Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015

March 2015 marks the fourth year of the ongoing conflict in Syria.

On December 17, 2014, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2191 “expressing outrage at the unacceptable and escalating level of violence and the killing of more than 191,000 people, including well over 10,000 children” and approximately 1,000,000 injured in Syria.

More than half of Syria’s population is displaced as of March 2015, with more than 7,600,000 internally displaced and more than 3,700,000 refugees in neighboring countries.

On February 19, 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported to the Security Council that “parties to the conflict are failing to live up to their international legal obligations to protect civilians” and called for action to ensure the unfettered delivery of humanitarian relief, an end to the use of denial of services as a weapon of war, and a response to “the relentless and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including through the use of barrel bombs”.

On February 27, 2014, the Department of State issued its 2013 Human Rights Report on Syria, which described President Bashar al Assad’s use of “indiscriminate and deadly force” in the conflict, including the August 21, 2013, use of “sarin gas and artillery to target East Ghouta and Moadamiya al-Sham, suburbs of Damascus, which killed over 1,000 people”.

The 2014 United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Annual Report states that in Syria “terrorist organizations espouse violence and the creation of an Islamic state with no space for religious diversity and have carried out religiously-motivated attacks and massacres against Alawite, Shi’a and Christian civilians.”

On February 4, 2015, the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) adopted a decision expressing serious concern about the findings “with a high degree of confidence” of an OPCW fact-finding mission that chlorine had been used as a weapon in some areas of Syria in 2014 and calling for those individuals responsible to be held accountable.

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic reports that pro-government forces have conducted attacks on Syrian civilian populations, and have utilized murder, torture, assault, and rape as war tactics. Anti-government groups have also committed murder and torture, engaged in hostage-taking, attacked protected objects, and shelled civilian neighborhoods. The Commission’s February 2015 report states that Syria’s civil war “has been characterized by massive, recurrent violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that demand urgent international and national action”.

On March 12, 2015, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reported that since 2011, at least 610 medical personnel have been killed and there have been 233 deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on 183 medical facilities in Syria. The Physicians for Human Rights report cited evidence that the Government of Syria committed 88 percent of the recorded hospital attacks and 97 percent of medical personnel killings, and “has targeted health care and increasingly used it as a weapon of war to destroy its opponents by preventing care, killing thousands of civilians along the way”.

Internationally accepted rules of war require actors to distinguish between civilians and combatants and that all parties are obligated to respect and protect the wounded and sick and to take care all reasonable measures to provide safe and prompt access for the wounded and sick to medical care.

strongly condemns the ongoing violence, use of chemical weapons, targeting of civilian populations with barrel, incendiary, and cluster bombs and SCUD missiles, and systematic gross human rights violations carried out by Government of Syria and pro-government forces under the direction of President Bashar al-Assad, as well as all abuses committed by violent extremist groups and other combatants involved in the civil war in Syria;

expresses its support for the people of Syria seeking democratic change;

urges all parties to the conflict to immediately halt indiscriminate attacks on civilians, allow for the delivery of humanitarian and medical assistance, and end sieges of civilian populations;

calls on the President to support efforts in Syria and on the part of the international community to ensure accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict; and

supports the requirement in United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2191, 2165 and 2139 for regular reporting by the Secretary-General on implementation on the resolutions, including of paragraph 2 of resolution 2139, which demands that all parties desist from violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights and calls on the Security Council to establish a committee to investigate past and ongoing gross violations of human rights and war crimes in the Syrian conflict.

In general— Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and again not later than 180 days after the cessation of violence in Syria, the Secretary of State shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria.

Elements— The report required under subsection (a) shall include the following elements:

Form— The report required under subsection (a) may be in unclassified or classified form, but shall include a publicly available annex.

Appropriate congressional committee defined— In this section, the term appropriate congressional committees means—