Amsterdam and Ottawa have accused the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of “countless violations of international law,” including the UN Convention against Torture to which Damascus is a party, according to a document from the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The countries filed their joint application on Thursday, asking the court to take legal measures against the Syrian regime, after more than two years of negotiation and attempts to reach a settlement with Damascus did not yield any results.
The case marks the ICJ’s first legal proceeding over the Syrian civil war.
“Syrian citizens have been tortured, murdered, disappeared, attacked with poison gas or forced to flee for their lives and leave behind everything they had,” said Netherlands’ Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra in a statement, "Establishing accountability and combating impunity are important elements of achieving a lasting political solution to the conflict in Syria."
The Assad regime has committed serious human rights abuses against its own people, both during and before the civil war. That is why we, together with Canada, will be instituting proceedings against Syria before the @CIJ_ICJ: https://t.co/3gBpN8q7H7 1/3 pic.twitter.com/rzldWxgDOe
— Wopke Hoekstra (@WBHoekstra) June 12, 2023
The Dutch and Canadians also called on the ICJ to pursue provisional measures for Damascus to cease its torture and ill-treatment of the Syrian people while the case is being decided.
"Canada and the Netherlands are guided by the firm belief that there can be no sustainable peace and lasting reconciliation in Syria without accountability for human rights violations and justice for its victims and survivors,” read a joint statement from the two countries.
Former Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok revealed the Netherlands’ intention to take the Syrian regime to the UN court in September 2020 for its human rights violations against its population “If no agreement can be reached [with Syria] on this issue.
In a landmark trial in January 2022, a German court found a Syrian secret intelligence officer of Assad’s regime guilty of torture, sexual violence, and 27 murders at the notorious Branch 251 prison in Damascus, sentencing him to life in prison. The same court had convicted a former member of Syria’s secret police of accessory to crimes against humanity in 2021, sentencing him to four and a half years in prison. The case was the first international trial against a Syrian official over crimes committed during the brutal civil war.
Over 110,000 people remain forcibly disappeared at the hands of parties in the Syrian conflict and controlling forces in the country, with the Syrian regime forces responsible for over 85 percent of that number, according to the UK-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR).
