How Nationwide Courts Are Protecting Worldwide Justice Alive
On 16 June 2025, the Greater Regional Court docket of Frankfurt sentenced a Syrian physician to life imprisonment for torturing and killing detainees in army hospitals run by the Assad regime. The decision marks not solely a milestone for the households of the victims and survivors of a regime that took over 200,000 lives and compelled greater than six million individuals to flee, but additionally serves as a strong affirmation of worldwide legal regulation. As worldwide establishments face mounting stress and political obstruction, home courts have gotten central to the enforcement of accountability. Removed from being mere substitutes, they more and more operate because the structural spine of worldwide legal justice – upholding its norms, compensating for its institutional weaknesses, and retaining its promise alive. This case underscores the transformative potential of common jurisdiction: not as an summary authorized precept, however as a functioning mechanism for justice.
What’s the Worldwide Legal Court docket’s function in holding members of the previous Assad regime accountable?
The trial and conviction of Alaa M. (judgment of 16.06.2025, Case No. 5 – 3 StE 2/21-4 – 2/21) is a reminder that home proceedings usually fill an accountability hole inherent within the construction of the Worldwide Legal Court docket (ICC) and its relationship to the jurisdictions of its state events. From its inception, the ICC was designed as a court docket of “final resort”, intervening solely when states are unwilling or unable to prosecute worldwide crimes themselves. This so-called precept of complementarity, enshrined in Artwork. 17 (1)(a) of the Rome Statute of the ICC, limits the Court docket’s jurisdiction strictly to conditions through which home efforts to make sure accountability have failed.
But, within the face of systematic atrocities and the near-total collapse of the rule of regulation of their dwelling nation, many understandably flip to worldwide establishments, hoping for neutral investigation and credible prosecutions. In Syria’s case, the size and brutality of the battle have led to repeated calls to the ICC for a (re-)opening of the Syria State of affairs and investigation in addition to prosecution of these accountable. Many argue that justice for Syrians requires a global response.
Nevertheless, the ICC’s intervention hinges on questions round jurisdiction, i.e. whether or not the Court docket is permitted to place members of the previous Syrian authorities and army to trial for struggle crimes and crimes towards humanity allegations. In line with the Rome Statute, the Prosecutor might provoke investigations by him or herself (proprio motu investigations, Arts. 13 (c), 15), offered that the state on whose territory alleged crimes are perpetrated is a celebration to the Statute. Syria, nonetheless, has not ratified the Rome Statute or in any other case accepted the Court docket’s jurisdiction. One other means for the Court docket to train its jurisdiction could be a referral by the UN Safety Council (Artwork. 13 (b)), performing below Chapter VII of the United Nations Constitution which permits it to take coercive motion with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. That door was closed in 2014, when Russia and China, everlasting members of the Safety Council, used their veto to dam a referral – and there’s no indication that this political deadlock is prone to change.
Since neither situation is met, and a Safety Council referral stays off the desk, the ICC presently lacks a viable path to analyze or prosecute crimes dedicated in Syria. Consequently, former members of the Assad regime stay past the attain of worldwide justice – for now.
Common jurisdiction as a driving drive of worldwide legal regulation
Nevertheless, it will be a mistake to imagine that this geopolitical impasse guidelines out all types of justice for its victims and the Syrian individuals. Because the conviction of Alaa M. by the German Greater Regional Court docket reveals, accountability for atrocity crimes doesn’t rely solely on worldwide establishments. In recent times, a number of ICC state events have launched proceedings based mostly on the precept of common jurisdiction – prosecuting people for crimes dedicated overseas – no matter the place the crime occurred or the nationality of the perpetrator or sufferer.
Below common jurisdiction, states might examine and prosecute essentially the most severe worldwide crimes even within the absence of any territorial or private hyperlink to the case (see Precept 1 (1) of the Princeton Rules on Common Jurisdiction). The one requirement is that the accused is current on the prosecuting state’s territory. These home proceedings maintain huge potential for addressing extreme human rights violations and should not be underestimated.
Germany is extensively thought to be a pioneer on this discipline. The precept of common jurisdiction is codified in Artwork. 1 of its Code of Crimes In opposition to Worldwide Regulation (CCAIL – Völkerstrafgesetzbuch), and the German Federal Prosecutor Normal has opened quite a few investigations into extraterritorial crimes. Past instances regarding Afghanistan, Eritrea, The Gambia, Yemen, the DRC, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Chechnya, it’s above all, these referring to Syria and Iraq that stand out by way of scope and affect.
These investigations usually start as so-called structural investigation proceedings (Strukturermittlungsverfahren): a preliminary stage that focuses on mapping out the organizational context of alleged crimes and figuring out broader patterns of criminality earlier than particular person suspects are focused.
This strategy has confirmed significantly efficient within the Syrian context, the place structural investigations concentrate on alleged crimes dedicated by the Islamic State in addition to these attributed to former members of the Assad regime. Essentially the most distinguished instance stays the 2022 conviction of former intelligence officer Anwar R. for crimes towards humanity – the primary legal trial worldwide regarding the torturous practices of the previous Syrian regime.
The conviction of Alaa M.: one other trigger for hope
The judgment delivered by the Greater Regional Court docket on 16 June marks one other milestone for worldwide legal regulation. Alaa M. was discovered responsible of struggle crimes, together with the killing and merciless or inhumane remedy of protected individuals (Part 8 (1) Nos. 1 and 4, (6) No. 2 CCAIL), in addition to crimes towards humanity (killings, torture, and sexual violence, Part 7 (1) Nos. 1, 5 and 6 CCAIL), and homicide (Part 211 of the German Penal Code). The court docket concluded that he dedicated these crimes in Syria between 2011 and 2012 as a part of a bunch of medical doctors in Homs often called the “elimination group”, who focused civilians perceived as opponents of then-president Bashar al-Assad.
The investigations by the German Federal Prosecutor had been made attainable by the shut ties Alaa M. had inbuilt Germany. Born and educated in Homs, he labored in a army hospital in Damascus earlier than arriving in Germany in 2015. There, he resumed his medical profession as an orthopedic and trauma surgeon, settling in Hesse along with his spouse and two kids. It was solely after two Syrian refugees acknowledged him from their time in detention and reported him to the authorities that proceedings had been initiated. The trial lasted nearly three and a half years, throughout which greater than fifty witnesses had been heard. Their testimonies proved essential to the result, regardless of lots of them having lived below risk from the Assad regime till its collapse in 2024, making their participation all of the extra brave.
Centering profitable outcomes of home jurisprudence
Among the many many hardships the ICC presently faces, its incapability to adjudicate atrocity crimes in pressing and large-scale contexts is especially disheartening. In gentle of the immense struggling at stake, it’s all the extra essential that member states proceed to pursue justice in their very own nationwide courts, mirroring the Rome Statute framework and invoking the precept of common jurisdiction.
Such home proceedings shouldn’t be seen because the second-best choice. Whereas it’s true that nationwide trials might lack the ICC’s institutional sources and have to this point principally focused lower-ranking perpetrators of the Assad regime, they provide distinct benefits. By way of each effectivity and effectiveness, home courts can act extra swiftly and in higher proximity to affected communities. The trial of Alaa M. exemplifies this: it was initiated by survivors who acknowledged him, offered testimony, and thereby made the conviction attainable. Whereas the proceedings had been admittedly prolonged in his case – it took 188 trial days for the court docket to achieve a verdict, of which 155 had been dedicated to witness examination – they nonetheless required significantly much less time than worldwide trials, which span as much as six years.
Importantly, home courts performing below common jurisdiction can step in exactly when worldwide mechanisms fail – successfully reversing the complementarity precept. They not solely serve justice within the absence of worldwide avenues however might also lay the groundwork for future worldwide trials. In that, nationwide trials needs to be thought-about a central pillar of worldwide legal accountability, slightly than a much less fascinating substitute.
The rising variety of home instances making use of worldwide legal regulation is subsequently to be welcomed, even when – or exactly as a result of – it will definitely leads to fewer trials earlier than the ICC sooner or later. This may increasingly finally replicate the success, not the failure, of the worldwide legal justice system. As former Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo as soon as famous, the absence of trials earlier than the ICC is the perfect signal that worldwide legal regulation is working.
Within the case of Syria, it’s vital to spotlight the promise of nationwide proceedings. They reveal the constructive ripple results of a global authorized order that, regardless of its limitations, empowers states to behave. Nationwide trials addressing atrocity crimes ought to subsequently be acknowledged and constantly upheld: as a supply of justice, and as an indication of hope within the ongoing battle to take care of the rule of regulation internationally.
