This post originally appeared in The Huffington Post.

As a shaky ceasefire in Syria appears on the verge of collapse, peace talks are set to resume in Geneva this week. It’s a harrowing time for Syrians, made all the worse by the Syrian government continuing to willfully cut off deliveries of food and medicine to civilians. The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, told reporters this week that 4.5 metric tons of medical supplies were stripped from a recent convoy headed for innocent people trapped in cities under siege. Instead of death by barrel bomb, Syrians face the agony of starvation, malnutrition, and preventable diseases. A slower way to die, but no less cruel.

Intentionally cutting off humanitarian aid is a war crime. Add that to the staggeringly long list of war crimes committed in Syria – unspeakable violations of what are universally considered the laws of armed conflict. Emerging news this week confirms a growing trove of documentary evidence to support such charges. But what good is a list of crimes if no one is ever held responsible for them?

Chief among those who must face justice is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. When his rule was challenged by protestors demanding freedom, rights, and opportunities during the heady days of the Arab Spring, his response was to launch a deadly campaign against the people of Syria. Security forces swept up, tortured, and disappeared thousands. The Syrian military has focused on punishing civilians living in opposition-held areas, killing hundreds of thousands of people and besieging more than 800,000.

The Syrian Air Force, backed by its Russian allies, has engaged in a bombing campaign on hospitals and clinics and has targeted doctors and other medical professionals, adding to the challenge of staying alive for those who have not fled the fighting. Physicians for Human Rights has documented 358 attacks on hospitals since 2011, more than 90 percent of them by Assad’s forces and their allies. The government has systematically violated virtually all the laws of war: hard-won standards aimed at making war a little less hellish for civilians.

Yet no court has come forward to claim jurisdiction over the crimes committed in Syria. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague was envisioned as a court of last resort to bring to justice brutal leaders like Assad who bear individual criminal responsibility for the worst crimes under international law. For too long, we lived in a world in which political power was parlayed into impunity.

The ICC came into being by international accord in 1998, but a self-congratulatory mood was soon replaced with an understanding that the court’s mechanisms were inadequate. Civil society organizations had played a powerful role in advocating for the ICC, but when it came to bringing cases for prosecution, that power was granted solely to the ICC prosecutor, individual states, and the UN Security Council.

The ICC has had its high moments: last month, the court convicted former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But thus far, the Security Council has failed to refer Syria’s heinous crimes to the ICC. If a state like Syria has a champion among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, a referral to the international court will be blocked. Russia and China have vetoed any meaningful action on Syria. Power – or having powerful friends – is promoting a wanton disregard for international law.

In the short term, there are a few options to prosecute Assad. National courts may bring cases based on the principle of universal jurisdiction – the idea that some crimes are so egregious that no matter who commits them or where, all states that can do so should prosecute those crimes. The systematic nature of Assad’s crimes may well prompt some governments to exercise universal jurisdiction to start the wheels of justice turning.

In the longer term, once Assad is no longer in power, there may be support for the creation of a special Syrian Court, with assistance from people with expertise in investigating and prosecuting complex cases that capture the magnitude of the crimes committed. One such example was the special court for Sierra Leone, which in 2012 condemned former Liberian president Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during its civil war in the ‘90s.

And last month, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia sentenced former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to 40 years in prison for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed during the 1990s Bosnian war – including ethnic cleansing, the siege of Sarajevo, and the deaths of 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were slaughtered in Srebrenica under Karadzic’s command.

As government forces continue to perpetrate their war crimes in Syria, Assad would do well to remember that while Russia may have his back at the UN Security Council for now, those in power change, and their interests change. Over time, particularly as the world comes to understand the extent of Assad’s crimes, the calls for justice will strengthen, not wane.

Just last week, the ICC failed to pursue a case against Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto, citing witness tampering and political interference. The ICC and international legal systems are no doubt flawed. But, as Radovan Karadzic, Charles Taylor, and others sitting in prison have learned the hard way, those who believe in justice do not give up, and sometimes international justice prevails.

This post originally appeared in The Huffington Post.

On December 23, a paramedic with the civil defense, or White Helmets, was killed by Syrian government shelling while aiding the wounded in al Nashabiya, a small town in besieged Eastern Ghouta, in the Damascus suburbs. Three others were killed and 13 injured during that assault.

Nine months earlier, just a few miles away, journalist Noureddine Hashim was photographing first responders picking through the rubble from a Syrian government air raid in Arbin, east of Damascus, when President Bashar al-Assad’s forces unleashed a second attack. The 21-year-old correspondent for Al Etihad Press was killed, along with at least 10 other civilians.

It is no coincidence that this medic and this reporter were on the front lines. Many health professionals and journalists have given their lives saving others or documenting the horrors of conflict for the wider world.

In doing so they are supposed to enjoy a protected status on the battlefield. But in Syria, where the crisis marked its fifth year this month, health workers and journalists are deliberately targeted. The special protections afforded to medical staff and facilities are flouted with impunity. Journalists are spies to be shot or kidnapped for ransom or gruesome propaganda videos. Doctors are regularly attacked and their work places systematically targeted.

These attacks especially alarm us at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), as they undermine international legal and human rights protections for journalists and health workers in dangerous environments. Targeting them also means multiplying the war’s ghastly effects, whether that is compromising civilians’ access to lifesaving health care or to critical information.

All civilians, including journalists, are shielded against direct attack under international humanitarian laws, or the laws of war. In addition to these blanket protections awarded to all civilians, medical professionals, facilities, and aid providers receive additional special protections – a reflection of how vital these services are. The continuous, deliberate attacks against them cross the lines set by the Geneva Conventions and constitute war crimes.

Syria is a dangerous place for everyone. An estimated 400,000 people have died as a direct result of the conflict, not to mention the tens or even hundreds of thousands who have died from lack of access to health care, malnutrition, or in desperate attempts to reach safety. Last month, at least 45 people were killed and dozens wounded when at least four hospitals and a school were attacked in northern Syria.

Reporters, photographers, and other journalists give us a window into Syria, exposing or confirming atrocities such as chemical weapons attacks and the barrel-bombing of civilians. Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals are often the first to witness the horrific injuries and effects of the war. They save lives and treat the sick and wounded regardless of their religion, ethnicity, or political affiliation. In Syria’s opposition-controlled areas, the government targets them in order to make life unbearable for anyone living outside its control.

The Syrian government is overwhelmingly responsible for the deliberate attacks on medical facilities – 2015 was the worst year on record for these assaults, with at least 112 facilities attacked. PHR has documented attacks on medical care for 30 years, but the scale and brutality of the attacks on Syrian medical facilities and health professionals is unparalleled. More than 700 medical personnel in Syria have been killed over the last five years. The doctors who have risked their lives to remain there have been decimated by Assad’s forces, which consider it a crime punishable by death to provide medical treatment to “the other side.”

At least 93 journalists have been killed since the conflict began, 12 of them specifically targeted because they were journalists. While the spate of journalist abductions has dipped from the high seen in 2013, some 25 journalists – including six from Western countries – are missing. The drop in kidnappings is attributable in part to the fact that Syria is just too dangerous, and fewer foreign journalists are going there. Even when journalists flee into exile they are not safe. Three courageous reporters who defied ISIS and tried to report independently on life inside the Islamic State were hunted down in neighboring Türkiye and brutally murdered in separate attacks.

When those who expose wrongdoing and treat the vulnerable become the enemy, we can be sure that tyranny and cruelty are at work. All sides must agree on one basic principle: international law must be upheld. Noncombatants – including doctors and journalists – must be protected.

The laws and UN resolutions to protect medics and journalists exist. It is now up to governments and the United Nations to enforce them and stop this barbarity.

Follow Donna McKay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DMcKayPHR

On the fifth anniversary of the crisis in Syria, Physicians for Human Rights calls attention to the ongoing attacks on medical personnel and facilities and demands that justice not be sacrificed in the pursuit of peace.

As we approach the sixth year of the conflict, at least 705 medical personnel have been killed, and there have been 346 deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on 246 medical facilities.The Syrian government and its allies are responsible for more than 90 percent of the recorded hospital attacks and over 95 percent of medical personnel killings, with 139 deaths directly attributed to torture or execution.

 

This post originally appeared on the Early Warning Project’s blog.

In the last few months of 2015, Christine Mehta traveled to Ukraine several times as part of a delegation tasked with assessing Ukraine’s forensic capacity and political willingness to investigate human rights violations related to the conflict, such as torture, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, and enforced disappearances. “Forensic capacity” means the technical expertise and equipment to collect, preserve, and analyze medical or scientific evidence in a criminal case. Also part of the mission was to explore damage to medical facilities and disruption of health care delivery to citizens affected by the conflict, including internally displaced persons.

Nearly two years ago, Ukraine’s winter of revolution was melting into an unsteady spring.

As the Ukraine crisis moved into 2015, the Early Warning Project put the formerly stable country in the top 20 on its at-risk countries list. The Project identifies countries at risk of new mass atrocities, in particular government violence against its own people. The Project’s hypothesis is that mass atrocities – namely mass killing of civilians – can be detected early, and policy makers can act to save lives. An outbreak of armed conflict in 2014 catapulted Ukraine into the Project’s ranks of countries most at risk of perpetrating a mass killing against its own citizens.

The Ukrainian conflict has killed an estimated 9,098 individuals and injured 20,732 more. It is unknown how many civilians or servicemen are included in the overall estimate, as bodies are still waiting on the battlefields in Donetsk and Luhansk to be recovered and identified. The question going forward into 2016 for Ukraine is: how many more will die?

Since the latest ceasefire was reaffirmed on September 1, 2015, deaths and injuries decreased as both the government and the separatists began removing heavy weaponry from the frontlines. However, despite the ceasefire, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (OHCHR) recorded 47 civilian deaths and 131 injuries from August 16 to November 15, 2015. The breakdown of the rule of law in eastern Ukraine—a consequence of the conflict—also has resulted in human rights and humanitarian law violations being perpetrated by both sides, particularly arbitrary detentions or reports of extrajudicial killings of civilians accused of being opposition or state sympathizers or informants.

Risks to Ukrainian citizens are primarily an indirect consequence of war: collateral damage, damaged infrastructure—including to housing and medical facilities—and lack of medicines, especially for those suffering from terminal illnesses such as tuberculosis and cancer. Counterterrorism operations by Ukrainian security forces pose another threat to civilians still residing in Ukraine’s east, as the government attempts to root out pro-Russian sympathizers. With the current government continuing to tumble in popularity, political destabilization in Kyiv is a high risk, and there remains a danger that the ceasefire will dissolve altogether, resulting in more fighting in the east. This will only result in increased civilian deaths as the country’s infrastructure in Donetsk and Luhansk, and the surrounding provinces, struggles to recover from two years of destructive conflict.

The threats affecting populations in the east differ from those affecting the west. In the east, most active combat occurred in government-designated “Anti-Terror Operations Zones,” or contiguous areas surrounding the Line of Contact on the western side of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (provinces).

The population in ATO zones suffers from continued counterterrorism operations that reports from groups like Amnesty International and the Brussels-based International Partnership for Human Rights say have resulted in arbitrary detention, torture, and other ill-treatment. Threats from armed groups in Donetsk and Luhansk include torture, extrajudicial and summary killings, and arbitrary detention. Devastated infrastructure, including of medical facilities, and lack of medical supplies, militarization, and restricted freedom of movement are also major concerns for those still residing in ATO zones.

The de facto authorities in Donetsk and Luhansk continue to block western humanitarian aid organizations from delivering medical supplies and drugs, according to several international humanitarian organizations based in Kyiv. According to several doctors with access to Donetsk, and the director of one international humanitarian organization, medical supplies were blocked specifically because of the separatist authorities’ need to create revenue for their financially-strapped Republics by selling Russian-manufactured drugs at inflated prices, rather than distributing aid free of cost. I have not been able to independently verify this claim, but it is worth noting that the separatist authorities have struggled to identify and tap possible income streams.

As winter wears on, international and domestic groups involved in resettling internally displaced persons in Kyiv are concerned that more of the displaced, and those residing in the east, will suffer illness, injury, and death due to lack of basic necessities, including adequate housing, food, medicines, and heat. The UNHCR estimates that 800,000 people are living in eastern Ukraine in “difficult and dangerous conditions,” without reliable access to safe housing, supplies, and heat. While these poor conditions already make survival for the young, elderly, and ill difficult, another outbreak of fighting will result in a further deterioration of conditions for Ukrainians living in the east and in displacement camps along the “line of contact.”

In the west, there are fewer visible signs of the conflict. In fact, Kyiv’s cobblestone streets host markets and street musicians on a daily basis, and young people populate the city’s nightclubs on the weekends, with few external indicators that they fear further upheaval. As in many countries where conflict is entrenched, the instability becomes normal, and life goes on. Despite the relative normalcy of daily life in western Ukraine, however, conflict has inflamed jingoistic rhetoric.

Deepening schisms between the growing Ukrainian nationalist movement and Ukrainian institutions and communities culturally akin to Russia, such as the Orthodox Church, are polarizing Ukraine – and contributing to public tolerance for inflammatory speech by Ukrainian nationalists against Russian-speaking, or Russian-sympathizing, Ukrainians. While the Ukrainian nationalist party, the Right Sector, only held two seats in Parliament after the 2014 election, its influence over public opinion is strong due to its reputation as the “revolutionary party” that liberated Ukraine from Russian influence. Ukrainian nationalism is rising in popularity as Ukrainians become increasingly disillusioned with the current government, led by Petro Poroshenko, which they feel has failed to deliver, or even commit to, the demands made by protesters in 2013.

A legacy of deep distrust towards government that dates back to the days of Soviet rule is still pervasive in both eastern and western Ukraine. That legacy is fueling the popularity of the Right Sector, which was originally a paramilitary confederation in Maidan Square, where its “self-defense groups” fought against riot police in 2013.

On December 4, 2015, my colleague and I arrived in Ukraine for the second time. On the way into Kyiv from the airport, we chatted with the cab driver. “There will most definitely be another Maidan,” the driver said. According to the driver, the current government is still controlled by the same set of oligarchs that controlled the government ousted in 2014. He had little faith in Ukrainian and European Union leaders’ commitment to implement the reforms needed to root out corruption in the country’s creaky, bureaucratic institutions.

The driver’s skepticism is common, but passionately contradicted by a growing group of reformers comprised of civil society activists, lawyers, and some government officials driving the seemingly Sisyphean task of replacing the old guard with the new. Roman Romanov, the director of the human rights and justice program at the International Renaissance Foundation, a Ukrainian civil society group based in Kyiv, told us that while he fears more conflict and the power of corruption, he has never seen the kind of fervor for reform that is currently galvanizing Ukraine. “Everything is about creating new. Everything is on the table for change,” he said.

However, the reformists may become a beleaguered minority – with little power to maintain the current fragile stability in order to keep the government institutions reforming, and root out corruption. For the time being, the odds are in their favor, but they all know their luck could change.

As the government has known since the Right Sector’s formation in 2013, the volunteer battalions and their right-wing ideology are one of the greatest threats to Ukraine’s current administration, as well as its greatest defense against military aggression in the east. The volunteer battalions are key in supporting counterterrorism operations in ATO zones, as well as the State Security Service of Ukraine (the intelligence branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). Allegations of arbitrary detention and torture while in detention have been rampant in connection with the volunteer battalions, presenting the government with a dilemma: how to reign in the battalions.

Despite the allegations of abuse, Ukrainians in Kyiv still widely support the volunteers as the harbingers and defenders of democracy and Ukrainian nationalism. Homes and offices are decorated with the flags of the battalions, and businesses set up donation bins for the public to finance the volunteer fighters. Although hostilities have de-escalated dramatically since September 2015, the battalions have not been disbanded, nor have they been effectively brought under the command and control of the Ukrainian government.

If the volunteer battalions and right-wing political parties prompt a coup, the violence that will ensue can only spell disaster for those struggling to survive in the country’s damaged battle zones.

Unfortunately for Ukraine, it is likely that 2016 will witness more fighting, either through an uprising from the Ukrainian far right, another outbreak in the east, or both. Ukraine’s defense budget has ballooned since 2014, with the 2016 budget slated to total nearly four billion USD. In keeping with the analysis of local observers, Ukraine appears to be gearing up for continued military engagement, presumably with Russia.

The fear of instability and more war is ever-present in Ukraine, and the long-term consequences, especially for the displaced and chronically ill in the ATO zones, could be severe. When Ukraine once again thaws from its long winter, an outbreak of hostilities will significantly threaten civilian safety, as further fighting strains ruined and compromised infrastructure, the authorities in Donetsk and Luhansk continue to block humanitarian aid from international organizations, and the use of heavy weapons puts civilians at risk of indiscriminate shelling and firing. The worst outcome for 2016 would be an uprising provoked by the Right Sector, an event that would unravel even the current semblance of political structure, and thus accountability, with little hope of recovery or a peaceful settlement of the conflict in the east. The best safeguard for preserving stability, and safety for vulnerable populations, is for the Ukrainian government to implement reforms and deliver on its promises to Maidan protesters—effectively deflating the ire, and power, of Ukraine’s nationalists.

This post originally appeared on Open Society Voices.

There is a cemetery in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, where 156 unnamed soldiers are buried. “There are some we can’t identify,” said Irina Fedorchuk, the director of the Regional State Administration in Dnepropetrovsk. “Their bones turn to ash when you touch them. There is no DNA to extract.”

Fedorchuk’s administration has the difficult task of processing, identifying, and, if necessary, burying the dead from battles in Donetsk and Luhansk. Due to its proximity to the battlefields and its undamaged infrastructure, Dnepropetrovsk has been largely responsible for dealing with the burden of the country’s dead soldiers.

Since 2014, 9,098 people have been killed in eastern Ukraine. To date, 1,164 bodies, all of them soldiers, have been recovered from these battlefields. Every week, more bodies—and parts of bodies—are delivered to the morgues in Dnepropetrovsk for identification and burial. It is unclear how many more remain to be recovered from the separatist-controlled territories in Donetsk and Luhansk.

When the armed conflict broke out in Ukraine’s easternmost provinces, the number of dead and missing overwhelmed Ukraine’s limited capacity to identify them all. “Things became very difficult for us in the summer of 2014,” said Fedorchuk. “More than 100 fragments of bodies were delivered here within just a few days, and we didn’t have any information on how to identify them or who their relatives were.”

An international forensic expert and observer based in Dnepropetrovsk also spoke to the challenges faced by Ukrainian officials in dealing with the dead. “Last winter, they [Ukrainian morgue workers] were storing bodies in railroad cars, sometimes in black garbage bags because there was no room, no resources. The bodies were not stacked or organized properly, and there were many opportunities for cross contamination, meaning you’re leaving yourself open to misidentifying bodies.”

When soldiers die in combat, recovering their remains is a difficult task. In Ukraine’s case, many of the battle sites are off limits to the Ukrainian authorities, preventing them from systematically recovering and identifying their dead. The separatist authorities, Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), have access to more sites, but little is known about their efforts to recover bodies or their ability to identify them.

A volunteer group called the Black Tulips has been filling this role, since the separatist authorities allow civilian volunteers to cross the border into their territory. Director Zhilkan Yaroslav told us his volunteers had recovered more than 850 bodies—700 Ukrainian soldiers and 150 suspected members of armed groups—and handed them over to the Ministry of Defense for transportation to Dnepropetrovsk. But retrieving the bodies is only half the work.

“I know mistakes are being made,” said Yaroslav. “We still have a lot of bodies in Donetsk and Luhansk to find, and we don’t want to make mistakes. Misidentifications worry me, and I know they happen quite a lot as well. There is no coordination of the work. There is quite a bit of disorder.”

Yaroslav said he often receives calls from mothers and wives who claim that the body parts the government returned to them do not match the physical descriptions of their relatives. Some say they distrust DNA tests because of the government’s reputation for corruption and reports of faulty DNA tests. Moreover, lack of coordination between the military and investigators leads to failure to return correctly identified bodies to relatives.

During visits to Ukraine, we found poor information management between government agencies and departments working on the identification of the dead and missing. There is little coordination and frequent duplication, and databases are not well maintained. Civil society groups warned us not to trust numbers reported by state agencies, as they are likely to be inaccurate.

The right of families to know the truth surrounding the fate of a missing family member is expressly provided for by the Geneva Conventions, which apply to the Ukrainian conflict. International human rights bodies have expanded that right to include serious human rights violations in general, linking it to the duty and obligation of the state to protect and guarantee human rights, to conduct effective investigations, and to implement effective remedy and reparations. It is also critical that authorities conduct independent investigations into the circumstances of death in each case.

To be sure, Ukraine’s current scale of missing and dead is small in comparison to places like Afghanistan and Libya, where the missing and dead number in the hundreds of thousands. But Ukraine’s conflict is still in its early stages, and the country has the opportunity to prevent the caseload of those who are missing and unidentified from growing unmanageable. If fighting breaks out again this year, new casualties will place an even greater burden on an already strained system.

The government has taken important first steps to address the problem. Officials have attended dialogues brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross to identify and fix gaps and inefficiencies. But to effectively overcome the backlog and prevent misidentifications, the government must strengthen coordination between departments and pursue investigations into the circumstances surrounding all cases of missing and dead. This is the only chance to fulfill the right to truth, and to offer the victims’ families the closure they deserve.