence is eradicated from conflict situations and that rape can no longer be used as a weapon of war is a promise to all survivors that they are no longer invisible in the eyes of the international community. For far too long, rape and sexual violence were not regarded as weapons of war. Today, activists like Ms. Murad are working to ensure that victims of sexual and gender based violence receive proper forms of justice and reparations.    Dr. Denis Mukwege is a Congolese gynecologist who has operated on thousands of women and girls who are victims of wartime rape and sexual abuse. Most of these abuses occurred in the context of the long-lasting civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has resulted in millions of casualties and widespread sexual violence. A report by the American Journal of Public Health estimates that every year, around 400,000 women are raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Mukwege has spent most of his career helping victims in conflict zones by providing reconstructive surgeries to women with genital damaging. He has been a vocal critic of the way the international community has responded to instances of sexual violence– in 2012, he gave a speech at the United Nations where he condemned the mass rape occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His fight against wartime rape and sexual violence is a reminder that all national and international authorities as well as men and women alike have a shared responsibility to tackle this problem and ensure that victims have a proper recourse to justice. The fearless activism we see from Ms. Murad and Dr. Mukwege is more necessary than ever. Armed conflict and mass atrocity crimes intend to bring about destruction, unrest, and fear. Victims of sexual violence in these contexts must be protected and given reparations for the crimes committed. Importantly, as the international community continues to engage in discourse around this topic, the issue of accountability must remain central. When crimes are being perpetrated with impunity, it emboldens future perpetrators and normalizes these violations. Until perpetrators of these crimes are brought to justice and held accountable for their heinous transgressions, their victims will not see proper justice. Photo: Claude Truong-Ngoc/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 3.0 (Mukwege) U.S. Department of State/ Flickr/ Public Domain (Murad) Mashup by Jakob Reimann, JusticeNow!.            

By Maftuna Saidova The Yazidi community are an ethnic minority formerly located in northern Iraq. They are one of the groups who suffered under the brutal and inhumane control of ISIS. When ISIS captured Sinjar, they abducted thousands of Yazidi women and sold them into slavery within the lucrative sex trade created among ISIS fighters. Human rights activists and lawyers have demanded ISIS be held accountable for employing Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) as a weapon of war. According to OHCHR, SGVB can include “any harmful act directed against individuals or groups of individuals on the basis of their gender,” including rape, sexual abuse, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, forced abortion, forced prostitution, and sexual enslavement.  Although many Yazidi survivors are now free and Iraq has regained territorial control, adequate mental health treatment should be the priority of the Iraqi government as the treatment of the survivors is crucial for Iraq’s gradual rebuilding process. Sexual violence in the form of rape encapsulates more than just exploitation. For the Yazidis and other women who experienced rape in conflict, it means loss of power and dehumanization. Many survivors currently suffer from mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder as well as emotional trauma and social alienation. These women often feel shame for the gender based crimes forced on them. For this reason,  90% of the rescued Yazidi women are “in severe shock and psychological upset.”  Dealing with the mental trauma inflicted by Daesh is key for rebuilding their lives in Iraq.  Yet without individualized mental health treatment, many Yazidi women will find it difficult to move forward. Iraq continually fails to provide protection or resources for the survivors. Recently, Iraqi government was asked by the UN, under Resolution 2379, to lead a joint investigation on the war atrocities committed by ISIS. The ongoing investigations have prioritized institutional reforms  protecting victims of gendered violence from marginalization in their societies. Critics have argued that the mandate of the Resolution brings limited justice to the victims. Currently non-governmental organizations like Yazda and Nadia’s Initiative are focused on ensuring that the population in Sinjar is provided with the supplies and resources necessary to begin rebuilding while the investigation is taking place. But it is not enough. Although institutional reforms are an important step in rebuilding Iraq, they are insufficient for the women who need adequate treatment in dealing with the psychological and emotional consequences of living in sexual slavery.  Although institutional reforms are an important step in rebuilding Iraq, they are insufficient for the women who need adequate treatment in dealing with the psychological and emotional consequences of living in sexual slavery. 

By Marie Wilken After the Holocaust, the world said “never again.” The United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948, and 142 countries have ratified it since. But we have not fulfilled that promise to prevent and punish. Through genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Darfur and more, millions have died because the international community failed to act sooner. History views this inaction with regret and shame. We hope that we would’ve done better, cared more, acted faster. But we are not. Right now, ISIS is committing genocide against the Yazidi, a religious and ethnic minority in Syria and Iraq. This genocide began with ISIS’s 2014 attack on Sinjar. They killed men and boys and kidnapped, trafficked and raped women and girls. Over 3,000 women and girls remain in captivity. ISIS’s enslavement and rape of these women is prosecutable as genocide under international humanitarian law. In fact, there is evidence that ISIS has committed all five genocidal crimes. The UN recognized it as genocide and urged stronger international action. Last year, the Obama administration also acknowledged that ISIS was committing genocide. Yet little has been done about it. Today is the World Day for International Justice, which celebrates the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the international criminal justice system. However, this system has been underutilized. To prove that the international criminal justice system can be a force for justice, not merely a hollow ideal, the ICC needs to investigate atrocities like the Yazidi genocide. While showing good intentions is easy, it’s difficult to take action. Political interests often interfere, and the method of prosecution raises numerous questions and challenges. Counter-terrorism concerns are often conflated with or prioritized over action on ISIS’s genocide—but it is important to combat ISIS’s genocide as well as, or along with, terrorism. We do not have to choose between pursuing justice for the Yazidi and security for the rest of the world. Experts discussed this in GJC’s Brain Trust, Reconciling International Laws on Genocide and Counter-Terrorism, last month. Participants agreed that the counterterrorism framework fits today’s model of international cooperation better than the framework of the Genocide Conventions, and it is easier for prosecutors to use a terrorism lens. However, this can ignore the gendered impact of the genocide. In addition to providing justice for the Yazidi community, genocide prosecution would help delegitimize ISIS and combat its terrorism. The World Day for International Justice should be a reminder that we need to not only recognize ISIS’s treatment of the Yazidi as genocide but also treat it as such. Inaction not only hurts the Yazidi today, but it could also worsen situations in the future. Brain Trust participants discussed how impunity could encourage future discrimination against communities like the Yazidi. It widens the gap between law and action on genocide, and sending a message that the international community can or will not act on genocide could spur similar tragedies in the future. We are all bystanders to this genocide, and we determine whether this will go down in history as another failure to meet the legal and moral obligation to prevent genocide. Genocide is not a problem of the past; it is our problem and our opportunity to do better. To celebrate the World Day for International Justice, GJC released a podcast on prosecuting genocide. We interviewed Stephen Rapp, a lawyer who has helped prosecute genocide, including in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and served as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice. Listen to this episode of That’s Illegal! on iTunes or Soundcloud, and read outcomes document from our Brain Trust here. Photo credit: OSeveno (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Reconciling International Laws on Genocide and Counter-Terrorism On June 12, 2017, the Global Justice Center convened a Brain Trust of legal experts to consider how to reconcile the legal obligations to prevent, suppress and punish genocide with counter-terrorism measures directed towards ISIS. Evidence supports that ISIS has been engaged in an ongoing genocide against the Yazidis (and potentially other groups) since 2014. Over 3,000 Yazidi women and children remain in captivity. Today we may be witnessing yet again a failure of the international community to prevent, suppress and punish genocide. While there are strong global measures aimed at stopping ISIS, such as Security Council Resolutions and counter-terrorism efforts, they have largely ignored erga omnes legal obligations related to genocide. This has resulted in a diminishing of the special protections of the Genocide Convention, including for women and girls. The failure to effectively respond to ISIS’s genocide of the Yazidis has revealed growing gaps between evolving law on genocide and responses to genocide, the latter now largely dealt with under the counter-terrorism framework. Download PDF

Re: Submission by the Global Justice Center and the Bar Human Rights Committee Urging the Opening of a Preliminary Examination Dear Prosecutor Bensouda, The Global Justice Center and the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales are writing to urge the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) to open a preliminary examination into genocide and other crimes committed by foreign fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham/Greater Syria (“ISIS” aka “ISIL”, “Da’esh” or “IS”, hereinafter “ISIS”). It is imperative that all possible measures are taken to investigate, address and deter the heinous crimes being committed by ISIS, including the opening of a preliminary examination by the OTP. Accordingly, we urge your office to reevaluate its April 2015 finding that it has inadequate jurisdictional bases to open a preliminary examination. In fact, as detailed in our enclosed submission: (1) the requirements of subject matter, temporal, and personal jurisdiction have been met in this case, specifically with respect to ISIS’s foreign fighters; (2) the OTP’s own policies favor exercising personal jurisdiction; and (3) substantial normative justifications support opening a preliminary examination. A reasonable basis upon which to open a preliminary examination is further established by the gravity of the crimes in question, in particular crimes of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as the interests of victims and of justice. Download Letter Download Submission

For two and a half years Daesh has been committing genocide against the Yazidi religious minority in Northern Iraq and Syria. Much more than simply mass killing, this genocide is a daily horror for thousands of Yazidi women and girls who have been continually subject to the “non-killing” crimes of genocide. This briefing describes these crimes and Daesh’s gendered campaign of destruction. I. The Definition of Genocide Genocide is any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group: (a) killing; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm; (c) deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about physical destruction; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births; or (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Daesh is committing each of these acts against Yazidi women and girls. Download PDF

Commemorating Yazidi women and girls by Eva Marie Wüst Vestergaard Today is the UN’s second International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, also called Genocide Prevention Day. This day falls on the anniversary of the Genocide Convention, which was implemented on December 9 1948. Genocide Prevention Day commemorates the victims of genocide, puts focus on the Genocide Convention, and acknowledges governments’ legal responsibilities to prevent genocide. Gender and Genocide is a key issue in the work of the Global Justice Center. ISIS is currently committing genocide against the Yazidis, and strategically targeting Yazidi women and girls. Over 3,000 women and girls are enslaved by ISIS today. They are being raped, beaten, forced to have abortions, forced into marriage and forced into religious conversion. For the past two years, since this genocide began, Global Justice Center has been raising awareness of these atrocities. Genocide is often associated with mass killings whilst alternate genocidal acts are less known. But the definition of genocide includes the following crimes: – Inflicting bodily or mental harm including rape and torture – Denying basic necessities such as food and water – Preventing births including forced abortion and sterilization – Kidnapping and detaining children It is exactly these crimes that ISIS is committing against the Yazidis. Therefore, Global Justice Center commemorates Yazidi women and girls today on Genocide Prevention Day. Yet, merely commemorating the victims of genocide is not enough. As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon states, we must “recognize the need to work together more concertedly to protect individuals from gross human rights violations and uphold our common humanity.” Governments, including the EU, must take sufficient action to recognize that ISIS is committing genocide against the Yazidis and punish them for their crimes, including by prosecuting them at international court such as the Hague. These steps would show ISIS that their actions are not tolerated, save thousands of Yazidi women and girls from enslavement, and stop this ongoing genocide of the Yazidis.

Daesh, also known as ISIS/ISIL, is committing genocide against religious and ethnic minorities, targeting women and girls in particular. The time is now for the EU to fulfil its international legal obligations to prevent and prosecute genocide. This means the EU must recognize this ongoing genocide, take steps to prevent and suppress it, and call for and facilitate its prosecution. 1. Daesh is perpetrating genocide Reports and verified information obtained from UN agencies, human rights organizations, local communities and media clearly demonstrate that Daesh (also known as Islamic State, IS, ISIS, or ISIL) is perpetrating all of the five explicit crimes of genocide listed in the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: (1) killing; (2) causing serious bodily or mental harm; (3) deliberately inflicting conditions to destroy a group; (4) preventing births within a group; and (5) transferring children from one group to another group. While reports indicate that Daesh targets various ethnic and religious minorities, no group has been subjected to the destruction that the Yazidi have suffered. What’s more, within the Yazidi community, women and girls have been methodically targeted by specific, ongoing crimes. Download PDF