Orient Net, April 19, 2018 – UN member states should fully fund and cooperate with a new UN team to gather and preserve evidence of serious crimes in Syria for future prosecutions, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday (April 18). The head of the new team, Catherine Marchi-Uhel, will brief the General Assembly for the first time.

“With new atrocities every day and the Security Council in deadlock, the General Assembly has an urgent responsibility to champion justice for crimes in Syria,” said Balkees Jarrah, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch. “UN member states should support credible investigations into abuses in Syria to make clear that there will be a price for the atrocities there.”

The General Assembly created the team, formally the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), in an unprecedented December 2016 resolution in response to a stalemate on Syria at the UN Security Council, where Russia had used its veto six times since 2011 to block council action on the Syrian conflict. Since then, Russia has used its veto on six additional occasions to obstruct resolutions related to chemical weapons use in Syria. By establishing the IIIM, the General Assembly demonstrated the positive role it can play on issues when the Security Council is blocked, Human Rights Watch said.

The new team is tasked with gathering, preserving, and analyzing potential evidence for use in courts that may have a mandate over serious crimes in Syria now or in the future. Significantly, it will also prepare files on specific individuals to facilitate criminal proceedings. In its first report to the General Assembly, the IIIM provided an overview of its objectives, progress, and main challenges.

One key hurdle to the team’s work is raising the necessary funds to carry out its mandate. For now, it relies on voluntary contributions from individual countries, including to recruit professional staff and to set up vital security systems. To date, 38 countries around the world and the European Union have pledged support totaling about US$11 million, toward an estimated 2018 budget of US$14 million.

The top funders include the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Canada, and Finland, each of which has pledged over $1 million. Countries committed to justice for crimes on all sides of Syria’s conflict should similarly step forward to provide the team with the resources it needs to carry out its important work, Human Rights Watch said.