Closing the impunity gap
MPs and peers call for universal jurisdiction on international crimes
Islamic State fighters who made their way back to the UK should face prosecution, a parliamentary committee recommends in a report published this morning.
MPs and peers from parliament’s joint committee on human rights say the government should close the “impunity gap” by allowing UK courts to exercise universal jurisdiction over defendants accused of committing international crimes, such as genocide, against religious minorities including the Yazidis when Islamic State controlled parts of Syria and Iraq.
They want existing nationality and residence requirements to be removed so that these charges could be brought against anyone in the UK.
More than 400 “people of national security concern” who left the UK to fight for Islamic State, referred to as Daesh in the report, were thought to have returned around a decade ago. But none have been successfully prosecuted in the UK for genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
“Terrorism charges do not capture the nature and scale of crimes committed against victims,” the report says.
Lord Alton of Liverpool, who chairs the joint committee, added:
We know that British nationals committed the most horrendous crimes in Iraq and Syria under the Daesh regime and we have a duty to see them brought to justice.
We want to see more action from the government in identifying the perpetrators, some of whom may have returned to Britain while others are likely to be detained in camps in Syria.
This will require better coordination from law enforcement and the removal of barriers preventing some prosecutions.
Deprivation of citizenship
The committee also called for greater transparency the use of powers to deprive people of British citizenship.
By coincidence, a former British/Moroccan dual national who was deprived of her British citizenship eight years ago lost her appeal to the UK Supreme Court yesterday. The woman, who was born and raised in the UK, was assessed by the Home Office as having travelled to Syria in 2014 and aligned herself with Islamic State, referred to in the judgment as ISIL. Her three children were repatriated to the UK in 2019 but she remains in Syria.
The mother, referred to as U3, appealed to the special tribunal known as Siac on the grounds that being separated from her children was a breach of her right to family life under article 8 of the human rights convention.
U3’s appeals were dismissed by Siac in 2022 and by the Court of Appeal in 2023. “In relation to both appeals,” said the Supreme Court yesterday, Siac was entitled to reach the conclusions it did and the Court of Appeal was correct to dismiss the appeals against its decisions.” Siac had carefully assessed the best interests of U3’s children and “concluded that the interference with their article 8 rights which would result from the refusal of the appellant’s application for entry clearance was proportionate”.
In its report today, the joint committee says:
The UK uses deprivation of citizenship orders more than almost any country in the world. At the same time that it is important for the government to be able to take steps such as citizenship stripping in the interests of public safety, there is a serious lack of transparency and oversight when it comes to the use of this power.
The government must provide greater transparency as to the use of deprivation of citizenship powers, including by providing regularly updated data to the public. The chief inspector of borders and immigration, or the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation if his remit is expanded, should periodically review the use of deprivation of citizenship powers, including for national security reasons, and report to parliament about his findings.
Impunity for international crimes
The committee is proposing a simple amendment to legislation passed in 2001 so that crimes that can be tried by the International Criminal Court instead lead to prosecutions in the United Kingdom
Its report says:
The UK legal framework applicable to international crimes is inconsistent. Whilst it is possible to prosecute individuals for torture and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions committed abroad, it is not possible to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity or other war crimes committed abroad unless the individuals are UK nationals, UK residents, or subject to service personnel laws. This creates a key barrier to the exercise of the principle of universal jurisdiction in the UK.
The government should amend the International Criminal Court Act 2001 to remove the requirements of UK nationality and residency. The relevant guidelines should also be amended to ensure that presence in the UK is not a prerequisite to initiating an investigation. This would help to close the impunity gap by ensuring that the UK can exercise universal jurisdiction over the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
It’s interesting to note (at least to me) that whereas no steps appear to have been taken against returning male ISIS fighters to charge them with serious criminal offences, women who are not alleged to have fought are punished with deprivation of their citizenship.
The decision about Shamima Begum seems to me to be the most egregious given her age when she left and lack of any other citizenship open to her, rendering her stateless. Yet over 400 male fighters have been allowed to return apparently unhindered. It’s difficult to discern a reason for this that isn’t rooted in misogyny.
Lord (David) Alton is a much esteemed fellow campaigner for a democratic, secular and egalitarian Iran in confrontation with the current brutal, clerical regime “informed” by an inhumanely rigid distortion of the true tenets of Islam. I often sit at his feet at Parliamentary and other meetings in support of the National Council for Reform of Iran, in effect a government in waiting. On the subject of the slaughter, abduction and serial rape of the Yazidi peoples, I recommend “The girl who defeated Isis “[2016 Penguin co-authored by Farida Khalid and Andrea C. Hoffman). Impunity as for so long enjoyed by the likes of the Iranian regime’s top brass and the terrorist sponsoring Islamic Republican Guard Corps [IRGC] must be tackled in the interests of world peace, let alone merely the Middle East. More power to the Justice Committee’s elbow.