THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — Judges at the International Court of Justice heard graphic descriptions of torture on Tuesday, as the Netherlands and Canada accused the Syrian regime of running a widespread torture program against its own citizens.
In the first international case stemming from the Syrian Civil War, the pair of nations say Damascus has violated the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture and want The Hague-based court to order the Syrian government to stop using torture and prosecute anyone who commits it.
Damascus snubbed the hearing, informing the court by letter on Monday that it would not participate in the proceedings.
“The court regrets the non-appearance of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the court's president, Joan E. Donoghue said at the opening of the session.
According to court rules, the proceedings can move forward despite Syria’s absence. The hearings were initially scheduled for July but were postponed for three months at Syria’s request.
The Netherlands and Canada announced in June they had brought a complaint to the court, following several years of attempted negotiations with Syria. Under the convention, countries must first try to resolve their dispute by negotiation and arbitration.
The government of Bashar al-Assad has “delayed and obfuscated at every turn,” Dutch lawyer Annemarieke Kiinzli told the 15-judge panel. The trio exchanged more than 60 official communications and held two face-to-face meetings in the United Arab Emirates over the past two years.
What began as peaceful protests in 2011 against Assad as part of a widespread democratic movement in the region has turned into a bloody conflict that’s left more than 300,000 people dead and more than 6 million displaced. The U.N.’s own body looking into allegations of crimes committed during the conflict — the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism — has documented widespread torture against anyone the regime sees as a threat, as well as the use of chemical weapons against civilians.
Syria is now trying to normalize international relations. Earlier this year, the country returned to the Arab League after having its membership suspended for the past 12 years.
“The case brought by the Netherlands and Canada provides an important opportunity to scrutinize Syria’s long-standing heinous torture of countless civilians,” Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Provisional measures issued by the court are legally binding but the judicial body has no enforcement mechanism. Last year, the court ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine ,but that conflict persists.
Other attempts to bring accountability in Syria have been blocked by Russia, which has remained loyal to al-Assad during the bloody conflict. Russia thwarted attempts to establish a special tribunal to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria and refused to back a proposal to send the situation to the International Criminal Court. Syria has not signed the Rome Statue, which underpins the court, leaving the world’s only permanent court for atrocity crimes without jurisdiction unless granted by the U.N. Security Council.
Some European countries, including Germany, France and the Netherlands, have charged some regime officials using a legal concept known as universal jurisdiction. A former member of the Syrian secret police was convicted by a German court of facilitating torture in 2021. A senior Syrian official was also convicted by a German court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison
A second round of hearings on Wednesday has been canceled because of Syria’s absence. The court usually issues decisions on provisional measures in a few weeks.
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