The cases of the foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), who went to join terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria, should be tackled at the international level by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which requires a UN Security Council referral, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, told Sputnik in an interview
GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st November, 2019) The cases of the foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), who went to join terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria, should be tackled at the international level by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which requires a UN Security Council referral, Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, told Sputnik in an interview.
Asked if a joint international mechanism needs to be established to tackle FTF issues, and if these legal proceedings can be centralized, Ni Aolain said that "collective effort" was needed.
"We have an International Criminal Court (ICC). Many of the crimes that were committed in Iraq and Syria would come under the ICC statute. In order to have the International Criminal Court adjudicate these crimes, we need a Security Council referral. If you're asking me what would be most likely to yield justice for the victims who have experienced violence in Iraq and Syria, it would be an International Criminal Court adjudication," the rapporteur said.
"Setting up another ad-hoc court seems to me quite inefficient when you have an existing court, which has prosecuted very complex crimes in complex conflicts, involving very problematic armed groups, and they've done that successfully. So, the answer here is: we have a mechanism. What we need is a Security Council referral to make it active to Syria," she continued.
