{"id":975,"date":"2012-11-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/?p=975","title":{"rendered":"Submission to the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Dr. Radwan  Ziadeh<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Hague, November 15th,  2012<br \/>\n  Madam President, Members of the  Assembly, Distinguished delegates,<br \/>\n  I thank you for the opportunity to speak  here today.<br \/>\n  After over twenty months of bloodshed and more than  40,000 deaths, unspeakable brutality of the Assad regime is escalating by the  day. Today, I am honored to address the General Debate session as a human  rights activist and on behalf of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies  to: <br \/>\n  <em>Denounce<\/em><em> the deterioration of the situation in  Syria, in particular the continued widespread and systematic violations of human  rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, such as the use of force  against civilians, arbitrary executions, the killing and persecution of protestors,  human rights defenders and journalists, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances,  interference with access to medical treatment, torture, sexual violence and  ill-treatment, including against children;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I would like  to seize this opportunity t<strong>o call upon <\/strong><strong>all Member States,  present today, to provide support to the resolution of the escalating conflict  in Syria. <\/strong>Similar to Switzerland&rsquo;s initiative, we  urge member countries in the UN Security Council to support any future attempts  for the referral of the Syria situation to the ICC. <\/p>\n<p>  On behalf of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies and our partners in  Syria and in exile, we call upon states to use the opportune platform offered  at the ASP, to take a proactive and immediate action to halter the mass  atrocities taking place in my country, and combat the culture of impunity. <br \/>\n  Under  the current legal framework, a referral of the situation of Syria can only be  initiated at the UN Security Council level. However, this process has not  yielded positive developments due to internal divisions within the Council. As  such, our organization and on behalf of our coalition of Syrian human rights  members, we would like to call upon the International Criminal Court, \u00a0as the international guardian of international  criminal law, to take necessary measures vis-a-vis the United Nations General  Assembly to increase cooperation mechanisms to expedite intervention in Syria. <\/p>\n<p>  I reflect the views of partner human rights compatriots in persisting on our  call for accountability initiatives with diplomatic and technical support from  the international community and the ICC. The main feedback received from our Syrian  civil society partners\u00a0 on the future  role of ICC in <strong>Syria<\/strong>, include: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span dir=\"ltr\"> <\/span>The  availability of an internationally recognized body, like the ICC, can enforce  principles vital\u00a0 to\u00a0 attaining\u00a0\u00a0  justice in Syria<\/li>\n<li><span dir=\"ltr\"> <\/span>Continued  monitoring of domestic justice by international entities forms a corollary and  an integral part of a commitment to &lsquo;shared responsibility&rsquo; and &lsquo;responsibility  to protect&rsquo;. It is, thus, difficult to negate the role of international monitoring  in the accountability efforts in Syria<\/li>\n<li><span dir=\"ltr\"> <\/span>The  Syrian criminal justice system will have to meet new challenges based on a  changed international environment. Particularly, the ICC&rsquo;s Rome Statute would  be instrumental as the country embarks on legislative reforms, to incorporate  international crimes into the Syrian Criminal Code and repeal any statutory  limitations applying to such crimes. Equally important is the establishment of  an independent judiciary and capacity strengthening programs for judicial,  police, prison, in particular in the development of specialized investigative  and prosecution skills; as well as considering the rights of victims in all  mechanisms of accountability in accordance with ICC provisions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We call on the UN Security Council to stop the deadly terror in Syria by,  immediately, referring the situation against the regime to the International  Criminal Court. As days go by, there is increasing evidence that Assad&#8217;s regime  and security forces have committed crimes against humanity, war crimes and  gross human rights violations. It is time to stop this murderous brutality and  protect the Syrian people, who are risking everything to reclaim their rights  and their dignity. It remains important for Syria to respect international  customary law and its obligations under its signature of the Rome Statute.<br \/>\n  Finally, we would argue that the ICC was created precisely to deal with  such atrocities occurring in Syria, and that bringing it into play would build  rather than undermine those norms. This is a debate which is well worth having  &#8212; and one which I look forward to continuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Dr. Radwan  Ziadeh<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Hague, November 15th,  2012<br \/>\n  After over twenty months of bloodshed and more than  40,000 deaths, unspeakable brutality of the Assad regime is escalating by the  day. Today, I am honored to address the General Debate session as a human  rights activist and on behalf of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies  to: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}