Ali Ghaderi is a young refugee from Iran. He arrived in the UK five years ago through a family reunification scheme which was available at the time. Ali is proud of being a refugee; as a result, he invests effort into supporting other refugees and asylum-seekers who may have similar experiences to himself. Following his arrival in the UK, Ali took part in countless campaigns for the rights of refugees, often speaking on behalf of his community, and has worked with a number of organisations in the field of refugee and asylum-seekers rights and advocacy. This inspired Ali to found his own organisation, Babylon Migrants Project (Babylon), in October 2022, to support young refugees like himself. The organisation runs arts-based workshops for young refugees and asylum-seekers across London and the UK, with the slogan, ‘Community through Creativity’. In the year since it was founded, Babylon has gone from strength to strength, running twenty independent workshops, and over sixty workshops for external organisations such as the British Red Cross, Safe Passage, and Springboard Youth Academy. Through this, Babylon has reached 600 young people. However, despite the project’s success, and Ali’s personal success as director and founder of his own organisation, Ali’s position in the UK is uncertain. Due to the increasingly hostile nature of the UK’s immigration policy Ali feels insecure, and is concerned for those who participate in his organisation. Nevertheless, Ali does not give up hope. Babylon Migrants Project Ali describes his reasons for opening Babylon as deeply personal, stating: when I arrived in the UK as a teenager, life was hard. I had no friends, and being in a new country with a new language and culture can be very sad and painful. I do not want other young people who arrive in this country to feel the same way I did. I want them to feel welcome and accepted and be a big brother to them. Unsurprisingly, young refugees and asylum-seekers are some of the most vulnerable populations in the UK and are five times more likely to have mental health needs than the British population.[1][2] Following the ethos of ‘Community through Creativity’, Babylon addresses this issue by offering creative workshops, which provide young members from the migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking communities with a safe and welcoming space to socialise and forge connections. Creative outlets and activities are essential for the development of young refugees and asylum-seekers arriving in the UK, who face a huge amount of hardship, such as insecurity around their asylum claim, learning English, and integrating a new culture and society in the UK. The mental health benefits afforded by the opportunity to participate in creative activities are manifold, including: providing young refugees and asylum seekers with a safe space in which to heal and potentially discover and give voice to a new sense of self;[3] reducing feelings of stress by offering an outlet for communicating and negotiating the difficulties of their new lives, thus reducing risks of further mental health issues, distress, and trauma;[4] and enabling young refugees and asylum seekers to create supportive peer networks and community ties, since creative interventions typically happen in group settings and inherently entail elements of sociality and social synchronicity, reducing loneliness and social isolation.[5][6] The provision of creative spaces for expression and exploration are recommended to policymakers, due to their proven benefits of enabling participants to express experiences and emotions, create social connections, promote agency and empowerment, and improve mental health.[7][8][9] Creative activities also carry some specific benefits for refugee and asylum-seeking young people. For example, it is a highly effective medium to improve English speaking skills and build confidence in communication. This further develops the participants’ ability to team build social connections outside of Babylon and to exercise their agency in a way that can support their transitions through integration in the UK and adulthood.[10] Babylon offers creative workshops every two weeks to around fifteen young refugee and asylum-seeking young people. To ensure that the workshops are accessible to young people with limited funds, all of the workshops are free, including a communal meal at the end of the session, and Babylon reimburses participants for the cost of their travel to the sessions. One of the ways in which we aid our participants’ social development and support their mental health is by enabling participants to express their feelings and voices through the medium of fun. As Ali states, ‘silliness is something very important to me’. Many of the young people we work with at Babylon are in their late teens, experiencing a transition into adulthood that is made more complex and challenging due to their experiences. As a result, it is crucial to provide opportunities for participants to have fun and to be present in the moment. The positive impact of the workshops on the participants is palpable; the atmosphere is always overwhelmingly positive, the sense of community is prominent, and laughs and smiles colour the space. There is a sense of comfort that only an organisation which truly understands the meaning of community can achieve. One participant stated: I am really glad that I have joined the Babylon Project because, before I joined, I was really struggling with my anxiety and depression. I also felt lonely and was not able to express myself and share my thoughts with others. When I joined Babylon, all of this changed because they helped me overcome the difficulties and struggle of being lonely—stress, I would say! I believe Babylon is a very creative project because they run different types of activities that help you develop and network. Since I joined Babylon, I would say that I have improved a lot, especially my communication skills and confidence. Alongside its primary goal of supporting young refugees and asylum-seekers, Babylon also seeks to challenge negative stereotypes about refugees and asylum seekers by building bridges between participants and the British public. Whilst it is important to help people understand that refugees are not scary or threatening, it is also vital that refugees are not simply portrayed as helpless victims, with no agency. Both in scholarship and in practice, refugee and asylum-seeking young people tend to be portrayed as inherently vulnerable, traumatised, and helpless.[11] It is undeniable that, when working with refugee and asylum-seeking groups, it is crucial to take a trauma-informed approach. Many of the participants are simultaneously dealing with the traumas of their past whilst struggling to navigate their present and future, often having to battle the UK asylum system alongside this. However, it is important to remember that these young people are not defined by the struggles they face. They are refugees and asylum-seekers, of course, but they are also young people; as young people, they will be experiencing the joys and challenges that come with most transitions from adolescence into early adulthood. They will also be actively making choices for their present and future, including their career path, navigating relationships, and planning for their future. An excessive focus on the vulnerability of refugee and asylum-seeking young people often limits the acknowledgement of the multiplicity of identities that they inhabit. Whilst Ali had many positive experiences with organisations and NGOs in the UK, some left him with a sense of discomfort. He states: I started to join organisations and charities, and that boosted my energy and my mental health. I did not get good treatment from some organisations. I felt like they just wanted my story as a refugee, for their own profit, and did not really think about me as a human first. It made me feel uncomfortable. I do not want any of my participants to feel the same way. At Babylon, we work towards creating a safe space for our participants in which they can not only be comfortable, but also feel valued as multifaceted individuals. We celebrate our participants’ complexity and uniqueness, focusing on their strengths, passions, rather than on their pasts, or the challenges they face. If any of our participants wish to disclose information about their past or speak about challenges they are facing, we hold a safe space for them to do so. However, we never ask our participants to share their personal stories. As Ali often reminds people: ‘Yes, I am a refugee. But I am a human being first’. The Rwanda policy Describing the sessions run by Babylon paints a beautiful picture of community, laughter and integration for young refugees and asylum-seekers. Unfortunately, this does not reflect their lived reality. For years, the UK’s immigration system has been becoming increasingly aggressive; the government discourse focuses on preventing traffickers from exploiting vulnerable people who are seeking safety and on taking back control over migration flows in the UK. In April 2022, Boris Johnson announced the ‘UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership’ (the Rwanda policy), with the ultimate goal of ‘fixing’ the UK’s immigration system.[12][13] According to the UK Home Office, the plan was designed to disincentive asylum-seekers from embarking on dangerous journeys to England, particularly in small boats crossing the English Channel.[14] The plan was to offshore the asylum process to Rwanda by sending asylum- seekers to Rwanda to have their claims processed. Should their claim be found valid, they would receive refugee status in Rwanda. If not, they could be sent home, or to a third-country if they have the right of residence in that country. Under the deal, the UK pledged a £120 million investment into Rwanda’s economic development and promised that the majority of people being sent over would be single men who would be able to contribute to the Rwandan economy.[15] This plan was flawed from the start. In 2017, Israel cut a similar deal with Rwanda and deported around 4000 refugees there, predominantly from Sudan and Eritrea.[16] However, most of them found that they were unable to properly settle in Rwanda, reporting that they had no future in a country that was still rebuilding itself, spending their days with ‘nothing to do’.[17] Most of the refugees left Rwanda promptly, and Israel stopped the scheme.[18] Many asylum-seekers choose to travel to the UK because of linguistic, cultural, and family ties, and therefore would have no interest in settling in Rwanda. This clear evidence of the lack of functionality of the Rwanda scheme has been ignored by the UK government thus far. Despite the UK government’s supposed goal of protecting the economy and preventing traffickers from exploiting vulnerable people, the plan is ‘inhumane, expensive, and counterproductive’, potentially creating a more lucrative business for traffickers, who would have a new market in assisting people to escape Rwanda.[19] The problem with the scheme lies not only within the difficulty of its implementation, but also because it is an affront to the human rights of refugees. This ‘responsibility-shifting’ approach violates the principle of non-refoulement, one of the foundational premises of international refugee protection.[20] Further to this, UNHCR criticised the plan because Rwanda’s asylum system does not meet the sufficient guarantees necessary to ensure the safety of the asylum-seekers arriving there, including the denial of asylum-seekers’ right to choose where they settle.[21] Ali has been extremely active in fighting this policy. In January 2023, Ali drove his message directly to Westminster on an open-top bus, alongside Together with Refugees. Following this, Ali, alongside Together with Refugees, spoke with 15 MPs, to discuss the cruelness and inhumaneness of the scheme.[22] Ali comments that solidarity from MPs was really important, and that he felt listened to and supported during his day in Parliament. As of November 2023, the Supreme Court in the UK has ruled the Rwanda policy unlawful, and thus unimplementable in its current form. This has not, however, dissuaded Rishi Sunak, who has stated that the government would continue to work towards sending asylum-seekers to Rwanda, and is prepared to change UK laws to achieve this goal if necessary.[23] The Illegal Migration Act A year later however, another grotesque affront to the UK’s immigration system was proposed. In March 2023, Suella Braverman introduced the Illegal Migration Act (the Act), which passed through Parliament at lightning speed. The Act essentially eliminates access to the asylum-seeking system for anyone who arrives in the UK ‘irregularly’ (ie, without using formal resettlement routes.[24][25] The Act came into force on 20 July 2023. This new law makes it impossible to arrive in the UK before claiming and receiving asylum, regardless of individual circumstances, putting asylum-seekers at heightened risk of detention and destitution. The Act seriously threatens asylum-seeking children in particular for the following reasons: firstly, they will also lose their ability to claim asylum and settle in the UK. Whilst they will be safeguarded while they are minors, the moment they turn 18 they will face expulsion and have no recourse to public help;[26] and secondly, the Act makes Age Assessment mandatory through ‘scientific’ methods such as radiation. Any person who refuses to comply will be treated as an adult, thus facing immediate detention and removal.[27] It is still unclear exactly how this policy will work in practice, as the UK does not have arrangements with third countries in place to facilitate deportation, but it is likely that many vulnerable young people will face homelessness, trafficking, and destitution as a result. Life in the UK After being vocal about this issue on his twitter, Ali was attacked with anti-immigration sentiments. The comments ranged from people accusing Ali of wanting ‘illegal immigrants’ to ‘invade’ the UK, to personal attacks telling him he deserves to be deported. Ali states that bearing the brunt of anti-immigration sentiments in the UK made him feel ‘heart-broken’. Aside from the racist comments he received, Ali also faces the challenge of still not feeling settled in the UK, despite being here for five years. As a result of his complicated journey to the UK he faces many physical and mental health struggles which he is unable to get proper support for. His financial situation is also strained and he faces the stress of trying to secure a steady flow of income, after juggling the need to learn English and build his network and CV before he was able to find himself a suitable job. Ali also fears losing his accommodation, particularly in the face of a cost of living crisis coupled with the reluctance of property owners to rent to refugees. Having been close to homelessness several times in the last few years, Ali has not yet found a place he truly feels at home. The current anti-immigration policies that the UK government is pushing make Ali feel all the more insecure about his own safety and the safety of the Babylon participants. He states: I felt welcomed when I arrived in London, especially by the British public, but that is not the case any more. I do not have a feeling of security. The government is releasing news and laws about refugees and asylum-seekers so often; I am scared that one day that it will affect me as well. We do our best, and we do as much as we can, but we cannot support everyone. Most of the Babylon staff team are volunteers, so I cannot expect too much. I’m so proud of my amazing team, but I wish I would be able to pay them, because I know they would be able to give so much more. It is still unclear what the future holds for our participants. Although the Act is not being implemented currently (due to the lack of agreements with third countries for removal) this does not mean that the government will not find a way to implement it anyway. At Babylon, we are worried that the Home Office will simply cancel asylum claims and leave people undocumented on the streets of Britain, potentially making many of our participants unsafe. We are concerned that we will slowly be dealing with an increasing number of undocumented, homeless, young people, who have no access to public recourse, and are therefore at a heightened risk of trafficking, grooming and abuse. If this were to happen, it is still unclear to us how we will move forward. Will it be useful for us to be delivering creative workshops for young people living on the streets? However, despite all the hardships, Ali keeps a positive attitude. He firmly believes that public attitude and discourse can be changed. Ali consistently advocates for challenging those who have negative attitudes towards refugees. He believes that ‘instead of ignoring those people, and calling them racist or whatever, we should try and make them our allies’. Ali finds motivation in the challenge, stating that, ‘although people’s negative views hurt me, they also give me motivation to fight better and with more knowledge. I think if we want to win this fight, we need more allies, we need to bring people together, both those who support us and those who see us as enemies’. Challenging the stereotypes Refugees have made a huge social, economic, and social contribution to the UK for the last 460 years.[28] Some notable examples include Sir Mo Farah, Freddie Mercury, and even Albert Einstein.[29] Refugees contribute to the fabric of UK society in a way that is extremely worthwhile, through their unique gifts, talents, courage, and resilience.[30] Ali’s goal is to focus on the positive contributions migrants and refugees make in the UK, and Babylon is part of his strategy to do so. Over the next few months, Babylon will launch several programs aiming to fight negative stereotypes of refugees and asylum seekers. We are currently working on two plays, one professional and the other participatory, to show-case the many creative talents of our participants, as well as challenge the negative narratives that they face. We will also be creating a series of workshops around the asylum-system and the lived reality of young refugees and asylum-seekers, to be delivered to schools across the UK. Through this program, we hope to encourage and foster a sense of compassion and solidarity in the minds of young students in the UK, so they may better understand the lived experiences of refugees, and perhaps even become allies to the refugee cause. Ali calls for a renewed sense of solidarity towards refugees and asylum-seekers. He feels that the government’s current stance on immigration is not only inhumane, but is also a huge loss to the UK. Migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers are a huge part of the rich social fabric of the UK. They bring with them culture, food, skills, and ideas that the UK can only benefit from. Ali hopes that this can be recognised, and that more safe, legal routes can be created, so that people who need to escape their homes to build a new one do not only settle in the UK, but also continue to contribute to making it a multicultural, open, prosperous, and welcoming place. Ali’s journey towards a secure life in the UK has been, and continues to be, a struggle. Living in a country which does not seem to want to include you in its fabric would be a struggle for even the most brazen of us. However, despite all the personal, social, and political challenges that he faces, Ali continues to fight, and to remain hopeful. The tides of change may be coming. Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that the Rwanda policy is unlawful, indicating that there are still countless people in Britain who value the safety and the right to protection of refugees and asylum-seekers arriving in the UK. Although the battle is not yet won, we hope that this ruling will start to pave the way back towards a more compassionate asylum system. Ali dreams of a Britain where all people are accepted, their contributions are acknowledged, and safe routes for those in need are created. One where British people, migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees all live alongside each other, contributing to the country’s cultural heritage and celebrated as a truly United Kingdom for all. If, despite all he faces, Ali can remain positive, then is it not our responsibility to make sure we too keep fighting for the rights, security, and (ultimately) the happiness of young people like himself? Lerato Islam and Ali Ghaderi Lerato Islam is Programmes and Strategy Lead at Babylon Migrants Project. She is an Applied Theatre Practitioner, specializing in providing psychosocial and linguistic support through Drama, who principally works with cohorts of teenage refugee and asylum seekers. Ali Ghaderi is the Founder and Director of Babylon Migrants Project, an organisation run by and for refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, engaged in creative workshops such as theatre, film making, art, storytelling and community. He is also an actor, activist, and facilitator. [1] The Childhood Trust, ‘A Place Called Home—Refugee Children in London’ (Youtube, 17 April 2023) accessed 11 December 2023. [2] Refugee Council, ‘Identity Crisis: How the age dispute process puts refugee children at risk’ (Refugee Council, September 2022) accessed 11 December 2023. [3] Zahra Akthar and Andrew Lovell, ‘Art therapy with refugee children: A qualitative study explored through the lens of art therapists and their experiences’ (2018) 24(3) International Journal of Art Therapy 139, 139-148. [4] A Dubs, K Hay, and C Jones, ‘Mental health and child refugees’ (2022) 34(6) International Review of Psychiatry 596, 596-603. [5] ibid. [6] Kathryn Marsh, ‘Creating bridges: music, play and well-being in the lives of refugee and immigrant children and young people’ (2016) 19(1) Music Education Research 60, 60-73. [7] The Baring Foundation, ‘Creatively Minded and Refugees’ (The Baring Foundation, 20 June 2023) accessed 11 December 2023. [8] Elizabeth Yarrow, ‘A Refugee and then...Participatory Assessment of the Reception and Early Integration of Unaccompanied Refugee Children in the UK’ (The UN Refugee Agency, June 2019) < https://www.unhcr.org/uk/sites/uk/files/legacy-pdf/5d271c6a4.pdf> accessed 11 December 2023. [9] Akthar and Lovell (n 3). [10] Geraldene Codina and Judith Szenasi ‘Educational provision for newly arrived unaccompanied sanctuary seekers aged 15–16’ (2022) International Journal of Inclusive Education 1, 1–18. [11] Donna Gaywood, Tony Bertram, and Chris Pascal ‘Involving refugee children in research: emerging ethical and positioning issues’ (2020) 28(1) European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 149, 149-162. [12] William Booth, ‘Britain to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda to cut illegal sea crossings’ The Washington Post (Washington DC, 14 April 2022) accessed 11 December 2023. [13] Ikaba Koyi, ‘Analysis: Rwanda-UK asylum deal may cause regional refugee crisis’ Al Jazeera (14 June 2022) accessed 11 December 2023. [14] BBC News, ‘What was the UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda?’ (BBC News, 11 December 2023) accessed 11 December 2023. [15] Zuhal Demirvci, ‘UK establishing its own ‘Guantanamo’ by sending asylum seekers to Rwanda’ (Anadolu Ajansi, 15 April 2022) accessed 11 December 2023. [16] Christiano d’Orsi, ‘Outsourcing asylum seekers: the case of Rwanda and the UK’. The Conversation (14 April 2022) accessed 11 December 2023. [17] Cristina Krippahl, ‘Rwanda vows to resettle UK asylum-seekers despite criticism’ (InfoMigrants, 15 June 2022) accessed 11 December 2023. [18] D’Orsi (n 16) [19] Tim Farron, ‘UK’s Rwanda asylum plans are shallow, expensive, and counterproductive’ (Politics.co.uk, 13 June 2022) accessed 11 December 2023. [20] Sonia Morano-Foadi and Micaela Malena, ‘Rethinking access to asylum: Border-shifting, burdenshifting, and externalisation of international protection in the light of the UK-Rwanda arrangement’ in Kahina Le Louvier and Karen Latricia Hough (eds), UK Borderscapes: Sites of Enforcement and Resistance (Routledge 2024) 66–80. [21] Michael Collyer and Uttara Shahani, ‘Offshoring Refugees: Colonial Echoes of the UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership’ (2023) 12(8) Social Sciences, MDPI 1, 1-17. [22] Together with Refugees, ‘Refugee activist Ali Ghaderi on his day at Parliament’ (Together with Refugees, 2023) https://togetherwithrefugees.org.uk/refugee-activist-ali-ghaderi-on-his-day-at-parliament/ accessed 11 December 2023. [23] Dominic Casciani and Sean Seddon, ‘Supreme Court rules Rwanda asylum policy unlawful’ (BBC News, 15 November 2023) accessed 11 December 2023. [24] Home Office, ‘Illegal Migration Bill: overarching factsheet’ (Gov.uk, 20 July 2023) accessed 11 December 2023. [25] UN News, ‘UK Bill ‘significantly erodes’ human rights and refugee protections, UN agencies warn’ (UN News, 18 July 2023) accessed 11 December 2023. [26] Patrick Butler, ‘UK’s migration bill could put thousands of children ‘into arms of criminals’’ Guardian (London, 24 March 2023) accessed 11 December 2023. [27 Home Office (n 24) [28] D’Orsi (n 16) [29] Siva Thangarajah, ‘Famous UK refugees from footballers to pop stars’ (imix, 4 June 2021) accessed 11 December 2023. [30] Summer Goodkind, ‘Lily Cole: Government’s Rwanda asylum plan ‘like something in a dystopian film’’ Independent (London, 20 April 2022) accessed 11 December 2023.

Nadia Murad is a Yazidi human rights activist. In 2014, she was abducted from her hometown in Iraq, Kocho, by the Islamic State, as part of the Yazidi genocide. After her escape, she founded Nadia's Initiative, which advocates for survivors of sexual violence. In 2018, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Denis Mukwege for her fight to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflicts. CJLPA: Throughout history and to present day, we see that whenever armed conflict arises, rape and brutality against women and girls follow. Just recently, we see it repeat in Palestine, Israel, and Ukraine. Outside of war, we see it embedded in society with high rape crimes, forced marriages, inability to choose what we do with our body (whether wanting an abortion or the force of FGM). We expect more for women’s rights. Despite acclaimed efforts from the UN, NGOs, and Member States, in your opinion why does inequality remain a leading global crisis to combat? Nadia Murad: This is a really interesting question, and you are right because women, wherever in the world they live, are still not afforded true equality. This inequality is historical, systemic, and cultural. It exists because no one in power has ever felt the want or need to change it. Why would they? To truly combat inequality, we need to completely rethink the way we approach society. From their earliest years, children need to see gender equality modelled at home. Both boys and girls should have access to secondary schooling, where the curriculum promotes equality, and the infrastructure of the school building allows girls privacy when changing for sports lessons and access to facilities and necessary products when they have their periods. Additionally, equality needs to be built into our systems. That begins with basic rights like bodily autonomy and equal pay—but carries on into meaningful female representation in politics, the judiciary and in policy work. I think we need to look very carefully at our world and ask if it is working well as it is—or do we need to change the way we think? CJLPA: Further to the above, what are the biggest disappointments from the international community and their responses in respect to helping the victims of sexual violence from armed conflicts? This could be inaction during the conflict, perhaps enabling it (funding state actors responsible), or the response in helping victims after. NM: I am always disappointed when survivors, like me, give so much of ourselves to tell our stories on a public platform, just to be met with kind words but little meaningful action. From the earliest records of history to the first written stories and poems, women have been used and abused in wartime. For thousands of years it has been accepted. As we saw in Iraq, this abuse is not a momentary loss of morals in the midst of battle on the part of the perpetrators. It is a tactic deployed to break not only the women, but their communities as well. In Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) used rape as a weapon of genocide. I have been calling for 9 years for the ISIS militants who raped my friends and family members in Iraq to be tried for their crimes. Thousands of Yazidi girls have given testimonies to investigators—at personal cost. Yet only 3 militants have been to court on the charge of genocide. I am disappointed that the international community and the Iraqi government isn’t moving faster here. After all, unless we start showing the world that these kind of heinous crimes will not be tolerated, then sexual violence in conflict will continue with impunity for perpetrators. This perhaps feeds back into your first question about inequality. Perhaps the international community doesn’t see rape and the ensuing lifelong trauma as problematic enough. It still accepts rape, which mainly happens to women, as simply a side effect of wars begun by men. CJLPA: What has been overshadowed and not emphasized enough in our world and yet is fundamental for our understanding in helping the victims of the targeted violence against the Yazidi women, and victims from all armed conflicts? NM: I don’t believe enough emphasis is placed on survivor-centred policies. Only survivors know what they need and what is best for them and their communities for the long term. That’s why Nadia’s Initiative works with and for survivors in Sinjar to rebuild infrastructure like schools and hospitals, but also run educational and economic programs and projects. I think that authorities and organizations are often not practical enough in the help they give the victims of conflict related sexual violence. These survivors, who are often stigmatized, need meaningful reparations to rebuild their lives. This could come in financial form, but also in psycho-social support or help with housing. There is also another dimension to the support we can give survivors, and that is how they are treated by investigators and reporters. These vulnerable women are at risk of retraumatisation every time they re-tell their story. This is why I happily put my name to the Murad Code, which is a code of conduct that investigators and reporters should adhere to when speaking to survivors. It allows them agency and control whilst promoting honesty and safety throughout the process. CJLPA: For you, what is the meaning of ‘justice’?  Can we ever find ‘justice’ for even the most grotesque crimes against humanity such as those inflicted on the Yazidi women and girls? If so, how? NM: I am often asked this question and I have come to believe that justice is multifaceted. For my community it is certainly judicial; our attackers must be held accountable in court for the evil crimes they committed against us. However, justice can also be more practical; we must rescue the missing women and girls so families can be reunited and reparations can be granted so lives can begin again. Justice can also be more emotional; it can be having a space to grieve for our lost loved ones and it can be found in the acknowledgment of our pain. And, justice can also be found in healing and surviving, in showing the ISIS militants that they did not succeed in eradicating the Yazidi community. CJLPA: How would you like to see the perpetrators held accountable for these crimes? NM: My counsel, the barrister Amal Clooney, and I, have been advocating for the implementation of a hybrid court. It would be an internationally supported tribunal which would sit in Baghdad and act as a continuation of UNITAD (the UN team which is investigating ISIS crimes in Iraq). There are a vast number of fighters to process, more than any national court could process at scale, so there would have to be international cooperation and financial backing. This hybrid court would need to be operated in tandem with another country which could then hold homegrown and foreign fighters accountable for the crime of genocide. At the moment they are charged with ‘membership of a terrorist organisation’ which is far more anodyne than the genocide charge of which they are also guilty. CJLPA: Can you walk us through what happened to the Yazidi women and children upon their escape? What reparations did they receive and to what extent were they supported psychologically and financially? NM: Everyone has a different story. I lived in an Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp with survivors from my family and then was taken to Germany as a refugee. Thousands of other girls like me are still in camps, without access to privacy, education, or employment. Although the Iraqi government promised reparations—and I am pleased that some Yazidis have benefitted—it has been increasingly hard for many survivors to access them. It is worth saying though that at least two thousand Yazidi women are still in captivity and we also need to work hard to get them home. CJLPA: Further to the above, can you speak about the support that is missing for victims currently? NM: I think that policymakers are often fixed on the short-term and the quick fix for survivors. However, rebuilding communities sustainably requires long-term vision and planning. That's why my initiative plans for decades rather than days. We run economic empowerment and educational programs. We help women set up businesses and then give the support they need to succeed. Survivors need to know they have a long future in which they can be safe, active, and equal participants in their communities. CJLPA: How can the international community help prevent sexual violence from occurring in conflicts? Are there countries currently that you have seen have begun an inspiring change in their policy that other countries should follow? NM: The international community must start prosecuting perpetrators of sexual violence in conflict so that it is universally acknowledged that it is not acceptable in any country, in any instance. Germany has led the way in prosecuting its ISIS citizens—but much more needs to be done globally. CJLPA: You have devoted your life to combat the sexual violence occurring in conflicts and to help save women and children falling victim to these inhumane crimes. You are constantly meeting with policymakers, NGOs, the UN, and going before the courts. How has this experience been to date? Do you find they are responding with the urgency needed? NM: There is never enough urgency. When I wrote my book, which details the horror of my experience, I said that I wanted to be the last girl this happens to. But I haven’t been the last. There have been so many more which is heartbreaking. It’s not due to a lack of political will, but a lack of political action. I don’t advocate at the UN and with other policy makers just for Yazidi girls, but for all girls. And if we want to keep our girls safe, there has to be a stronger framework. CJLPA: Further to the above, what laws—domestic and international law—do you think need to change in order to ensure accountability? Inaction is a crime in itself. It is one thing to hold the perpetrators accountable, but what about the countries that are able, but unwilling to help? NM: I believe that you are right when you say that inaction is a crime in itself. I often think of the governments who looked the other way when my community was under brutal attack. One of the first steps they can take now is to officially recognise the murder of Yazidis in 2014 as a genocide. The second step is to adopt universal jurisdiction so that more foreign fighters can be prosecuted. Beyond that I would advocate for reparations for survivors to be put into law. I have been advocating for reparations for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), not just in Iraq, but in other countries where sexual violence has been used in conflict, including in Ukraine, where I asked the President of Ukraine to consider passing a law that will enable survivors of CRSV to receive reparations. CJLPA: You created The Murad Code Project which is a set of guidelines aimed at building a community of better practice for, with, and concerning survivors of systematic and conflict-related sexual violence. Can you briefly walk us through what prompted you to this initiative and your hopes for how it will be used moving forward? NM: When I first started telling my story, I was interviewed by many investigators and reporters. Some of them had my best interests at heart and treated me with kindness and gave me agency. However, many did not. I was not always aware of how my story would be used and I was subjected to questioning that was heartless. Therefore, I wanted to lend my name, experiences, and expertise to a code that worked to protect other survivors from this. The Murad Code lays out the bare minimum of standards that interviewers should adhere to when they speak to traumatised survivors. It has also been translated into a number of different languages so that survivors know how they should be treated by their interlocutors. I hope that eventually it will be put into policy frameworks, as well as newsrooms, so that survivors are treated as people with agency, not a walking headline. CJLPA: What is a final message you would like to send to the reader, in the name of spreading awareness and inspiring hope? NM: There is always hope. Even when the world seems dark, there are good people working for justice, peace, and a stable future. This interview was conducted by Nadia Jahnecke, Legal Editor and Founder of Human Rights Volume of CJLPA 3. In addition to her role at CJLPA, Nadia is a qualified lawyer in England & Wales specialising in public international law.

I. Introduction 2014 was the beginning of a turbulent but crucial journey for the Ukrainian identity to gain a foothold. In February of that year, parallel to the unfolding of the Euromaidan,[1] five Ukrainian museums lent invaluable historical treasures known as the ‘Crimean Gold’—a collection of over 500 objects—[2]to the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam (‘AP Museum’) as part of a touring exhibition titled ‘Crimea: The Golden Island in the Black Sea’.[3] The uniqueness of this exhibition attracted more than 100,000 visitors.[4] However, soon after the collection was put on display in March 2014, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Federation.[5] While 19 objects were returned to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in Kyiv,[6] the remaining objects became the subject of a dispute between the State of Ukraine, four museums in the annexed Crimea (the ‘Crimean Museums’), and the AP Museum. The question for the AP Museum was whom the collection should be returned to—was it the State of Ukraine, to whose Museum Fund these artifacts belong, or the Crimean Museums, which lent them?[7] The answer to this question would determine whether the Crimean Gold is part of Ukrainian heritage. And with the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian Federation on 24 February 2022, the question of preservation of the Ukrainian heritage gained even more importance. II. Crimean Gold—Ukrainian Heritage? In pursuit of answers, the Crimean Museums initiated a legal action against the AP Museum on 19 November 2014 in the Netherlands,[8] to which Ukraine has been involved as an intervening party.[9] In determining whom the Crimean Gold should be returned to, the District Court of Amsterdam (‘Court’) evaluated whether (i) there has been an illicit transfer of the artifacts; (ii) if yes, who has the right to claim their return, and therefore to whose heritage it belongs. In doing so, the Court applied the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (‘1970 UNESCO Convention’),[10] which was implemented in the 2016 Dutch Heritage Act and used the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects (‘1995 UNIDROIT Convention’) as an ‘inspiration’ for interpreting the legal standards used broadly.[11] First, for the artifacts to be claimed for return, the fact of their illicit transfer from the country of origin should be established. Here, the Court used the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention to broaden the provisions in the 1970 UNESCO Convention applied.[12] Some of the named principles support the notion that the lex originis of the artifact is key to determine the lawfulness of a transfer.[13] This means that the illicitness of the transfer shall be resolved by the law of the State of origin of the cultural object.[14] In Ukraine, as the State originis, under Article 23 of the Law on Export, Import, and Restitution of Cultural Objects (‘Ukrainian Law on Cultural Objects’), for the transfer to be illicit, the latter should not have been returned to the territory of the requesting State at the time prescribed by the loan agreement.[15] Although this provision requires the transfer, ie the export or import, of the cultural objects to be illicit, the Court interpreted this rule broadly, following the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention approach,[16] to also include the case of non-return of the objects.[17] In this case, the loan agreements obliged the AP Museum to return the Crimean Gold to the five Ukrainian museums by September 2014. Having returned some to the National Museum of History of Ukraine, the retention of the Crimean Gold from four Crimean Museums beyond the return date was considered to be illicit.[18] Second, having established an illicit retention, the Court continued by turning to the 2016 Dutch Heritage Act, which in Article 6.7 provides that return may be claimed either by ‘the State Party from which the property originates or by the party with a valid title to such property’.[19] This provision therefore allows, alongside States, also non-State deprived owners to claim return of the artifacts,[20] meaning that both Ukraine and the Crimean Museums could bring the return claim. This broad approach also arises out of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention.[21] Nevertheless, while both Ukraine and the Crimean Museums could bring the return claim, the question now was whose claim would succeed: whose cultural heritage did the artifacts belong to? The Court was not convinced by the Crimean Museums’ arguments that the Crimean Gold had stronger cultural-historical links to Crimea as a physical place and should therefore be returned to its ‘true home’.[22] Instead, the Court sided with Ukraine, which claimed return of the Crimean Gold as objects of national patrimony and state property based on Ukrainian law, which designates the artifacts of the Crimean Museums as such.[23] Such national patrimony establishes a ‘genuine link’ from a cultural-historical perspective,[24] and therefore overrides the ‘operational management’ of the Crimean Museums over the Crimean Gold under the loan agreements. And here, the annexation of Crimea is irrelevant to the legal status of the named Ukrainian-registered cultural objects,[25] as Ukraine had transferred the named ‘operational management’ over Crimea-based cultural objects to the National Historical Museum of Ukraine shortly after the annexation.[26] Crimea—or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as provided in the Constitution of Ukraine—has been part of independent Ukraine since 1991.[27] Although Crimea enjoys some autonomy in administering its historical objects,[28] the Court held that, in case of concurring claims between a State and a non-State party, the claim of the State which protects the artifacts as national patrimony will prevail.[29] At the same time, the Court refrained from ruling on the question of ownership over the Crimean Gold relying on Article 1012 of the Dutch Code of Civil Procedure, which states that ‘ownership of the cultural object that is subject to a return request by a State Party will be decided upon after return by the national laws of the state that claimed for its return’,[30] ie after the objects return to Ukraine in accordance with its laws. Nevertheless, the Court held that the Crimean Gold is indeed Ukrainian heritage. This made Ukraine one step closer to restoring and maintaining its sustainable preserving of the artifacts. However, not satisfied with the decision of the Court, the Crimean Museums lodged an appeal with hopes of having the ruling overturned. In its grievance, the Crimean Museums restated that the Crimean Gold had no links to Ukraine, but rather to the Crimean Peninsula and therefore should be returned to the latter. The Court of Appeal, faced with this intricate issue before it, came to a decision after more than two years of consideration. It ultimately upheld the Court’s assessment: the Crimean Gold shall be returned to Ukraine.[31] However, in coming to its decision, the Court of Appeal pointed out several ‘buts’. A. The first ‘but’: there has been no illicit retention of the Crimean Gold by the AP Museum While Ukraine had based its claim on Article 6.7 of the 2016 Dutch Heritage Act, as discussed above, in their appeal, the Crimean Museums focused their claims on Article 6.3 of the same act. They argued that the retention of the Crimean Gold by the AP Museum beyond the term prescribed in the loan agreements resulted in an illicit export of the Crimean Gold in the sense of Article 6.3.[32] Here, Article 6.3 of the 2016 Dutch Heritage Act provides that: It is prohibited to bring into the Netherlands cultural property that: a. has been taken outside the territory [1] of a Contracting State in violation of the provisions adopted by that Contracting State in accordance with the objectives of the 1970 UNESCO Convention with regard to the export [2] of cultural property from that State Party or with regard to the transfer of ownership of cultural property; or b. has been stolen from a contracting state.[33] The Court of Appeal began the evaluation of the Crimean Museums’ claim by right away establishing that Article 6.3(b) is not relevant as there has been no theft of cultural property.[34] While Article 6.3(a), in the parts relevant to the factual pattern of the dispute, provides for two issues which the Court of Appeal had put a finger on. First, the judges established that at the time the Crimean Gold was initially ‘taken outside the territory’ of Ukraine, such taking outside the territory was legal and there had been no violation in the meaning of the 1970 UNESCO Convention (the language of which, inter alia, Article 6.3 adopted). The Court of Appeal specifically mentioned that the Crimean Gold had quite a journey from Ukraine to Germany and finally to the Netherlands in accordance with the validly executed export licenses issued by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.[35] For these reasons, the initial ‘tak[ing] outside the territory’ of Ukraine lacked any breaches. And second, the question for the judges to resolve therefore orbited around the following issue: whether the term ‘export’ in Article 6.3(a) should be interpreted broadly as to include the retention of the cultural property beyond the term enshrined in the loan agreements. If yes, whether such retention is legal or would otherwise result in an ‘illicit export’, as the Crimean Museums suggest. To recall, the District Court had engaged in an interpretation of the same matter by reverting to the broad approach found in the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention and therefore coming to a positive answer to this question. On the appeal stage, however, the judges considered this instrument irrelevant and not applicable.[36] For this reason, the Court of Appeal relied on the 1970 UNESCO Convention, in particular its object and purpose, preamble,[37] and Articles 2(1), 3 and 6(b) in establishing the scope of the term ‘export’.[38] After looking at these provisions, the judges concluded that the 1970 UNESCO Convention was meant to give the terms ‘export’ (and ‘import’) nothing more than their ordinary meaning. Therefore, this instrument only addresses situations in which illicit acts are committed at the time when the cultural property is transferred from one country to another, and this does not include cases when illicit acts occur if the cultural property remains in the other country longer than permitted.[39] The retention of the Crimean Gold by the AP Museum was therefore legal,[40] and as such, contrary to the flawed belief of the Crimean Museums, cannot be regarded as an ‘illicit export’. At the end of the day, as the Court of Appeal underlined, the reason why the AP Museum retained the Crimean Gold was not because it wished ‘to embezzle the Crimean [Gold]’ or engage in ‘other illicit practices’,[41] but simply because Ukraine is against its cultural heritage being returned to the illegally occupied Crimean Peninsula (effectively controlled by the Russian Federation). Although the judges did comment that ‘handing over the museum pieces to the Crimean Museums would in no way imply recognition of the secession of Crimea from Ukraine and its affiliation with the Russian Federation’.[42] B. The second ‘but’: in any case, the 2016 Dutch Heritage Act and the Ukrainian Law on Cultural Objects do not apply Despite all the evaluation of Articles 6.7 and 6.3 of the 2016 Dutch Heritage Act, the Court of Appeal held that this instrument was not applicable in the case at hand. The simple reason being that there had been no cause of action able to ‘activate’ these provisions. In particular, as discussed above, Article 6.7 enshrined the right of the State originis as the claiming party, while Article 6.3 enlisted grounds entitling such a claiming party for the establishment of an illicit activity over cultural property. Neither provision applied individually because they were designed to work in tandem. While in practice, the Crimean Museums, seeing the disadvantage for its position had it relied on Article 6.7, and same as Ukraine, seeing the disadvantage for its position had it relied on Article 6.3, both avoided mentioning the two provisions together. This was picked up by the Court of Appeal, which ultimately concluded that since the Crimean Gold was ‘taken outside the territory’ of Ukraine legally, and since the resulting retention by the AP Museum was legal, neither article was applicable.[43] In a similar manner, contrary to the decision of the District Court, which evaluated Article 1012 of the Dutch Code of Civil Procedure, providing that ‘ownership of the cultural object that is subject to a return request by a State Party will be decided upon after return by the national laws of the state that claimed for its return’, the Court of Appeal held that this provision is only applicable to claims based on Article 6.7 of the 2016 Dutch Heritage Act. And since such a claim failed, as shown above, there can be no application of Article 1012 of the Dutch Code of Civil Procedure, and in turn, the Ukrainian Law on Cultural Objects, which it would trigger.[44] C. So, what did apply? Now, the question arises: what did the Court of Appeal apply in coming to its decision? In essence, the Court of Appeal ruled on the cultural heritage issue based on the evaluation of the ‘[r]ights to the museum exhibits of a proprietary nature (and restrictions thereon under Ukrainian Law)’.[45] The parties did not object to the Crimean Gold belonging to the Ukrainian Museum Fund and being governed by the Law of Ukraine on Museums.[46] The Court of Appeal therefore evaluated the following Ukrainian Laws. First, the Law of Ukraine on Museums. It was enacted in 1995 and is designed to preserve Ukrainian cultural heritage and provides for limitations as to the exercise of the rights over cultural property.[47] In this vein, the Court of Appeal noted the steps that Ukraine had taken to safeguard its cultural property, namely: On 20 July 2000, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, on the basis of the Law of Ukraine on Museums, had introduced a Regulation on the Museum Fund of Ukraine (‘Regulation’), with provisions relating to, inter alia, alienation of cultural objects.[48] On 23 March 2014, soon after the unfolding of the Euromaidan, the Regulation was supplemented by Article 41.1 which authorised the Minister of Culture of Ukraine to make decisions with regards to the cultural property which became subject to a force majeure situation (risk of destruction, loss, or damage). On 13 May 2014, such a decision was indeed made by the Minister of Culture of Ukraine, by results of which it was decided that cultural property subject to force majeure were to be temporarily transferred to the National Museum of History of Ukraine in Kyiv.[49] And second, the Court of Appeal looked at Article 13 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 18 of the Law of Ukraine on Protection of Archaeological Heritage, which both establish Ukrainian cultural property as part of the Museum Fund of Ukraine.[50] As a result of these laws and regulations, Ukraine argued that the Autonomous Republic of Crimea could not be considered as the rightful ‘owner’ of the Crimean Gold. Although the Autonomous Republic of Crimea does exercise some autonomy in managing the museum artefacts, as discussed above, at best, as Ukraine argued, the prior could be the owner of the buildings where its museums were located, and not its contents.[51] The Crimean Museums, not satisfied with the Regulation and the decision of the Minister of Culture of Ukraine above, objected in the court proceedings that a force majeure situation had indeed occurred,[52] and in essence that (i) the Ukrainian Laws above are not relevant since the Crimean Museums held the ‘operational management’ over the Crimean Gold under the loan agreements; and again, (ii) simply because the Crimean Gold has direct links to the Crimean Peninsula, in contrast to Ukraine. Based on the evaluation of the above, the Court of Appeal first and foremost underscored that it will not be deciding on the matters of ownership, similar to the position of the District Court, as it is not decisive in the matter.[53] Nevertheless, it did hold that although the Crimean Gold did originate from Crimea and can be regarded as Crimean heritage, it is still cultural heritage of Ukraine. This is so because Ukraine has existed as an independent State since 1991.[54] And because of this, Ukraine has an overriding interest in preserving the artefacts. It had not only safeguarded its interest by enacting the Law of Ukraine on Museums, but also by continuously created a regime of protection of its cultural heritage (including the Regulation).[55] The Court of Appeal was therefore convinced that Ukraine’s interest in preserving its national patrimony shall be given a priority over any private right.[56] This approach has also been recently upheld by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands on 9 July 2023.[57] III. Crimean Gold—Ukrainian Heritage! As the Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court all determined the Crimean Gold as part of Ukrainian heritage, the fact of it being in dispute in the first place interrupted the sustainable development of the culture of Ukraine. From 2014 to the decision of the Supreme Court, the Crimean Gold remained stored in the AP Museum. Given the geopolitical tensions between Ukraine and the Russian Federation in Crimea which started in 2014, and now in the conditions of a full-scale war started by the Russian Federation, the Crimean Gold was made a ‘hostage of geopolitics’ for more than eight years. This, in turn, has impacted Ukraine’s ability to protect and safeguard its cultural heritage, which has a historical, social, and anthropological value,[58] and is an enabler of sustainable development of the country.[59] The very concept of sustainable development ‘would mean achieving a state of…economic, and social improvement that could be reasonably maintained indefinitely’[60] and ‘would not slow down’.[61] For Ukraine, this development has been impacted since the commencement of the litigation over the Crimean Gold: ‘indefinite’ maintenance was in question and the development had in fact ‘slowed down’. It is crucial, as ‘cultural heritage plays a marginal role’ in contributing ‘significantly to the sustainable development’ of a State .[62] In view of its significance, in September 2015, cultural heritage has been included in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (‘SDG’) being a universal agenda which seeks to strengthen the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability by 2030.[63] Ukraine, alongside 192 other States, has committed to the 17 SDGs, which although do not identify cultural heritage as a separate goal, integrated it into SDG 11.4. This goal relevantly calls for strengthening efforts to protect cultural and historical heritage.[64] It is crucial because ‘you cannot build a society purely on interests, you need a sense of belonging’—a phrase once said by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a former president of France, which greatly describes the essence of SDG 11.4. This target specifically addresses cultural heritage. It calls to ‘strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage’.[65] The UNESCO World Heritage and Sustainable Development Programme, among other benefits of successful preserving of cultural heritage, depicts that heritage related activities help people recover a sense of continuity.[66] It further underscores that it cultivates ‘a sense of belonging’,[67] and defines its citizens’ shared identity.[68] Notably, when it comes to the Crimean Peninsula, where the Crimean Gold was excavated, it is very rich in archaeological sites called ‘kurgans’, burial mounds carrying weapons, dishes, statues, and many more items of Scythians, Greeks, and Goths.[69] Exactly these kurgans held the secrets of Scythians, ancient nomadic people who resided in the coastal areas of the Black Sea and Crimea in 900-100 BC.[70] Kyivan Rus’, which had centuries thereafter emerged in the territory of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula, considered itself a successor of Scythians.[71] Now, almost 1,100 years after the emerging of Kyivan Rus’, modern independent Ukraine is preserving the archaeological treasures excavated in Crimea under its sovereignty and part of its long-lasting identity. Although the litigation over the Crimean Gold endangered its prompt return to Ukraine, as well as because soon after the above proceedings commenced, the Russian Federation enforced a law including the Crimean Gold in its national artefacts’ registry,[72] the success of Ukraine in the dispute is an important step towards restoring its heritage and bringing it where it belongs. For instance, similar circumstance had occurred in relation to a fourteenth-century bronze Buddha statue stolen from a Kannon Temple in Tsushima Island in October 2012.[73] Here, South Korea had initiated proceedings in the Daejon District Court, where it was similarly tasked to decide where the statue should be returned to: Japan, who kept the stolen statue; or South Korea, whose heritage it was part of. The Daejon District Court ultimately decided that the statue should be returned to a South Korean Buddhist Buseok Temple, noting that the statue contained ancient scripts describing its origin (South Korean), which the Daejon District Court linked to the invasion of South Korea by Japan in the fourteenth century.[74] By doing so, the Daejon District Court respected the strong cultural-historical link of the statue to the country of its origin, relying on the 1970 UNESCO Convention, regardless of the statue being stolen during the invasion of South Korea. Although the case with respect to the Crimean Gold does not consider larceny, the essence of this ruling denotes the weight which the State originis has in relation to its cultural heritage—a principle which originated from the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention.[75] Precisely the same is observed in the case of the Crimean Gold. Returning it to Ukraine would restore its heritage for the future generations and preserve people’s sense of belonging. IV. Conclusion ‘A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots’, as Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican-born African American politician, once famously said. Similarly, not having access to one’s heritage endangers its future. In this case, the Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court, although using different approaches to evaluate the matter, all came to the same conclusion: the Crimean Gold is an inherent part of Ukrainian heritage and shall therefore be returned to Ukraine. Thus, the Crimean Gold has found its long way back home and with its return Ukraine can begin to restore the ‘roots’ of its tree of heritage. Leila Kazimi Leila Kazimi is a Ukrainian dispute resolution lawyer specialising in international commercial and investment arbitration. [1] Rudolf Kasinec and Marián Šuška, ‘Case of the Crimean Treasures—to Whom Should the Treasures be Returned?’ (2020) 62 Scientific Journal of the Uzhhorod National University 16. [2] Lyudmila Strokova, ‘Crimea. Golden Island in the Black Sea. Chronicle of the struggle for the “Scythian gold” of Ukraine’ (The Voice of Crimea, 6 July 2020) accessed 10 March 2024. The five museums are (one in Kyiv and four in Crimea): The National Museum of History of Ukraine (Kyiv), the Central Museum of Tavrida (Simferopol), the Kerch Historical and Cultural Preserve (Kerch), the Bakhchisaray History and Culture State Preserve of the Republic of Crimea (Bakhchisaray), and the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos (Sevastopol). See Amsterdam District Court, Case No. HA ZA 14-1179 ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2016:8264, 14 December 2016. These artefacts are also referred to as ‘Scythian Gold’, though more commonly as ‘Crimean Gold’ given the multicultural origin of the gold objects which are not only Scythian. See Evelien Campfens and Irina Tarsis, ‘Cri-Me-A-River! Crimean Gold in the Crosshairs of Geopolitics’ (2017) 18(1) International Foundation for Art Research Journal 36, n 3. [3] The exhibition was displayed in two international museums—in Bonn, Germany from 3 July 2013-19 January 2014 (Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, ‘Bonn Museum’) and in Amsterdam, the Netherlands from 6 February 2014-31 August 2014 (Allard Pierson Museum, ‘AP Museum’). See Amsterdam District Court (n 2) [2.1]. See also Strakova (n 2); Campfens and Tarsis (n 2) 40. [4] Strakova (n 2). [5] Gert-Jan van den Bergh, Martha Visser, and Auke van Hoek, ‘Netherlands’ in Lawrence M Kaye and Howard N Spiegler (eds), The Art Law Review (Law Business Research Ltd 2022) 244-62. [6] Amsterdam District Court (n 2) [2.11]. See also Anastassia Boutsko, ‘Ukraine and Russia Dispute Over Crimea Gold Reaches Next Level’ (DW, 2 April 2022) accessed 10 March 2024. [7] ‘Interim judgment in the matter of the Crimean treasures’ (de Rechtspraak, 16 July 2019)  accessed 10 March 2024. [8] Amsterdam District Court (n 2) [4.1]. [9] Campfens and Tarsis (n 2) 41. [10] Ukraine, the Netherlands and the Russian Federation are all State Parties of the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (‘1970 UNESCO Convention’). [11] Although the Netherlands signed but did not ratify the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, the Dutch legislator has nevertheless chosen to reflect some of its principles in Dutch Law, including in the 2016 Dutch Heritage Act. See the Explanatory Memorandum to the Implementation of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property adopted in Paris on 14 November 1970 (Parliamentary Documents, Kamerstuk 31255, No. 3, 2007-2008) accessed 10 March 2024. See also Amsterdam District Court (n 2) [4.3]; Campfens and Tarsis (n 2) 45. [12] 1995 UNDROIT Convention, Art. 5.2(2); Campfens and Tarsis (n 2) 45. [13] 1970 UNESCO Convention, Art. 4(b). [14] 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, Art. 3(2); Evelien Campfens, Cross-border claims to cultural objects. Property or heritage? (Eleven 2021) 193. [15] Law of Ukraine on Exportation, Importation and Return of Cultural Values (Vidomosti Verkhovna Rada) No. 48 (1999), Art. 23 [16] Campfens (n 14) 82. [17] ibid 81. [18] ibid 82. [19] ibid 83; Dutch Heritage Act 2016, Art. 6.7. [20] Campfens (n 14) 83. [21] ibid. See also the Explanatory Memorandum to the Implementation of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property adopted in Paris on 14 November 1970 (Parliamentary Documents, Kamerstuk 31255, No. 3, 2007-2008). [22] Campfens (n 14) 77; Amsterdam District Court (n 2) [3.2]. [23] In particular, under the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (February 2, 2000) on the basis of Art. 15(3) of the Law of Ukraine on Museum and Museum Affairs of 29 June 1995; Constitution of Ukraine, Art. 13. See also Evelien Campfens, ‘Whose Cultural Heritage? Crimean Treasures at the Crossroads of Politics, Law and Ethics’ (2017) Grotius Centre Working Paper 2017/068-PIL 7. [24] Campfens (n 23) p. 15. [25] ibid 7. [26] ibid. [27] Campfens and Tarsis (n 2) 39. [28] Campfens (n 23) 15. [29] Amsterdam District Court [4.8]. See also Campfens (n 14) 83. [30] Dutch Civil Code of Procedure, Art. 1012. [31] Court of Appeal of Amsterdam, Case No. 200.212.377/01, C/13/577586 / HA ZA 14-1179, 26 October 2010. [32] ibid [3.4]. [33] ibid [3.5]; Dutch Heritage Act 2016, Art. 6.3. [34] Court of Appeal of Amsterdam (n 31) [3.5]. [35] ibid. [36] ibid [3.14]-[3.16]. [37] The Court of Appeal acknowledges that the 1970 UNESCO Convention generally opposes to the cultural property remaining in the recipient country longer than permitted, by referring to its Preamble, which reads: ‘Considering that it is incumbent upon every State to protect the cultural property existing within its territory against the dangers of theft, clandestine excavation, and illicit export’. Nevertheless, as there has been no ‘theft, clandestine excavation, and illicit export’, the Court of Appeal held that the AP Museum acted legally. [38] Court of Appeal of Amsterdam (n 31) [3.6]; 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, Art. 2(1) and 3. [39] Court of Appeal of Amsterdam (n 31) [3.6] [40] ibid. [41] ibid. [42] ibid [3.8.3]. [43] ibid [3.18]-[3.21]. [44] ibid [3.21]. [45] ibid [11]. [46] ibid [3.22]. [47] ibid [3.25.1]. [48] ibid. [49] ibid. [50] ibid [3.28]. [51] ibid. [52] ibid [3.25.2]. [53] ibid [3.31]. See also ‘Allard Pierson Museum has to hand over the Crimean Treasures to the Ukrainian State’ (De Rechtspraak, 26 October 2021) accessed 10 June 2024. [54] Court of Appeal of Amsterdam (n 31) [3.32.3]. [55] ibid. [56] ibid. [57] Supreme Court of the Netherlands, Case No. 22/00270б ECLI:NL:GHAMS:2021:3201 (9 July 2023). [58] Wen Xiao, Jon Mills, Gabriele Guidi, Pablo Rodríguez-Gonzálvez, Sara Gonizzi Barsanti, and Diego González-Aguilera, ‘Geoinformatics for the conservation and promotion of cultural heritage in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals’ (2018) 142 Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 1. [59] ibid. [60] Caleb A Folorunso, ‘Globalization, Cultural Heritage Management and the Sustainable Development Goals in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Nigeria’ (2021) 4 Heritage 1709. [61] Indre Gražuleviciute, ‘Cultural Heritage in the Context of Sustainable Development’ (2006) 27(3) Environmental Research, Engineering & Management, 74-9. [62] Folorunso (60) 1710-1. [63] British Council, ‘The Missing Pillar: Culture’s Contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals’ (British Council, 2020) 9 accessed 10 March 2024. [64] Jyoti Hosagrahar, ‘Culture: at the heart of SDGs’ (UNESCO, 11 April 2017)  accessed 29 May 2023. [65] ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, A/RES/70/1’ (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 21 October 2015) accessed 10 March 2024. [66] Xiao et al (n 58) 3. [67] Luigi Petti, Claudia Trillo, and Busisiwe Ncube Makore, ‘Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development Targets: A Possible Harmonisation? Insights from the European Perspective’ (2020) MDPI 13; ‘Culture in the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda: A Report by the Culture 2030 Goal Campaign’ (Creative Europe, September 2019) 38 accessed 29 May 2023. [68] International Council on Monuments and Sites, ‘Heritage as a Driver of Sustainability’ (Google Arts and Culture) accessed 10 March 2024. [69] Campfens and Tarsis (n 2) 39-40. [70] ibid 39. [71] Oleksandr Palii, ‘A History of Ukraine: Great Victories of Great Scythia’ (Radio Lemberg, 27 December 2017) accessed 10 March 2024. [72] Campfens and Tarsis (n 2) [73] Song In-geol and Gil Yun-hyung, ‘Court rules that ancient Buddhist statue can remain in Korea’ (Hankyoreh, 27 January 2017) accessed 10 March 2024. [74] Campfens (n 23) 17-8; ‘S. Korea court awards Japan’s stolen statue to local temple’ (Dawn, 27 January 2017) accessed 10 March 2024. [75] Campfens (n 23) 15.

Marie-Claire Kakpotia Koulibaly is a feminist and activist fighting to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and forced marriages. Marie-Claire is the founder and director of the Les Orchidées Rouges, an NGO that is committed to the elimination of FGM and organizes legal and medical support for its victims. CJLPA: Welcome, Marie-Claire Kakpotia Koulibaly. I’d like to begin by thanking you for taking the time to come and interview with The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art to discuss your story as a women’s rights activist fighting against female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage. We would like to begin by learning more about your personal story. To the extent you feel comfortable, can you tell us how you fell victim to FGM and how old you were at the time? Marie-Claire Kakpotia Koulibaly: I got FGM when I was nine years old, and at that time, I didn’t know that it was FGM. It was painful. It was painful and very difficult for me, but I didn’t know that it was FGM. And I didn’t know that the part of me that took out was my clitoris. So, I realised years later, several years later. CJLPA: And how was it that you became aware of what happened to you? MK: I became aware when I was 15, almost 16 years old. I left my home city to go to the capital of Cote d’Ivoire, where people don’t practice FGM. So, people were telling me that FGM is a very bad thing. But I realised it really when I met a man from Italy, and one day, we decided to have sex, and as soon as he saw me naked, he stopped me and asked, ‘where is your clitoris?’. And I said, ‘I don’t know, where is it?’. He told me I had been mutilated. ‘You cannot be a normal woman; you cannot have a normal life’. And after, he left me, and didn’t contact me again, because he could not finish due to my FGM, so it was very difficult for me because I couldn’t finish either. I had that feeling of being broken and undesirable when I was 19 years old. CJLPA: Thank you for sharing. When he told you that you were mutilated, and that you didn’t have what a woman would need, did you reflect then, back on what had happened when at such a young age you were cut? What was it like when you were initially first being cut? Did it seem normal at the time? Or were you very much afraid of what was happening and scared of the surroundings? Did you know at the time, what the implications were? Were you afraid or did it seem more of a normal practice that everyone around you was doing? MK: It was when I was nine years old. It was very painful and very difficult for me. In my mind, I was thinking that it was a normal practice, that it was a part of my education, because every girl and woman around me was mutilated. So, for me, it was normal. They didn’t explain to me why they were doing it, and I didn’t ask questions because it was very taboo. I was only a child and I saw many girls mutilated—so for me, it was okay, it was normal. It was painful, it was difficult, girls were crying—I was crying also, because they had told me that we had been invited to a party and I was very happy to go. But when I got inside, it wasn’t a party. It is difficult when you are nine years old and four women slam you to the ground and one takes out a knife and cuts into your vagina without anaesthesia. It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. CJLPA: I can’t even begin to imagine the fear and the thoughts that come, as a young child at nine years old, just being pinned down. From today’s perspective, can you speak more towards this practice? Why it is that FGM is performed on young woman? Is there a reason behind it? What does it symbolise? MK: FGM designates all the practices which cut the external genital organs of women. They have different reasons to justify FGM all over the world. In some parts of the world, they say that girls must undergo FGM to become a real woman. Sometimes they say it is cleaner to get FGM. And in some communities, if a woman is not mutilated, she’s considered a dirty woman, and nobody wants to speak with her, nobody to eat the food she cooks. Parents even say to their children, ‘no, no, don’t play with that girl or that boy, because their mother is not mutilated’. So, there are various social pressures to mutilate girls and women and in many parts of the world, they mutilate the girls and women because they want them to remain virgins until marriage. And when they get married, they want them to be faithful to their husband, to not cheat. So, they want to control a woman’s body, they want to control a woman’s sexuality, and they want to control a woman’s life. It is gender-based violence which destroys girls and women’s lives, because it has long lasting consequences, very bad consequences into adulthood. CJLPA: From your experiences, you talk about how horrible it was for you. Why is it the other women—who have also probably felt the same fear and horror—think this must continue? You also mentioned your grandma’s involvement—I’m assuming she was cut as well. So, after all that she experienced, how could she let it happen to you as well? MK: It is because of the social pressure, because in these communities, if a woman is not mutilated, she cannot find a husband. It is impossible, because men only want to marry mutilated women. And in these communities, women are nothing if they don’t have a husband. It is very important in these communities to have to get married before 30 years old. So, the mothers have the pressure to give their girls a chance to get a husband. And to get a husband for them, one of the conditions is to be mutilated. If a woman refuses to mutilate her girls, her husband will divorce her. Even if the husband doesn’t divorce her, the family of the husband will say she is not a good woman, if she doesn’t want to mutilate her girls. So it is very difficult for them. That is why in my work, I want female empowerment, mental empowerment, physical empowerment, and financial empowerment. I want female liberation, because when women are liberated, they can say ‘no, I don’t want to mutilate my daughter because it is a horrible practice, because now I’m suffering because of FGM so I don’t want my girl to suffer like me’. Even though they know that it is not a good practice, they continue because they don’t have money or the opportunity to be emancipated by society. So it is important to raise awareness to prevent this practice but also to help women to become empowered, because the empowerment of women will stop FGM. CJLPA: What would happen to young girls who tried to resist being cut? MK: When you are young it is very difficult to resist because they never warn you. They will never tell you ‘I will mutilate you!’. They are very kind, they say ‘oh, come to a party, oh come with me, we will visit your grandmother’, or a grandmother can say ‘I want to see my grandchildren’, and when you go to them, they mutilate girls. Sometimes my institute helps families even in Europe. They have come back from vacation and their baby girl has been mutilated whilst they left them with their family. So it is very difficult to resist. The better way to resist is not to go there, not to go into the community, because if you go there, if the girls and the women go over there, and they don’t pay attention, they may cut the baby. Sometimes even the neighbours cut girls of another family. So, it is very difficult to resist. And when you are a young girl, there are sometimes three or four women. It is very difficult to resist because physically they are more powerful than you. So the best way to resist is not to go there, because it is very difficult to escape. When a woman here in Bordeaux tells me she wants to go to a country where they mutilate women, I say ‘if you go there, you have to sleep with your baby girls, you have to have them with you at all times. Because if you leave them alone, or if you leave them with the family, you will get a very bad surprise’. CJLPA: From your experience, and from speaking to FGM survivors, how can FGM affect young girls later on in life, in terms of the trauma that they’ve endured? MK: FGM can impact women psychologically, physically, and also socially. Psychologically, because many women, like me, develop a lack of self-confidence. They hate their body. Often, survivors tell me ‘I don’t like my body, my body is horrible. I don’t want to look at my vagina’. So, it is very difficult to be happy when you don’t like your body, when you don’t have self-confidence or self-esteem. It is very difficult to build your future. Survivors tell me they want to die, they want to die because life is so difficult for them, because they’re undesirable, because they cannot have a normal sexual life. Because they cannot be happy sexually. And sometimes also, they don’t make good decisions for their life, because when they develop a lack of self-confidence, sometimes they choose a man who is not good for them. Because we’re so sad. They choose the man who is right in front of them, and they don’t wait for the right one. So it is difficult to be happy in their personal life. Sexually, it is very, very painful for some of them. They can also have gynaecology problems because of FGM. When they give birth to a baby, they or the baby could die because of FGM. And socially, they could stay in poverty because of FGM. Sometimes due to FGM, women can become sick on a long-term basis, often due to sexual infections, meaning they cannot continue going to school. And so, they stay in poverty. And during the FGM procedure, they can die because of the blood loss—FGM generally is not done in a hospital, it is done somewhere outside, in a forest or somewhere in a smaller room with no medical equipment—so they can die, and often they do die. CJLPA: Have you spoken to cutters before? What was their response? Do they have any sense of empathy for what they’ve done? Do they understand the implications FGM has for women mentally and physically? MK: I met a cutter some years ago in Cote d’Ivoire. And I asked her why she cut girls, and she told me it was her grandmother’s heritage, her grandmother was a cutter. And before dying, her grandmother gave authority to that cutter I met in Cote D’Ivoire. I asked her ‘Do you realise that you destroy lives?’. She said ‘no, it is our tradition. Our ancestors practised FGM. So, we continue practising FGM to honour our ancestors’. I told her she could honour ancestors without taking life. And I said, ‘do you realise that girls suffer, many girls suffer, because of your practice?’. She said it is a rich tradition. She kept speaking about tradition. But I told her that tradition must make lives better, not destroy lives. Tradition must create an equal society. Tradition must create liberty, freedom, tradition must create wellness, tradition must not create sadness, suffering, it must not create destruction. I told her that sometimes girls die because of her practice. Tradition cannot justify that. So you must stop practising FGM. She said, ‘I know that it is difficult, but if we don’t practice FGM then women will become prostitutes’. I said, ‘No, that is not true. If you want women and girls to have correct behaviour for your community, you can educate them. You don’t need to cut them. You can just educate them, teach them to respect themselves. Teach them to respect their body. You can respect your body whilst doing what you want with your body. My body is my choice. You cannot choose for me what I do with my body. It is not possible’. I said to them, ‘By cutting girls, you tell them that their body is not their property. It is a violation of our fundamental rights. So, stop now’. It must stop and I told her that she could go to jail if I hear that she cut again, she will go to jail because it is forbidden. It is a crime to mutilate in many countries. Unfortunately, we still have six countries in the world where it is totally legal to mutilate girls. In 2023, we cannot have some countries where it is normal to cut. It is not a crime in six countries in the world. We as an international community must do something about that. I want the United Nations to make a decision about the six countries where it is legal to mutilate, and to vote on laws to criminalise it. Even criminalization is not enough to stop it, but it is important to vote for a law to say it is a crime. CJLPA: You raised some very crucial points that I want to talk about later in the interview. But just going back to your conversation with a cutter—in my head, when you first started speaking about a cutter, I assumed that it was a man, but it’s another woman. And she thinks that it’s normal practice to tell a woman what to do with their body, take that right away from them. That is the mentality in her head, that this is normal practice. I think it’s just astonishing. And it just shows you that the root of the cause is that from such a young age, women are already told and brought up that they are less than a man, that their body is not theirs, and it’s for other people to decide what to do with it. It must be so challenging to see the person responsible for what was done to you at such a young age, and then also how she just kept going back and forth with you, saying ‘no, this is the way it is, and this has always been the way and tradition’. How can we address that, how do we get them to understand and how do we help minimise this practice? What can be done? MK: To stop FGM, it is important to work with cutters like partners, because they need to be educated. They are very ignorant, so it’s important to work with them. And it is also important to give them another way to make money. Because when I discussed it with her, she realised that it is a bad thing. She said ‘I know that it is not really a good practice, but it is our tradition’. And she asked me, ‘I want to stop. I want to stop. You are not the first person to tell me that it is not good’. But, she said to me, ‘I don’t have another way to make money. So if I decided to stop, how can you help me to live, to make money?’. That is the real question. How can we convert cutters? How can we inform them? We know how to inform them, we know how to educate them, but it is important to convert them, to allow them to have another job. It is important to understand that it is a job for them. It is a job and they earn a lot of money, because communities respect them. They are the people who allow women to become a real woman, to become pure. So it is important, I think, to empower cutters. And we are working on a programme in South Africa, in Côte d’Ivoire, to raise awareness, to work with cutters and to give them the opportunity to find another job. Because even if we educate them, if we don’t give them the opportunity to have another job to earn money, by another way, they will continue. CJLPA: Definitely. There’s a misconception that FGM is just an African problem, when the reality is that women fall victim to this or all over the world, including in Europe. Why do you think people don’t know this occurs in every country that they live in? MK: I think that people think that it is just in African countries, an African problem, because in Western countries, police, politicians, and even feminist activists don’t speak loudly about FGM. It is very taboo, even in politics and in activism. So, it is important to spread awareness to highlight the topic of FGM. Many people consider that FGM is a barbaric practice coming from Africa, because Africa is a barbaric continent. So, they cannot imagine that Western countries are also impacted by FGM. Sometimes in my conferences, I tell people that whilst today it is diaspora communities in Western countries that practice FGM, until 1960 FGM was practised by white people in hospitals in Europe and in the USA. When I tell people this, they say ‘no, no, no, this is impossible’, because they say it is a barbaric practice. But yes, in Europe and countries like France, like the United States, FGM was practiced on women as a supposed ‘cure’ for hysteria, mental illness, or masturbation.[1] They cut the clitoris in hospital, so it was legal. Now it has changed, because it is just other communities which practice FGM. But it is important to highlight that it is a global issue, because many European girls and women are mutilated, sometimes here in Europe, often whilst on vacation. This summer, unfortunately, some girls and women will come back from vacation mutilated, which is the reality. So, it is important for politicians, activists, and organisations which fight for human rights to speak about FGM. Everybody must speak about FGM. In Europe, and everywhere in Western countries when they speak about gender-based violence, they never mentioned FGM or forced marriage. Never, never, never. So, in my advocacy, when I work with the French government and United Nations, I tell them to mention female genital mutilation and forced marriage when they talk about women’s rights, because if equality exists, FGM and forced marriage cannot exist. It is one of the manifestations, one of the extreme manifestations of inequality between men and women. So, you cannot talk about gender-based violence without mentioning FGM and forced marriage. CJLPA: Returning back to Europe, as you mentioned, it is still an ongoing issue. But unlike those six countries, in Europe, it is illegal. Why is FGM still occurring in Europe? Are politicians not getting involved enough? Or are there simply no reports happening, as victims do not come forward? MK: I’m seeing it continue to happen in Europe. That is why in my work, I want to speak loudly to highlight the topic. It is very taboo and it happens behind closed doors. Families and survivors involved have social pressure, family pressure, so it is impossible for them to denounce their family. So, this lack of denunciation in the communities, and the denunciation of the survivors, is one of the main reasons why FGM continues to occur in Europe and in Western countries, because if survivors or community members begin to speak louder about this, it will stop, but they don’t do that. It is very difficult to identify which families or which communities continue to practice FGM in Europe. CJLPA: And following up on your work, you’ve started your own NGO, Les Orchidées Rouges, to help women and young girls who are victims of FGM and forced marriage. I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about what inspired you to begin this NGO and what the name symbolises. MK: I decided to create an NGO after my reconstruction. When I reconstructed myself, I realised that I have suffered hugely because of FGM and I also realised that millions of girls and women are suffering because of this practice. So, in my mind, I thought I must act, I have to contribute to the eradication of FGM because I don’t want girls or women go through what I went through. So it was important for me to use my experience, it was also important for me to create innovative solutions to support and give free treatment to survivors, to allow them to become empowered, to allow them to become resilient, and to take power over their body, their life. Those that practice FGM cannot have the last word over other people’s lives. CJLPA: That’s truly inspiring, the work that you’ve established and how you’re giving the voice back of young girls and women that have been silenced. What does the name symbolise? MK: Les Orchidées Rouges. The red orchid. I was talking about my story to a friend. And when I told her my story, at the end, I said, it is like a flower you cut. And the flower grows, the flower is born again, better. So, when I decided to create an NGO, she said to me, ‘Oh, I liked your flower story, can you name your NGO after the name of a flower in African language?’. And I told her, ‘I don’t know the name of a flower in African language, but I want to choose a flower which is symbolic for me’. So I found information on the internet about the red orchid, and I discovered that the meaning of the red orchid is the very strong desire to have sexual pleasure, to have sex. And they cut girls and women to stop their sexual life, to control their sexual life. So, for me, I decided to call my NGO Les Orchidées Rouges to say that women also have the right to have sexual pleasure, the right to do what we want with our body, the right to be free. And when I looked on the internet, I saw that the flower of an orchid is like the vagina of a woman. We have something like a clitoris, which is cut during FGM. And the meaning of the word ‘les Orchidées’ originates from the Greek language [orchis] and the meaning is a testicle. So then it was clear to me that I had to call the NGO Les Orchidées Rouges. CJLPA: I wanted to shift the focus a little bit because I know that your NGO also works around forced marriage. Millions of girls around the world were forced into marriage before the age of 18. And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about this issue and what your NGO does to address this? MK: So, we speak about forced marriage when we speak with communities, but also when we train professionals in hospitals, in schools. Even European girls are victims of forced marriage, when some go on holidays this summer, some will not come back. Even last week, I was talking with a professional in a bank. And she was very sad, because her cousin went to Madagascar, but she never came back, because they forced her into a marriage with an old man in that country and she stayed there. So we educate those in communities, professionals, even those in schools about forced marriage and we tell them that we cannot force people to marry. We cannot do that. It is the fundamental right of girls and women to decide if they want to be married, if they want a person, because the origin of marriage must be love. Love must be the origin. If you force somebody, there’s no love. There’s no love, it is violence. And we tell them that it is a violence, and you sacrifice girls. Sometimes, they say that it is because of poverty. It is slavery, because women sell their girls, they sell the women of their family to have money to live. I understand that it is difficult to be in poverty, but you cannot sell a person. She is not an object, she is not a thing, she is a person, a person who has rights, fundamental rights. You cannot sell a person. She will suffer and because she will be victim of sexual violence. If you don’t choose your husband, you don’t want to have sex with him, so many forced marriage survivors are victims of rape. And they’re also a victim of family violence because the men beat the girls or the women when they don’t want to have sex. And she’s like his slave. CJLPA: Do you think the underlying issue is poverty in the sense that families are so desperate that they are willing to sell their child, as you said, into slavery? Or do you think it’s more of a mentality issue, of ‘Well, it’s just a woman’—objectifying a woman as a person? Or do you think it’s a bit of both? MK: I think that it is a mentality issue. Why don’t they sell the boys or the men of the family, why don’t they sell boys and men? It is a question of women’s place in society; women are not respected in society. Across all kinds of societies in the world, women’s equality exists nowhere. Nowhere. People think that women are the property of society, anybody can decide for women what they have to do with their life, their body, their sexuality, everything. So, it really is a mentality issue, because they can’t see that if you are poor, you can find another solution, you don’t have to sell a person. And if you sell a person, why is it always the women who are sold? That is why it is important to change the mentalities and to create a place, a respected place for women and girls in all the societies in the world, because we need to find solutions together, men and women together, to improve our societies. By taking another kind of solution with respect for everybody, men and women. CJLPA: That was very powerfully said, and I completely agree with you. I wanted to also ask you, from your work and your experience, have you seen progress over the years, or do you find that these issues are just as problematic as before and if not even gotten worse? MK: I think that we will notice some progress, but it is not fast. It is slow, very slow. It is important to accelerate the progression, because millions of women and girls continue to suffer. Girls are dying because of FGM, forced marriage, and other types of gender-based violence. And unfortunately, because of the COVID crisis, schools were closed, and when schools are closed, they can cut girls and nobody will be aware. So during the COVID crisis and lockdown, many girls and women were being mutilated behind closed doors, everywhere in the world, many of them mutilated by force. And because of the COVID crisis and lockdown, NGOs like mine were not able to go into communities to continue raising awareness, so unfortunately, there was a large impact. There is small, slow progress, but we need it to progress faster. We need the international communities to consider FGM and forced marriage, we need politicians to enforce the laws, to follow the laws which forbid FGM. We want them to criminalise FGM in the countries where it is legal. And we also need funding, we need financial means for NGOs, or for organisations to continue raising awareness, to also continue developing, innovating solutions to accelerate the eradication of FGM. CJLPA: Absolutely, because there is a lot of work to do. And as we speak, it’s a constant continuing crisis that’s happening all around the world. And it’s something that more people need to know about. It’s one of the top priorities that should be on the agenda is for politicians and lawyers and ambassadors. I wanted to ask you what the key message is that we need to send out in respect to FGM and forced marriage for all the readers, in order to spread awareness and push for that motion of urgency amongst readers, politicians, lawyers? MK: I want to speak about the importance of education. When I went to schools and communities people often told me, ‘Oh my god, for me It was normal to cut girls. And now you opened my mind, you opened my eyes, I discovered it was not good. And my girls will now not be mutilated’. Or sometimes I met some boys, and they tell me that I opened their eyes to FGM and that when they have a baby girl, she will not be mutilated. For me, it is a victory to listen to these people. And sometimes I met girls in schools, and they said ‘Oh, I have been mutilated, for me, it was okay. But now, you have opened my eyes, I know that it is not good. And when I have a baby, she will not be mutilated’. So, that is why it is important to continue raising awareness, to continue going to meet people in communities, girls and boys in schools, because they are our future, it is important to inform the younger generations, to prevent them from making the same mistakes as their ancestors. It’s very important. And if we have funding, we have more funds to develop, we will open the eyes and the mind of many. If we have funds, we can develop more activities and open the eyes and the mind of many people in the world to stop FGM. CJLPA: I think you just said that so beautifully, because the key point with this issue is to raise awareness, but it’s also to educate. Throughout your responses, the underlying problem is, one, mentality: the fact that people think that this is a normal practice, and it is okay to treat women like this. And two, that it’s not a top priority in the agenda and international community as it should be. On that note, I would like to thank you for your time today and for your courage in having to relive this trauma by answering these questions. And, of course, your heroic work for women’s rights by exposing these international crimes of FGM and forced marriage, ultimately giving the word, the voice back to women who have been for so long not empowered by strong female figures such as yourself. What would you like to send out as a final message to the readers and politicians about FGM? MK: My message for politicians and leaders is: I call them to join the fight against female genital mutilation and forced marriage. We need the support. We need the support, and they can support us by engaging themselves seriously, and by taking measures to stop FGM. They cannot talk about gender-based violence of women without talking about FGM. They are leaders, they are politicians and one of their obligations is to make the world better for everyone. So, if they want to make the world better for everyone, they have to help, they must help us to stop FGM and forced marriage. They cannot continue without acting with us. They cannot, and we will continue to call them out, we will continue making advocacy. They must realise that FGM is a crime, it is a crime, and it cannot continue. And if they don’t want to act with us, they are siding with the cutters. Because if they don’t act with us, it is because they accept, or they agree with this practice. If they don’t agree with FGM and forced marriage, they must act now, not tomorrow, it is now they must act. If they don’t act, they side with the cutters. And another message for survivors. Please survivors, we need you to speak louder. Because by speaking louder, you will give the courage to other survivors to talk about their story. It will give courage to other survivors to change their life. You will give courage to other survivors to become change makers, to become activists, to say ‘no, I do not accept being the slave of society, or the slave of a man’. You can give courage to other girls to say ‘I can become a change maker, I can become a leader, I can change the world for me, for my community, and for all the girls and women in the world’. So please speak louder. It is your right to take power over your life and nobody can decide for you what you have to do with your body, with your sexuality, and with your life. You are great, you are great. So let the world know that you are great. You are great. CJLPA: That was so beautifully and powerfully phrased. Thank you very much for saying all of that and for your time today. Thank you so much for your time today. It is truly an honour and very helpful to have you here. MK: Thank you very much Nadia. This interview was conducted by Nadia Jahnecke, Legal Editor and Founder of Human Rights Volume of CJLPA 3. In addition to her role at CJLPA, Nadia is currently working as a Trainee Lawyer and will qualify as a lawyer in England and Wales in March 2024. [1] See ‘FGM in the Americas’ (Equality Now) accessed 10 January 2024.

Introduction Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, especially its full-scale unfolding since 2022, has highlighted many important issues of international law. Among them is a question as to how reparations—which are at the crux of transitional justice’s survivor-centric ethos—can be effectively provided to atrocity victims amid ongoing hostilities. This article analyses the viability and modalities of individual reparations in the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict in three parts. First, it situates the right to remedy and reparation under international law and Ukraine’s and Russia’s respective obligations. This section argues that, under current international law, urgent interim reparations and certain other transitional justice measures can and, in the context of Ukraine, should be implemented while the armed conflict is still ongoing. Second, the article discusses key developments in Ukraine’s transitional justice and reparations vision during the first phase of the armed conflict in 2014-2021. Special attention is paid to how the timing and modalities of Ukraine’s proposed transitional justice measures—and, in particular, reparations—were impacted by geopolitical constellations at the time. Finally, the article discusses key developments, challenges, and ways forward concerning introducing individual reparations in Ukraine post-full-scale invasion. The piece concludes that to provide effective redress, such reparations should be gender-sensitive, intersectionally consider structural inequalities, and apply equally to persons harmed since the beginning of Russia’s aggression in 2014. I. Atrocity Victims’ Right to Remedy and Reparation under International Law Reparations under international law are two-pronged. First, there are interstate reparations, which are channelled into rebuilding state infrastructure and institutions, compensating for the loss of production, impeded trade, and other system-wide harms caused by an armed conflict or an atrocity situation. Second, there are individual reparations, which are due to individual victims or their groups who have suffered gross violations of their human rights. Individual reparations are a part of a person’s wider right to remedy. The right to remedy also includes equal and effective access to justice and the availability of information about what constitutes a violation of one’s rights and what reparative measures are available to redress them.[1] In the Chorzów Factory dispute between Germany and Poland, the Permanent Court of International Justice confirmed that ‘it is a principle of international law, and even a general conception of law, that any breach of an engagement involves an obligation to make reparation’.[2] The Court went further, explaining that ‘reparation is the indispensable complement of a failure to apply a convention, and there is no necessity for this to be stated in the convention itself’.[3] In the early 20th century, the 1907 IV Hague Convention respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land established the precursors for individual redress for endured harm. The IV Hague Convention confirmed the ‘Contracting Powers’s responsibility for the activities of their military, including for the alleged breaches of the rules governing the conduct of hostilities, treatment of POWs and civilians and occupation’.[4] Given the state-centric nature of international law of the time, the IV Hague Convention formulated the respective redress provision not around a person’s right to seek vindication for a suffered violation but around the respective state party’s obligation to compensate.[5] It was not until the middle and the second half of the 20th century, with the adoption of the international human rights law (IHRL) and international humanitarian law (IHL) treaty frameworks, as well as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that a delineation between interstate and individual reparations solidified. The humanisation of international law has been unfolding alongside the growing recognition of a human right to remedy and reparation. A person’s right to get the alleged violations of their rights considered by a court or another designated state authority and, if a violation is confirmed, to receive prescribed remedy is recognised in the key IHRL instruments such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 8), the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (article 6), the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (article 2(3)), the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (article 14), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (article 39). Compared to the aforementioned IHRL instruments, IHL regulation of the right to remedy is different in its verbalisation and scope. Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions applicable to international armed conflicts essentially reiterates the wording of the IV Hague Convention. The Protocol specifies that a warring state party is responsible for the acts of its military and, if it violates the Geneva Conventions or this Protocol, must pay compensation.[6] The Additional Protocol II, applicable in non-international armed conflicts, does not have a similar provision. This raises questions about the availability and scope of remedies and reparations for harms caused exclusively by non-state actors. In the absence of immediate IHL regulation, the regular IHRL remedy framework discussed above remains applicable. The issue of equal access to remedies in all armed conflicts and atrocity situations was further clarified by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which exercises jurisdiction over the gravest crimes under international law—war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and, in certain instances, aggression. The ICC’s Rome Statute and Rules of Procedure and Evidence make reparations available to direct and indirect victims regardless of the type of context in which they were harmed.[7] Instead, the ICC considers ‘the scope and extent of any damage, loss or injury’ suffered by victims, individually or collectively, from the crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the Court and victims’ respective needs.[8] The ICC’s reparations may include restitution, compensation, and rehabilitation,[9] suggests the room for the needed flexibility of reparations’ types and combinations in a particular context.[10] 2005 became a milestone year for the right to remedy. The UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted, without a vote, the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Humanitarian Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (Basic Principles). As Clara Sandoval explains, this instrument, adopted in the form of the UNGA non-binding resolution, was a result of a 14-year-long collaboration between states, intergovernmental organisations, NGOs and academics.[11] Symbolically, this work was co-initiated by Cherif Bassiouni, one of the shapers of international criminal law and the ICC framework.[12] Bassiouni’s push for a wholistic redress for victims is significant given the tendency to see atrocity trials as a unique or even exclusive form of justice, to the detriment of their mutually catalysing interplay with truth-seeking, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition. The Basic Principles state that they do not create new obligations but are based on existing ones formulated in the discussed IHRL and IHL instruments and the Rome Statute. The Basic Principles root the right to remedy and reparation in states’ obligation to respect and ensure respect for and implement IHRL and IHL.[13] This includes domestic incorporation of IHRL and IHL and maintaining related procedures, including access to justice, fairness, equality, and swiftness.[14] The UNGA instrument specifies five forms of reparations: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition, and emphasises their role in atrocity prevention.[15] Crucially for the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict and other atrocity situations, a violator’s inability to provide reparations immediately should not stall the reparations process.[16] The solidifying humanisation of international law and survivor-centricity of redress and wider transitional justice measures require that states establish national reparation and assistance programmes as soon as possible and then get compensation from the responsible party. The above instruments have catalysed further sensitisation of individual reparations at international, regional, and domestic levels. In 2014, the UN Secretary-General presented the Guidance Note on one of the most stigmatised, underreported, and unaddressed crimes—conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV).[17] Dr Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, the recipients of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for combating sexual violence as a weapon of war, have emphasised the crucial role of urgent interim and wider reparations for CRSV survivors. The ICC reparations framework has been solidified through the cases of Lubanga (2012-2015), Katanga (2017), Al Mahdi (2017), and Ntaganda (2021).[18] Colombia exemplifies an effort to centre one’s transitional justice framework around remedies.[19] Regional courts have been cognisant of these developments, looking for ways to reconcile their jurisprudence with domestic reparation programmes.[20] II. The First Phase of Russia’s Aggression against Ukraine, 2014-2021: The Precursors of Individual Reparations Certain nations, including Eastern European ones, still associate reparations largely with massive post-war interstate compensations. This perception, coupled with the lack of international action on the initial acts of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine’s Crimea and Donbas region in 2014-2021,[21] could have hardly shaped survivors’ coherent demands for specific individual reparations, let alone channelled the funding needed for them. The lack of international attention to the first phase of Russia’s aggression and accompanying crimes often overlooked in the post-2022 debates on political, military, and legal aid for Ukraine has also played a role in Ukraine’s domestic policy choices. With limited resources and only burgeoning expertise on atrocity crimes, in 2014-2021, Ukraine’s prosecution and civil society focused on the documentation of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, development of domestic proceedings, and submitting communications to the ICC to catalyse the Court to open a fully-fledged investigation—which it did only after the all-out invasion.[22] Essentially, in 2014 Kyiv faced the unparalleled situation of an international armed conflict, the comprehensive justice response to which required financial resources and expertise, which Ukraine, as a state and human rights community, did not have at the time. In such circumstances, it is only natural that policymakers, prosecution, and civil society choose to make the first steps in the most familiar domain—criminal justice. Even with very limited resources available during the initial eight years of the armed conflict, which might be hard to imagine compared to the outpouring of support since 2022, Ukrainian investigators, prosecutors, and human rights lawyers focused on capturing the facts and patterns of and intentions behind Russian crimes, to facilitate international understanding and action. With time, however, Ukrainian state and civil society stakeholders, catalysed by the solidifying voices of the survivor community, realised that justice had wider, mutually nourishing dimensions. This realisation became more nuanced with Ukraine’s emerging transitional justice discourse and the solidifying of the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. Noticing the lack of cohesion even within the criminal accountability domain and the need for a more harmonised and layered justice vision, in 2019, the newly elected President Zelensky announced that Ukraine would be developing a transitional justice policy.[23] The precursors for such a policy task came from the civil society and academic community, who already, in 2016 and 2017, raised the issues of other dimensions of justice, such as truth-telling and reparations. Zelensky’s efforts helped transform academic and civil society debates into policy mapping. Two foundational drafts incorporating key pillars of transitional justice were developed. However, Ukraine did not manage to approve, let alone implement them before 2022. Naturally, the drafts would require substantive reshaping, considering the new challenges and needs brought about by Russia’s all-out aggression. Even without formal approval, Ukraine’s pre-2022 transitional justice work was important. First, it verbalised the key components of holistic justice—reparations, truth-seeking, criminal accountability, memorialisation, and guarantees of non-repetition—for Ukraine’s policymakers, general public, and, crucially, survivor community. It was through the initial transitional justice policymaking that these persons, especially individuals affected by Russia’s atrocities, got a more layered understanding of what redress meant and what measures they were entitled to—and could demand. Second, the very wording ‘reparations’ was increasingly used. For the first time, such term use demonstrated reparations’ connection with not only interstate but also individual redress. Third, transitional justice and its components were increasingly mentioned in Ukraine’s by-laws and other policy instruments. Such instruments include the National Human Rights Strategy, the Strategy on the De-Occupation and Reintegration of Crimea and Women, and Peace and Security National Actions Plans (WPS NAPs).[24] With respect to reparations, these instruments sometimes use euphemisms or refer to specific forms of reparations, e.g., ‘the compensation of damage caused in connection with the armed aggression of the Russian Federation’, ‘the protection and restoration of violated rights’ or ‘rehabilitation’.[25] Such word use has several important considerations. The variations in the wording ‘compensation of damage/harm/injury’ are perhaps the clearest in terms of the word’s ordinary meaning. Without additional prior ‘explainers’ on reparations terminology, the general public and especially survivors would likely understand this phrasing as redress for the harm they suffered because of atrocities. While the clarity and understanding by those most affected are important, the ‘compensation’ wording is also misleading, for it essentially narrows reparations to financial compensation to the detriment of their other important forms such as restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and non-repetition guarantees. The narrowing of reparations to ‘harm compensation’ wording does not seem to be the malice of Ukraine’s policymakers. Instead, it appears to be a transitional compromise that introduces individual reparations thinking, taking the time for the more specific new terminology and its perception to sink in. Notably, both before and after the full-scale invasion, it has been largely the WPS and initiatives addressing conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) that have been using the term ‘reparations’ consistently, as envisaged in international law. Ukraine’s CRSV survivor community, especially their female representatives, have turned out to be rather organised and vocal about the harms they suffered and, thus, engaged with international peers and their reparations experiences quickly.[26] Ukrainian CRSV survivors from SEMA Network Ukraine have collaborated closely with Dr Denis Mukwege, a strong proponent of holistic justice and healing. The Mukwege Foundation and Global Survivors Fund, co-founded by Nadia Murad and Dr Denis Mukwege, have supported reparations thinking among survivors since way before the full-scale invasion. Together with survivors and Ukraine’s leading human rights NGOs Truth Hounds, Blue Bird, and the Eastern-Ukrainian Centre for Civic Initiatives, the Global Survivors Fund conducted the first study of reparations needs and preferences among Ukrainian CRSV survivors.[27] These processes reverberated with policymakers: the Government Commissioner on Gender Equality Policy supported the inclusion of the reparations focus and language into Ukraine’s WPS NAPs and discourse even before 2022. Such policy normalisation of reparations language and, thus, readiness for overdue reparations framework have proved particularly useful with the full-scale invasion. Moving away from policy instruments, it is important to comment on whether and how they translated into actual reparations initiatives on the ground. As Ukraine had not approved even a framework transitional justice policy, of which reparations would be an integral part, the country had not set a nationwide reparations programme before the all-out invasion. Instead, Ukraine had the precursors of reparations in the form of what could be rather described as sporadic assistance initiatives.[28] The most notable of such initiatives focused on helping victims of Russia’s unlawful detention with a one-time financial support of 100,000 UAH (a little more than 3,300 EUR at the time). While not completely devoid of bureaucratic protractions, the commission assessing compensation claims worked rather swiftly. Commendably, its members included not only state officials but also human rights lawyers, civil society representatives, and psychologists, all of whom worked with detention survivors and understood their trauma and needs. While this initiative demonstrated Ukraine’s resolve to support survivors amid limited resources and the uncertainties of the ongoing aggression, it had several issues. First and most obviously, the programme was available only to survivors of Russia’s unlawful detention, which left the trauma and needs of other victims unaddressed. Second, to qualify for support, a survivor had to prove that they were detained for their pro-Ukrainian position. While, as survivor stories confirm, Russia indeed targeted most of them for the actual or alleged support of Ukraine, it is important that state programmes remedy all survivors, even those captured for other reasons or by accident. Third, the effects of detention—low temperature, moist, overcrowdedness, undernourishment, lack of general and gender-specific hygiene, let alone widespread torture and other atrocities—require long-term costly treatment. The 3,300 EUR available under the initiative can rarely cover this. Other assistance programmes included symbolic modest scholarships for pro-Ukrainian political prisoners—ethnic Ukrainians and indigenous Crimean Tatars.[29] Scholarships were payable for a year to liberated survivors and accumulated for the period of captivity, and payable for a year after liberation for those still held in Russian captivity. While commendable as a step in the right direction, this initiative had many of the shortcomings discussed in relation to the detention compensation programme above. All in all, Ukraine’s Government and civil society were approaching the full-scale invasion with the correct survivor-centric thinking and a burgeoning transitional justice framework. Even if certain assistance initiatives were not holistic and the national reparations programme had not yet been adopted, they formed the right values-, understanding- and purpose-based foundation with which Ukrainian society met Russia’s all-out assault on 24 February 2022. III. 2022 onwards: Solidifying the Individual Reparations Framework 24 February 2022 has generated an amplified set of challenges connected with the gravity and territorial scale of the crimes and the number of people, fauna, flora, and cities and villages affected. Atrocity documentation initiatives by various Ukrainian and international actors and not just domestic human rights NGOs have skyrocketed.[30] Even the most well-intentioned initiatives, given their sheer number, intensity, and combination, have often caused re-traumatisation. The severity of crimes, the number of survivors and the scale of infrastructural destruction have made the scale of Russia-caused harm impossible to ignore anymore. These developments have revitalised domestic and international discussions on reparations—and their urgency. Several notable developments around individual reparations have taken place since 2022. First, the clear decision has been reached that Russia must pay for all the damage caused, and discussions have taken place regarding the legal avenues via which Russia’s assets could be repurposed to fund the infrastructural recovery of Ukraine and redress to survivors.[31] On 14 November 2022, the UNGA adopted the resolution ‘Furtherance of remedy and reparation for aggression against Ukraine’.[32] The resolution recognises the need to create ‘an international mechanism for reparation for damage, loss or injury, and arising from the internationally wrongful acts of the Russian Federation in or against Ukraine’.[33] The instrument further recommends that the UN member states cooperate with Ukraine to create ‘an international register of damage’ to record ‘evidence and claims information on damage, loss or injury to all natural and legal persons concerned, as well as the State of Ukraine, caused by the internationally wrongful acts of the Russian Federation in or against Ukraine’.[34] Such a register of damage was created under the Council of Europe framework, together with the EU, Canada, Japan, and the US, on 16 May 2023.[35] The Register is situated in The Hague and is ‘the first component of a future international compensation mechanism’.[36] Second, Ukraine’s Parliament adopted the law on the compensation for damage or destruction of property caused by Russia’s aggression.[37] The state has aimed to make the procedure swift and administrative in nature, with the possibility of submitting claims via the state digital platform Dia.[38] The initiative is truly pertinent and addresses one of the most pertinent and foundational needs: housing. Concerns, however, have been raised about the length of required expert assessment of the affected property as well as about the programme’s (un)availability for Ukrainians residing in occupied territories.[39] Third, the policymaking focus on urgent interim reparations, which could meet survivors’ most pressing needs and avoid irreparable harm, has increased. CRSV survivors have become co-shapers and are expected to become the first recipients of such pilot urgent interim measures.[40] The described developments paving the way for individual survivors are commendable. Fundamentally, following the ethos of the Basic Principles and realising that Russia is not going to provide reparations now, Ukraine has assumed its responsibility to ensure redress to survivors, as much as possible during ongoing hostilities. The implementation of this responsible vision, however, has not been devoid of challenges. Despite the pre-2022 transitional justice policymaking and awareness raising discussed in Section II, Ukrainians still predominantly associate reparations with post-war interstate payments, which are ordinarily channelled at infrastructural recovery. This narrow vision has impacted post-2022 survivors’ perception of what they can—and should—demand. Similarly, it has impacted the speed and creativity of policymakers’ responses. Hence, the confusion of interstate, reconstruction-oriented and individual reparations noticeable in 2014-2021 lingers. The UN Commission of Inquiry notes that it is apparent even in respective UNGA and Council of Europe instruments.[41] It is in the utmost interests of Ukraine, with a view to both avoiding societal fractions and, crucially, helping its own people, to clarify the difference between reparative frameworks—and ensure the provision of individual reparations, starting with urgent interim ones. As the Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has aptly put it, Ukraine and its international partners should make sure that ‘recognisably necessary national reconstruction programmes or property restitution programmes are not designed to the detriment of victims’ reparations’.[42] Ukraine ‘should initially concentrate on the harms and violations that are more central to the victims’ dignity and well-being rather than on property issues’.[43] For that, a non-bureaucratic and user-friendly victim registry should finally be established. This process should be accompanied by explanations of the nature and scope of harm, for survivors do not always define certain conduct—such as forced nudity, threat of sexual violence, or being compelled to watch it—as violations. Many aspects of urgent support, such as general mental health advice, couple counselling, and special support for parents or persons with caring obligations, can already be provided based on such a victim registry. It might be potentially problematic that workstreams on reparations for certain types of international crimes are more dynamic than for others. Both before and after the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian CRSV survivors (SEMA Ukraine) and their domestic (Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association ‘JurFem’, Eastern Ukrainian Center for Civic Initiatives) and international (Global Survivors Fund, the Mukwege Foundation, REDRESS) partners have been particularly proactive in advancing individual reparations.[44] As the CRSV has, sadly, become much graver and visible since 2022, survivors’ willingness to bring the reparations process to at least some degree of fruition has amplified. As of January 2024, it is viable that CRSV survivors will set a pilot for the victim registry and, to begin with, for urgent interim reparations.[45] This development is commendable and welcomed, including by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine,[46] and is particularly impressive at this moment, given how stigmatised, underreported, and unaddressed CRSV usually is. However, it is important that, in relation to CRSV, these promising reparation initiatives focus not only on women and girls but also intersectionally address sexual violence perpetrated against men, boys, and LGBTQI+ persons. Furthermore, it is crucial that reparations advocacy and pilots do not cease with the currently more proactive CRSV community. Ukraine and its partners must make urgent interim reparations and wider reparations programmes available to all survivors of atrocity crimes perpetrated amid Russia’s aggression as soon as possible. Finally and crucially, certain reparation initiatives seem to—wrongly—focus on harms committed since the full-scale invasion. For instance, this temporal threshold seems to have been adopted for the damage registry established by the Council of Europe[47] and for Ukraine’s destroyed or damaged property compensation scheme.[48] Such an approach mirrors the wider—misguided—view of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine exclusively through the prism of the developments and crimes unfolding since 24 February 2022. This is factually and legally wrong. Russia occupied Crimea[49] and established effective control over some Donbas regions in 2014.[50] These initial acts of aggression were complemented and expanded in 2022. The 2014 and 2022 acts of aggression ‘are inseparable and form one situation, which also corresponds to the temporal scope of the situation of Ukraine before the ICC’.[51] The same continuity applies to the patterns of conflict-related crimes and related victimhood. Any artificial division of the 2014-2021 and post-2022 events blurs Russia’s intentions, crimes and respective reparation obligations owed to Ukrainian victims and their families. Solidifying this division in the individual reparations domain will be detrimental to other crucial issues. Among such adjacent issues are the temporal scope of a prospective aggression tribunal and Russia’s interstate reparations owed to Ukraine. Furthermore, some of the most activist survivor communities are led by those assaulted in Crimea and Donbas before the all-out invasion. If maintained, the focus exclusively on post-2022 violations might inadvertently create victim competition and, thus, cause deep fractions in Ukraine’s survivor community and wider social fabric. Crucially, this approach undermines the whole survivor-centric and driven ethos of transitional justice. If Kyiv truly wants to gradually provide holistic support to the people affected by unimaginable crimes and keep its wounded yet resilient social fabric together, it should avoid any artificial delineation between those victimised before and after the full-scale invasion and ensure that all survivors have equal access to remedy and reparations. Conclusions Rooted in the post-World War II human rights framework, the ICC reparations-enhanced legal regime, regional courts’ jurisprudence, and domestic transitional justice policies, the individual’s right to remedy reparation for atrocities has solidified. These developments, together with the relentless proactivity of the survivor community, civil society, and policymakers, have allowed Ukrainian victims to demand individual reparations already amid the ongoing aggression. While backed by international law, meeting these demands is not devoid of external and internal difficulties. As of January 2024, Ukraine’s state and societal standing is strong enough to implement reparation programmes. Any implementation should start with clarity—among Ukrainian stakeholders and their international partners, in their policy steps and public communication—about the difference between interstate and individual reparations. Among the underlying issues for both types of reparations is the question of funding—and an international resolve to repurpose Russia’s frozen assets for that.[52] Ukraine’s partners must act upon assets repurposing to ensure that both Ukraine’s multi-billion infrastructural recovery and redress to individual victims of Russia’s atrocity crimes are funded by the perpetrator. However, the costs of individual reparations, especially urgent interim ones, are much lower than the funds needed for Ukraine’s economic rebuilding. The needs of torture, CRSV, and other survivors are acute and pressing. Therefore, any protractions with assets repurposing should not be used as an excuse to delay the less costly support to individual victims, starting with urgent interim reparations. It is paramount that all such initiatives apply equally to all victims assaulted since the beginning of Russia’s aggression in 2014, irrespective of the identity of the perpetrator. Both immediate, urgent, and more comprehensive individual reparation programmes should be intersectional and address multiple forms of harm and discrimination. Reparations should additionally be tailored to support particularly stigmatised victims such as women, girls, men, boys, and LGBTQI+ CRSV survivors and children born out of war. Addressing the deep wounds in a layered and inclusive way, which recognises the inherent gendered dimensions of victimisation and victims’ needs, will help the Ukrainian society come out of this darkness even more devoted to the guiding values of human dignity and human rights for all. Kateryna Busol Kateryna is a Ukrainian lawyer. She is also an Associate Professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and a British Academy Research Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. As a scholar and practitioner, Kateryna works on the weaponisation of cultural heritage, conflict-related sexual violence, reparations, and wider transitional justice. Kateryna has collaborated with the Clooney Foundation for Justice, UN Women, Global Survivors Fund, and Global Rights Compliance. She has also advised Ukraine’s investigators and prosecutors on armed conflict-related proceedings. Kateryna was a visiting researcher at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, a fellow at Chatham House, and a Visiting Professional at the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. She is also the founder of # InternationalLawTalks and a Board member of the Cambridge Society of Ukraine, which advances educational opportunities for Ukrainian children. Kateryna received her PhD, LLM (distinction), and LLB (distinction) from the Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and an LLM from the University of Cambridge. [1] UNGA Res 60/147, Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (2005), para 11. [2] Case Concerning the Factory at Chorzów (Germany v Poland) (Merits) PCIJ Rep Series A No 17, 29. [3] ibid. [4] ‘A belligerent party which violates the provisions of the said Regulations shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces’. Convention (IV) respective the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annexe: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land (18 October 1907), article 3. [5] ibid. [6] Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (8 June 1977). [7] ICC Rome Statute (21 July 1998), article 75; ICC Rules of Procedure and Evidence, Rule 85. [8] ICC Rules of Procedure and Evidence, Rules 97.1, 86. [9] Rome Statute (n 7), article 75.1. [10] ICC Rules of Procedure and Evidence, Rule 97.2. [11] Clara Sandoval, ‘The Legal Standing and Significance of the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation’ (2018) 78 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht (ZaöRV) 565. [12] ibid. [13] Basic Principles (n 1), paras 1-2. [14] ibid, para 2. [15] ibid, paras 15-23. [16] ibid, paras 15-16. [17] Guidance Note of the Secretary-General ‘Reparations for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence’ (2014). [18] Marina Lostal, ‘The Ntaganda Reparations Order: a marked step towards a victim-centred reparations legal framework at the ICC’ (Blog of the European Journal of International Law, 24 May 2021) accessed 8 January 2024. [19] Nelson Camilo Sánchez León and Clara Sandoval-Villalba, ‘Go Big or Go Home? Lessons Learned from the Colombian Victims’ Reparation System’ in Carla Ferstman and Mariana Goetz (eds), Reparations for Victims of Genocide, Warm Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (Brill 2020) 569-570. [20] Clara Sandoval, ‘Two steps forward, one step back: Reflections on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights jurisprudential turn on domestic reparation programmes’ (2018) 22(9) The International Journal of Human Rights 1192-1208. [21] Kateryna Busol, ‘If Ukraine’s Fate Is not a Menu à La Carte, then Ukrainian Voices Must Be Heard’ (Blog of the European Journal of International Law, 20 June 2022)  accessed 8 January 2024. [22] Iryna Marchuk and Aloka Wanigasuriya, ‘Venturing East: The Involvement of the International Criminal Court in Post-Soviet Countries and Its Impact on Domestic Processes’ (2021) 44 Fordham International Law Journal 756. [23] Kateryna Busol, ‘Mariupol and the Origins and Avenues of Ukraine’s Transitional Justice Process’ (Just Security, 1 June 2021) accessed 8 January 2024. [24] Order of the President of Ukraine ‘On the National Human Rights Strategy’ №119/2021 (24 March 2021) Section 4. Strategies dimensions accessed 8 January 2024 (On the National Human Rights Strategy); Order of the President of Ukraine ‘On the Decision of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine of 11 March 2021 On the Strategy of the De-Occupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol’, No. 117/2021 (21 March 2021), paras 15, 35, 38 accessed 8 January 2024 (On the Strategy of the De-Occupation and Reintegration of Crimea); Order of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 1544-r ‘On the Approval of the National Action Plan for the Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security for the period until 2025’ (28 October 2020) Operational Goal 3.3, para 27 accessed 8 January 2024 (2021-2025 WPS NAP). [25] On the National Human Rights Strategy (n 24) Section 4. Strategies dimensions; On the Strategy of the De-Occupation and Reintegration of Crimea (n 24), paras 15, 35, 38. [26] Predominantly in Russia-controlled detention centres and occupied territories in Donbas, Eastern Ukraine. [27] Amal Nassar, Kateryna Busol, and Alexa Sydor-Czartorysky, ‘Ukraine Study on the Status of and Opportunities for Reparations for Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence’ (Global Survivors Fund, May 2022) 61 accessed 8 January 2024. [28] ibid. [29] Order of the President of Ukraine ‘On Awarding State Levko Lukianenko Scholarships’ №662/2021 (16 December 2021) accessed 8 January 2024. [30] Justin Hendrix, ‘Ukraine May Mark a Turning Point in Documenting War Crimes’ (Just Security, 28 March 2022) accessed 8 January 2024. [31] Artem Ripenko, ‘Funding Ukraine’s Aid: New Challenges’ (Blog of the European Journal of International Law, 7 December 2023) accessed 8 January 2024; Human Rights Council, Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine (UN Commission of Inquiry), Conference Room paper of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine (29 August 2023) A/HRC/52/CRP.4 (UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, Conference Room Paper), para 972. [32] UNGA Res ES-11/5, Furtherance of remedy and reparation for aggression against Ukraine (2022), para 3. [33] ibid, para 3. [34] ibid, para 4. [35] Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Resolution establishing the Enlarged Partial Agreement on the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine, CM/Res (2023) 3 (12 May 2023) (Council of Europe, Resolution establishing the Enlarged Partial Agreement on the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine). [36] ibid, para 2.5. [37] Law of Ukraine ‘On the Compensation for Damaging or Destroying Some Categories of Immovable Property Resulting from Hostilities, Terrorist Acts, Sabotage Acts Caused by the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, and the State Registry of Property Damaged or Destroyed as a Result of Hostilities, Terrorist Acts, Sabotage Acts Caused by the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine’ N 2923-IX (23 February 2023)  accessed 8 January 2024 (Law of Ukraine ‘On the Compensation for Damaging or Destroying Some Categories of Immovable Property Resulting from Hostilities’). [38] Diia, ‘How to Get Compensation for Property in Ukraine Destroyed by War’  accessed 8 January 2024. [39] ‘The Delivery of Reparation for Ukraine: Briefing Paper’ (Redress, November 2023) 8 accessed 8 January 2024. [40] Draft Law ‘On the Status of Persons Affected by Sexual Violence Related to the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and Urgent Interim Reparations’, No. 10132 (9 October 2023) accessed 8 January 2024. [41] UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, Conference Room Paper, para 969; Erik Møse, ‘Update by the Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, at the 54th session of the Human Rights Council’ (OCHR, 25 September 2023 accessed 8 January 2024. [42] UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine (n 41), para 969. [43] ibid, para 972. [44] Pip Cook, ‘Seeking justice for survivors of sexual violence in Ukraine’ (Geneva Solutions, 16 December 2022) accessed 8 January 2024. [45] Draft Law ‘On the Status of Persons Affected by Sexual Violence Related to the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and Urgent Interim Reparations’, No. 10132 (9 October 2023) accessed 8 January 2024. [46] UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine (n 41), paras. 968, 973. [47] Council of Europe, Resolution establishing the Enlarged Partial Agreement on the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine, article 1.1. [48] Law of Ukraine ‘On the Compensation for Damaging or Destroying Some Categories of Immovable Property Resulting from Hostilities’ (n 37), Preamble. [49] International Criminal Court, Report on Preliminary Examination Activities (2016), para 158 accessed 8 January 2024. [50] European Court of Human Rights, Ukraine and The Netherlands v. Russia, Applications nos. 8019/16, 43800/14 and 28525/20, Decision, 20 November 2022, para 695. [51] Astrid Reisinger Coracini, ‘The Case for Creating a Special Tribunal to Prosecute the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine (Part II)’ (Just Security, 23 September 2022) accessed 8 January 2024; Charlotte McDougall, ‘The Imperative of Prosecuting Crimes of Aggression Committed against Ukraine’ (2023) 28 Journal of Conflict & Security Law 229. [52] Timothy Ash, ‘Putin’s $300bn Belongs to Ukraine’ (CEPA, 3 January 2024) accessed 8 January 2024; Andriy Moiseienko, International Lawyers Project, and Spotlight on Corruption, ‘Frozen Russian Assets and the Reconstruction of Ukraine: Legal Options’ (2022) accessed 8 January 2024.

Johann Soufi is a Franco-Algerian international lawyer and prosecutor, and a former Senior Legal Officer at the United Nations. He has been internationally recognised for his work and investigations into international crimes in many countries around the world. This includes his work as a legal adviser of the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, as Head of the Legal Advisory Section of the Special Tribunal in Lebanon, and as the Head of UNRWA’s Legal Office in Gaza. This interview was conducted in June 2023. CJLPA: Hello and welcome today, Mr. Johann Soufi. I’d like to begin by thanking you for taking the time to come and interview with The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics and Art, to provide insights and thoughts based on your extensive experience as an international lawyer. As you’ve had an extensive career to date in prosecuting and investigating international criminal and human rights violations and having been counselled for various international tribunals and courts, I want to begin by asking you what prompted you to delve into a career in international criminal law (ICL), as opposed domestic criminal law? Johann Soufi: Thank you for the question and for the invitation. Firstly, I don’t believe there’s a significant difference in being a lawyer at the domestic level or at the international one. I think that if you’re drawn to criminal law, it’s because you want to understand why certain individuals commit crimes, and explore the human aspects behind these actions. I could have chosen to practice in France, my country of origin, rather than at an international level, but I was truly interested in grasping the diversity of societies and their influence on the crimes we observe. There was also an interest in addressing the magnitude and the profound injustice of certain situations outside Europe. Like every practitioner who aspires to work in human rights or international criminal law beyond their domestic sphere, it was the extent of suffering in the world that I sought to address and challenge. CJLPA: Could you give us an example of a case you worked on to help establish a state’s accountability for their human rights violations, which ultimately resulted in justice being released for the victims? JS: As you probably know, international criminal (ICL) law focuses on individual responsibility. The fundamental principle of ICL is that crimes are not committed by an abstract state or population but by specific individuals, whose actions impact an entire society. So, when it comes to establish a state’s responsibility, I might not have a straightforward answer. Nonetheless, I will offer two examples to illustrate the variety of accountability mechanisms available to push or assist states in fighting against impunity. The first is drawn from my involvement with the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali, where we were tasked by the Secretary-General with investigating crimes perpetrated by all parties: governmental, non-governmental, and international forces. I highlight this example due to the significant resistance from the current Malian regime towards those engaged in human rights, which is concerning. Yet, an important aspect of international justice and accountability processes is recognising the duration required to observe the effects of our work, which may not be immediate but could manifest over a decade. My second example relates to my current position in Ukraine, where I serve as a senior prosecutor for an organisation that supports Ukrainian prosecutors and judicial authorities in addressing impunity for crimes committed by Russians in the context of the ongoing conflict. Currently, there is a pronounced political will and a robust initiative to combat the impunity surrounding the crimes occurring in Ukraine. This political drive and the accountability mechanisms now being designed in Ukraine will, over time, reveal their efficiency, possibly within 5, 10, or 20 years. As international practitioners, the influence of our endeavors might become apparent in as little as five years or extend up to decades. CJLPA: What you’ve just explained definitely demonstrates how ICL and international human rights law (IHRL) are the fundamental basis for the international community to be able to legally step in into another state and hold individual actors accountable for the most serious crimes. When we see these gross human rights violations occurring around the world, these legal mechanisms truly provide hope for addressing the issues, but equally, various challenges do come across. That’s what I was hoping to step into now, beginning with Rwanda. Reflecting on the ICTR and the acquittal of Justin Mugenzi and Prosper Mugiraneza demonstrates the difficulty in proving responsibility of political leaders for violations of international human rights law. We must abide by the rule of law and start from the innocence of an accused, before determining their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence that is presented. This is the case in various criminal law jurisdictions, however, establishing evidence is very challenging. From your experience, how is this something that we could address? JS: Actually, my initial involvement with the ICTR, was working for the defence. I highlight this because, as an international practitioner, my interest has always been in the judicial process, rather than its outcome. For example, I don’t see acquittals, including of high-level political leaders, as a failure of the system. I see it as the possible outcome of any impartial judicial process. It is, sometimes, a failure when the prosecution or judges do not fulfill their mandate. But I also believe that an effective judicial system, whether domestic or international, should lead to an individual’s acquittal when they are innocent or when the prosecution has failed to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I hold this to be true for the ICTR as well. The second aspect which, I think, is also very important for international trials, is to recognise the significant political stakes involved in such cases and the paramount importance of the accused’s rights and the trial’s fairness in this specific context. This is because, at the outset of a trial, it’s uncertain whether political motivations underpin it. This said, you are completely correct, international trials, particularly those targeting senior military commanders or political leaders, pose tremendous challenges. The reason is that the people who are behind the crimes, the most responsible, are usually very far from the crime scene. They may not physically have ‘blood on their hands’, but they bear significant responsibility for planning and organising the crimes, without which these atrocities would not occur. To take a more familiar example, in a mafia case or organised crime in the UK, arresting the individual selling drugs or committing a murder might be straightforward. However, identifying the top of the pyramid and understanding the mastermind behind these criminal activities is far more challenging. This is equally true for international crimes, as victims or witnesses often describe the crime itself but have little or no knowledge of who orchestrated it. To the contrary, as a practitioner, when someone claims to know precisely who is beyond the planning, that often raises concern about the credibility of the statement. Usually, to find out about command responsibility, like senior leadership, you need to conduct a long investigation and have access to insiders who can testify about receiving orders or financial support. You also need to conduct investigation into telecom evidence, conduct intelligence analysis etc. This is much longer and more difficult process than just interviewing a few witnesses, and figuring out directly who could be the perpetrator behind the crime. If these challenges are not well explained to the victims, it can create frustration among them, and in general, among the international community about the length and the disappointing outcome of certain trial such as the one you have mentioned. CJLPA: I think that’s very well said in these circumstances. When there are issues of human rights violations, the public is very quick to point fingers at the state actors in question, rather than considering the political implications. As you said, it’s not a matter of the result, it’s about the process. Of course, there are higher political stakes, so we have to be very careful with how we prosecute these crimes and establish accountability. From what you’ve just said, it does sound like a very difficult and long process for the prosecution in terms of establishing jurisdiction, the rigorous investigative process in gathering and collating evidence over the years and working in heightened political risks in order to achieve justice for the victims and establish accountability. Do you think the current international criminal law framework that we have in place draws a fair balance on the burden of proof required by the prosecution? Or is it a matter of potentially reducing the burden for the prosecution currently? JS: No, I do not believe the burden of proof should be altered. Building on what I mentioned earlier, determining whether a state is democratic or respects human rights often involves examining how the state treats suspects. This is somewhat paradoxical because, in the context of serious crimes, the focus tends to be on the rights of victims. However, considering how the state upholds the rights of the accused is equally important. In many cases of human rights violations I have witnessed, the initial violations typically involve states levying false terrorism accusations. The first signs of widespread corruption and systemic violence against citizens often stem from issues related to the rights of the defense and the burden of proof. I maintain that for the international community to uphold its credibility in promoting human rights and international law, it must steadfastly adhere to a rigorous burden of proof and the presumption of innocence, making no changes to the burden of proof. This said, it is true that trials should be conducted in a way that takes into consideration the specificities of international trials, the security context and the pressure that states or armed groups could put on the witnesses, including threat to their lives. To avoid misjudgment, international lawyers should also be more aware of the culture of the witnesses and the realities of conducting investigations in difficult fields. What I’ve noticed sometimes in international trials is that judges, prosecutors, and lawyers are evolving in a bubble. They are in The Hague, conducting their trial or investigation and don’t always understand the reality in the field and, or the possibility that after years of trauma, a witness will not remember the color of the car of the accused, or the precise date of when a crime took place. These are very important cultural elements that I feel sometimes international practitioners forget about and then assess the credibility of evidence with a lens which is not adequate. My answer in a nutshell would be by all means you don’t touch the burden of proof. That’s the pillar of any democratic system and of the legitimacy of international criminal law. But yes, you should also look at the evidence with a bit better understanding of what it means to witness such crimes and to actually investigate in such a difficult context, where sometimes the entire establishment, the entire forces of the state are acting deliberately to prevent you from finding out the truth. CJLPA: I now wanted to transition a bit to focus on broader issues occurring in Africa, in terms of human rights violations, especially in the context of the Journal, because we speak with various human rights abuse survivors, including survivors of human trafficking, genocide, and mass starvation in the country. From your experience and your knowledge, beyond the ICC, are there any legal mechanisms we have in place to address these crimes outside of the political sphere? JS: To a certain extent, Africa has always been at the forefront of the fight against impunity, given the magnitude of crimes occurring on the continent and the innovative approaches developed by both the international community and African civil society to address these atrocities. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), established by the United Nations Security Council, is a notable example. However, there are numerous other mechanisms. For instance, the Special Court for Sierra Leone was initiated by the Sierra Leone government, influenced by the country’s civil society. Additionally, there’s the example of the trial of Hissène Habré in the Extraordinary African Chambers in Senegal and the Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic, which are courts of a hybrid nature. There are also the truth and reconciliation efforts in South Africa, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Liberia. This diversity of accountability mechanisms, extending beyond the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other tribunals created by the Security Council, showcases Africa’s significant contribution to the development of international criminal law and to the fight against impunity. CJLPA: I now want to turn to the creation of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), established after the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and 20 others. It was the beginning of a fight against international terrorism, even a first step towards establishing the responsibility of perpetrators of serious violations of human rights in the Middle East. Could you please speak about the investigative process in this period and more specifically on the difficulties and challenges throughout this process, reflecting on what was required to carry out these investigations in Lebanon when you were working as counsel? JS: When discussing the complexity of international law, it’s important to consider the context of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL)’s creation. Lebanon requested the tribunal, but strong political divisions within the country made it impossible to establish according to the Lebanese constitution. Consequently, the Security Council, identifying the assassination of Hariri as a threat to international peace and security, passed a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to establish the tribunal. This decision was, to say the least, controversial, especially since the STL was the first international tribunal to hold trials in absentia, further fueling debate. So, from the beginning, the STL faced questions regarding its legitimacy, compounded by strong opposition within Lebanon, where its activities were seen as interference and politically motivated against certain factions, notably Hezbollah. The tribunal thus operated within a highly charged political context. Adding to the complexity was the nature of the crime; the perpetrators had meticulously covered their tracks, leaving no direct evidence linking them to the crime’s orchestrators. The prosecution’s investigation was exceptionally challenging, lacking witnesses or insiders and devoid of financial trails. The case hinged almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, primarily telecom evidence and call data records. This reliance on modern technology was unprecedented in the history of international justice, raising numerous novel legal issues. CJLPA: At the end of the proceedings, the Trial Chamber judges unanimously found the guilt of Salim Ayyash, yet acquitted three other alleged members of Hezbollah, due to the requirements of the highest standard of proof. From your experience working in the STL, what could have been done differently on the prosecution’s side? JS: To complete your question, it is important to recall that the appeals chamber later reversed the decision of the trial chamber and convicted two additional accused, Hassan Merhi and Hussein Oneissi. Regarding the flaws in the prosecution’s case, it’s also crucial to recognise the significant challenges the prosecution encountered while investigating this complex case. The absence of insiders and the real security threats to anyone willing to cooperate with the prosecution were serious hurdles. However, I also believe that much of the criticism directed at the STL, in particular at the Office of the prosecutor, was warranted. My primary critique of the STL concerns its detachment from Lebanon and the Lebanese culture. The Tribunal generally failed to consider the unique aspects of Lebanese legal culture and conducted its proceedings in complete isolation from Lebanese civil society. This approach quickly led to a strong disinterest among the Lebanese population in the proceedings, and, as a result, the STL eventually lacked the public support necessary for the continuation of its activities. CJLPA: A big question that also came out of it was the difficulty with the funding. Particularly the STL funding model was for Lebanon to meet 49% percent and the remaining states to meet 51%. Are there alternative ways that we could consider to provide the funding in order to enable access for justice in such circumstances in the future when we want to continue setting up special tribunals? JS: Let’s put this into perspective. Given my wife is Lebanese, I’m acutely aware of the challenges faced by the Lebanese population, especially the severe financial crisis currently underway. So, the fact that the Lebanese people contributed 49% of the budget is significant. This means that of the $60 million annual budget, almost $30 million was funded directly by Lebanese taxpayers, which undoubtedly affects their daily life. While it’s true that justice costs money—a minor expense compared to funds allocated for other purposes, like war and finance—it’s still a substantial amount. We must always remember this and strive for greater efficiency, considering the high costs of these courts and the fluid nature of political priorities. This highlights the complexity of the international context we navigate. In this regard, it’s crucial that, alongside securing funding for international courts and tribunals, we remain conscious of competing against other global crises. For instance, the current focus on Ukraine and the significant financial support it receives can sometimes be at the expense of other crises worldwide. I concur that securing sustainable funding for international justice through a regular budget, similar to what the ICC seeks to establish, is vital. Yet, we must also recognise that we operate within a political landscape where funding is inherently tied to states’ political priorities, making the financing of international justice inherently unstable. CJLPA: As we know, there were good reasons for establishing the court, amongst them the absence of the Lebanese people’s trust in their own judiciary. If we look outside of Lebanon to other countries in the Middle East, is there scope for other tribunals to be established in countries such as Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, where we see various conflicts and violations of human rights occurring to date? JS: Yes, of course, but this underscores once more the tight connection between international criminal justice and its geopolitical context. The absence of tribunals for Syria, for Palestine, Yemen and other situations mentioned, stems from political stalemates at either the regional or international level, particularly due to the vetoes by certain states, namely the US, Russia, and China, at the United Nations Security Council. This is likely why a special tribunal was established for Lebanon and not for Syria. Nevertheless, international practitioners and diplomats are endeavouring to be innovative in ways that tackle these challenges and circumvent the deadlocks. For example, in the case of Syria, the General Assembly of the UN established an International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) in Geneva gathering evidence, acting as a central repository, and sharing it with national jurisdictions. With the support of this mechanism, there have been successful prosecutions and trials against Syrian individuals involved in crimes, for instance in Germany and France. Other methods are also being explored to achieve accountability for crimes without necessarily requiring a UN Security Council resolution; in Ukraine, for instance, the European Union and its allies are attempting to establish a hybrid court. With legal creativity and political determination, it is always feasible to devise mechanisms for accountability. The underlying factor in all these efforts is political will, which, especially in democracies, originates from the population. Raising awareness and disseminating information are crucial, as this informs the public about international crimes and human rights violations worldwide, motivating them to demand greater accountability. Democratic governments are likewise inclined to advocate for similar mechanisms. Even economic sanctions could serve as a valuable tool. The advocacy work of individuals like yourself, journalists, practitioners, and human rights activists plays a vital role, as it influences public opinion, which, in turn, hopefully impacts government actions. CJLPA: The United Nations Security Council will likely not be an option with the permanent veto from certain states, such as Russia and China. Do you see merit in alternative avenues such as the General Assembly voting to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice? Would this be a potential solution for providing that political willingness that you’re talking about and if so, to what extent? JS: Yes, advisory opinions are indeed an important legal mechanism. Though they have no binding effects and thus limited impact, like the advisory opinion on the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, they hold significant legal authority in a way, because they represent a United Nations court’s delineation of the law. This is immensely valuable. It presents a pathway, and I believe the General Assembly should be empowered to take more action, considering the Security Council, as a political body, is somewhat anachronistic, reflecting an era, a world that no longer exists. Reforming the Security Council without the consensus of its five permanent members is impossible. Nonetheless, the United Nations remains the first solution and tool we possess. We must be inventive with the tools at our disposal and explore all avenues for the international community to circumvent the potential stalemate caused by a few countries. The Rome Statute exemplifies this perfectly. Certain countries concluded that waiting for the United Nations Security Council to establish ad hoc tribunals for each new conflict or situation was untenable. Thus, they opted to establish a new treaty-based jurisdiction, aiming for eventual universal acceptance. The fact that, as of today, 123 states are parties to this court is quite remarkable over the last 30 years. I am an optimist at heart. I believe in the power of creativity, even outside the UN framework, to advance the cause for new courts on a treaty basis. CJLPA: An important issue that came up at the STL was the definition of terrorism. Defining terrorism is highly complex and controversial, both in the domestic and international level. When considering at the definition of terrorism being assessed in the domestic criminal process, Paul Rusesabagina, the Rwandan opposition leader and a hero to most, was sentenced to five years in prison because he was guilty of terrorism. Then, in the United States, innocent men were kidnapped and held without charge for years in Guantanamo Bay because they were allegedly terrorists. The existence of this definition has provided an opportunity to lock up the wrong people. What are your views on the definition of terrorism, particularly in terms of international law? JS: You’ve brought up an issue I’ve long been interested in. My Master’s thesis in 2005 focused on the universal definition of terrorism. Being Franco-Algerian, I’m aware that both of my countries have endured terrorism, a subject I consider significantly important. Conversely, there are countries that apply the definition of terrorism against any form of political opposition, making it a contentious issue not just internationally but domestically as well. Regarding your specific question, an important contribution of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was the Appeals Chamber’s effort to establish a universal definition of terrorism. The Appeals Chamber found that a customary rule of international law has evolved defining and outlawing transnational terrorism including in times of peace and that terrorism was the commission of a criminal act through means which are liable to create a public danger, committed with the intent to spread fear among the population or coerce authority. However, the primary challenge here is political rather than legal, centred on whether state terrorism exists and whether armed groups fighting against colonisation or illegal occupation fall under the definition of terrorism. These issues create legal tension on the global political scene, explaining why, despite decades of effort at the United Nations, there’s still no universal definition of terrorism or a convention on international terrorism. So in a nutshell, the issue is predominantly political, and I understand the reasons. Yet, I believe there are sufficient legal tools at both domestic and international levels to address this type of criminality. Domestically, nearly every state has its own definition of terrorism. Internationally, legal concepts exist that can encompass terrorist acts. The Geneva conventions prohibit acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population is a war crime in both international and non-international armed conflict. Acts of terror, whether committed during armed conflict or not, could also be considered as crimes against humanity, under specific conditions. Thus, legal frameworks are in place to address aspects of criminality associated with terrorism. Nonetheless, it’s crucial for the international community to persist in its efforts to address terrorism, a fundamentally global issue requiring a unified response. The United Nations or international instruments represent the best means to this end. CJLPA: Reflecting back on history, there was a time when George Washington or Nelson Mandela were considered terrorists, so it’s clearly an evolving definition. Do you think there’s still an ongoing need to find a universal definition for terrorism, or do the coherent legal crimes we have in place already address what we categorise as ‘terrorist attacks’? JS: At the domestic level, prosecuting individuals committing terrorist acts is rarely difficult from a legal perspective, as states are keen on combating domestic terrorism. Conversely, the real challenge lies in ensuring that domestic proceedings adhere to human rights standards, particularly regarding the fair trial rights of individuals accused of terrorism. It’s essential to ensuring that terrorism is not used as a pretext to prosecute any form of domestic political opposition. Internationally, a universal definition of terrorism agreed upon by the international community would be ideal. Meanwhile, it’s crucial for the UN to address specific issues like financing terrorism, state support of terrorism, restricting terrorist groups’ access to chemical or nuclear weapons, or countering violent extremism for example. These pressing issues also sometimes lack a uniform response level. The UN, through entities like the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), is actively working on these fronts, signifying considerable global efforts to tackle various terrorism forms. However, defining terrorism and identifying who is considered a terrorist remains challenging for the UN. For example, during my time with the Commission of Inquiry for Mali, the distinction between terrorist groups and violent armed groups by the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) was based on whether they had signed the peace agreement with the government. While understandable, this criterion is somewhat incongruent from an International Humanitarian Law (IHL) perspective, as groups with diverse political motives can commit acts violating international law. Therefore, adhering to the language of IHL and the Geneva Conventions, which are neutral and universally accepted, seems more adequate. CJLPA: I also want to discuss Palestine and in particular your role in the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). Could you share a few crucial reflections you came to when you were working in this field. JS: My work with UNRWA was a bit different from anything I’ve done previously in my career, in the sense that it almost exclusively focused on providing humanitarian relief, and not doing the human rights and ICL work that I’d done in my career before that. However, this experience gave me a better vision of the needs of people beyond justice. I mean, justice is extremely important for the Palestinian population in Gaza, who have been suffering decades of serious crimes and gross human rights violations and abuses, but they also have pressing needs for food, for education, and for health. Despite significant challenges, UNRWA has done an incredible work in providing these services in the absence of a state, due to the political context in Palestine. CJLPA: Can you tell us a bit more of why the UNHCR is not responsible for Palestinian refugees in this sector? JS: Well, the explanation is straightforward from a legal standpoint. The Palestinian refugees do not fall under the mandate of the UNHCR. UNRWA was established before the HCR and specifically to provide humanitarian relief to Palestine refugees until a just and lasting solution to their situation and their plight can be found. UNRWA and UNHCR have distinct mandates, with the latter not tasked with addressing the needs of Palestinian refugees or their right to return. Additionally, UNHCR is already responsible for nearly 60 million refugees, including facilitating their right to return and resettlement in various countries. Essentially, these are two agencies with two distinct mandates. CJLPA: In terms of the human rights violations committed by Israel in Palestine, do you believe there are specific legal frameworks we have in play that could accelerate addressing the violations, or are only political mechanisms feasible currently? JS: I know that there is always a tension between diplomats and lawyers, peace and justice, but I believe that what is essential is to underline their complementarity. My role as a human rights or international criminal lawyer, as a practitioner, has never been about engaging in politics or diplomacy—that’s the realm of diplomats. As a lawyer, my focus is on criminal accountability, including investigating, prosecuting, and defending, which is distinct from diplomatic duties. These roles, in my view, support each other. Regarding the specific situation in Israel and Palestine, there’s a need for diplomats to enhance their efforts significantly to find a solution for the plight of Palestinians. Meanwhile, it’s crucial for criminal lawyers and human rights organisations to keep highlighting the current events in Palestine and Israel. Without a political resolution, and as long as crimes, human rights violations and abuses, illegal occupation, and colonisation persist, the cycle of violence will likely continue. Our role as human rights defenders and international lawyers is to combat impunity, which ultimately supports the pursuit of peace in the Middle East and beyond. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has a mandate to investigate crimes committed in Palestine, and there should be more political pressure on the ICC Prosecutor to expedite these investigations. In parallel, we must continue documenting crimes and seeking justice. Diplomats and politicians should continue striving for a political solution to this longstanding conflict. As part of civil society, we must also advocate within our nations to not only promote peace but also to prioritise the justice agenda, as both are crucial for lasting resolution. CJLPA: Thank you, Mr Johann Soufi, for your insightful and fascinating discussion addressing different significant issues related to international criminal law and human rights law. Your elucidation not only highlights existing challenges but also sheds light on alternative perspectives for legal professionals, states, persons, and everyday people in civil societies to navigate barriers. This is crucial in reinforcing our commitment to justice in the international arena. JS: Thank you so much for your time and for your invitation. This interview was conducted by Nadia Jahnecke and Nour Kachi. Nadia is Legal Editor and Founder of Human Rights Volume of CJLPA 3. In addition to her role at CJLPA, Nadia is currently working as a Trainee Lawyer and will qualify as a lawyer in England and Wales in March 2024. Nour is a Legal Researcher for CJLPA 3. In addition to his role at CJLPA, he is currently working on qualifying as a lawyer in the US and UK.

A snapshot in time of English folk music, queer visibility, and gender non-conformity Alex Garden is a fiddle player, guitarist, composer, and producer with a unique approach as a result of ten years experience performing folk, classical, and improvised music around the UK. Alex uses they/them pronouns. Their projects include The Drystones, Sheelanagig, Tarren, Harriet Riley & Alex Garden, The Terra Collective, and The Longest Johns, and they also produce a variety of collaborative work as a recording artist alongside this. Their longest running project, The Drystones, has been nominated for the BBC Young Folk Award and received an Arts Council England project grant in 2021 for a new tour, with a mission to involve more younger audiences in UK Folk music. CJLPA: How were you introduced to folk music, and what encouraged you to pursue your passion for folk music as a career? Alex Garden: As a child from a Scottish family living in England I was introduced to ceilidhs and traditional songs and tunes. This, combined with a proximity to the incredible Priddy Folk Festival in Somerset and encouragement from an amazing violin teacher, led me to playing folk tunes on the fiddle in my free time. As teenagers at our local comprehensive school, Ford Collier and I discovered an overlapping passion for traditional music and we started playing together as The Drystones when we were around fifteen.[1] Along our journey we were very fortunate with the experiences we had, such as playing at Glastonbury Festival multiple times, appearing on BBC radio programs, supporting our heroes onstage, and producing our debut studio album. The opportunity for young people to have these experiences and to truly believe that they can make a living out of their music is very rare. We were extremely lucky to have been given the space and time to develop as young musicians and it's something I cherish every day. A career in folk music is not particularly glamorous or financially lucrative. I seem to spend a lot of time in fields, motorway service stations, and the odd night sleeping on hay bales in a barn. However, the community, creativity, and the love it brings me is incredible. CJLPA: What is your approach to instrumental music? What makes it unique? AG: My approaches to all music vary from project to project, and day to day. Some projects, like my trio Tarren, are rooted in specific traditions; in this case the English tradition.[2] Others, like The Drystones, are informed by folk music more broadly, and fuse electronic, techno, and prog genres together. Then there are more theatrical shows with Sheelanagig, and a unique duo project with Harriet Riley on vibraphone which brings together folk, minimalism, and jazz through entirely new compositions.[3] Generally, I love writing and improvising new music within a broader view to reworking old material. One constant throughout my work is trying to achieve perpetual fresh perspectives within the living tradition. CJLPA: Tarren has recently been awarded a grant from the English Folk Dance and Song Society, which you are using to research gender in English traditional song. How is harmful gender discrimination visible in English traditional song and folk music more broadly? AG: When we talk about folk music we are generally discussing music, dance and text, which dates back to a time where this material was passed on and recycled through the aural tradition. This works a little like the game Chinese whispers, where each time the material is passed from person to person it changes slightly, either by accident or deliberately. The reason many of these songs still exist today is that they were being transcribed and written down by folk song collectors, such as Cecil Sharp, who was mostly active during the Edwardian period. Sharp is a controversial figure often accused of being racist and fascist. However, in order to keep this section about gender and music, I will let you do your own reading around this to form your own judgements. Through the work of these collectors, we see that that a lot of songs, tunes, and texts have a wide diaspora across the country, across the world in some cases, with significant localised nuances and variations. Gender and class equality issues come into play for several reasons during this collecting process. Firstly, the songs themselves were often collected by men from other men, because both the academic pursuit of folk song collecting and many of the working environments where the songs were sung were inaccessible to women. Many of the songs collected during this time, known as the ‘first revival’ in England, were misogynistic and violent towards women, often mistreating them in a variety of barbaric ways. The famous Anglo-American ballad ‘Pretty Polly’ serves as an example. The male protagonist, an unnamed ships carpenter, promises to marry Polly and subsequently murders her when she becomes pregnant before the wedding, burying her in a shallow grave. I’ve heard this song being sung in folk clubs many times and it’s often sung with a kind of apathy for the message or meaning behind the text and being glorified simply for being part of the tradition. This is just one example of many songs. There are also old songs which can be said to promote transphobia, which is surprising as we generally regard trans visibility in Western culture to be something which appears much later on in the late 20th century. The song ‘The Close Shave’ (and various other versions) tells the story of a sailor coming into port after a long time at sea to trade gold. He meets a pretty maid and they spend the night together. When he wakes in the morning, his gold is gone and instead he finds a woman’s dress, a wig, and a shaving kit. The song’s pinnacle is the line “my pretty maid’s a man’ I cried, and thanks be I fell asleep, for I’d rather lose a bag of gold than wake up with that creep’. Here, we see an attempt at humour at the expense of a cross-dressing character which plays into the narrative that men are often unfairly and deliberately deceived into being attracted to trans people, and teaches that it is acceptable to shame them. I’m very much in favour of musical humour and taking traditional material with a pinch of salt, but I’ve experienced this song being sung by all ages and watched as they all sing the line ‘wake up with that creep’ while smiling and laughing. I think we need to take more responsibility when we are working with older material, acknowledging its shortcomings and educating audiences and performers about the dangerous messages hidden in these songs. They can be sung with better sensitivity, understanding, and context. For example, sometimes the meaning of a narrative can be flipped with a few simple edits. We can learn so much from history and folklore; let’s not simply erase it. Instead let’s use our critical faculties to interrogate the parts of our history we are not happy with. Unfortunately, gender inequality in the English music industry extends to the present day at gigs and festivals. I have heard so many anecdotes from friends and colleagues where they have been mistreated, patronised, and embarrassed as performers because they identify as a woman, a trans person or non-binary identity. A friend who identifies as a woman was asked by her manager in public whether she has an ‘OnlyFans’ account (a user generated content site which is primarily used by sex workers to post pornographic material). A different woman’s performance was interrupted by a male sound engineer who said that she didn’t know how to tune her instrument, and another friend was sexually assaulted by venue staff. On an everyday level we see constant micro-aggressions, such as women on stage only being described as ‘beautiful’ or ‘gorgeous’ whereas in the same breath men are described as ‘talented’ and ‘masterful’. This is so damaging to our beloved industry, and to the individuals who make this musical community thrive. If you witness any of these behaviours, please call them out. If you perpetrate any of these behaviours, please stop, retreat, seek help, and learn from your mistakes. CJLPA: Why did you feel that it was important to use this grant to address gender discrimination in folk music culture? AG: Folk music in the UK is like a massive extended family. It includes people from all around the world, from every background, and is constantly in flux. It is the community which accepted me with open arms as a young person, taught me everything I know about performing, and gave me the career I have today. The same is true for many of my friends, and I know they hold this community very close to their hearts. Much like in any other industry, it is paramount that we tackle discrimination in order to keep everyone safe and to continue welcoming new people from all backgrounds. If we don’t do this, there will be no fresh perspectives, no innovation, and no new ideas coming to the fore. The living tradition exists because it constantly interrogates and challenges itself to solve problems and to drive forward into new fields. Writing in 2023, I am seeing huge changes happening in UK folk. Music is becoming more influenced by other cultures from around the world; it is delving into the world of electronic music and high production value, it is finding its place in gamer and fantasy culture, and it is cross-pollinating into many more disciplines which I don’t have the time to list. It also occasionally flirts with mainstream pop music, and achieves moments of viral, global popularity mostly thanks to social media. It is more important than ever that we address issues around discrimination in order to keep the genre and the community alive and thriving for generations to come. CJLPA: You have previously spoken about how you chose to come out to wider circles through the article you wrote with Trans portraits. How was this received by your friends and your wider circle? AG: ‘Coming out’ is a process which varies a lot from person to person. For me, perhaps ‘transition’ better defines my process, as it implies an ongoing period of time between one state and another, as opposed to representing a fixed point in time where there was a change. The article I wrote for Trans Portraits UK in 2022 was an opportunity, not only to describe my initial experiences of being openly non-binary, but also to put this into words for myself at the time, early on in the process.[4] This equates to a time of healing and self-education, whilst letting other people know all the fascinating things I am discovering about gender along the way. In the article I focused on the euphoric aspect of transitioning, and made suggestions for how other people can make life easier for non-binary and trans folk around them. I had very positive responses from friends and the wider music community, and it has helped me form connections with other queer musicians, facilitated some fascinating conversation, and hopefully played a small role in spreading awareness of trans issues within the traditional music community. As I have travelled from place to place playing music in the wake of transition, I have noticed myself create this kind of utopia in my mind of how things could be made a lot easier for the non-binary and trans community. I refer to this through the rest of the article. CJLPA: As a gender non-conforming musician, how do you express yourself on stage, both in terms of image and through your music, and how do these forms of expression make you feel? AG: My overall performance practice hasn’t changed a lot since I transitioned. However, the way I feel has changed a lot. Having fun, getting lost in music, and being playful is what it’s all about when I’m performing now. Everything, from the way I move to the way I speak and dress, feels more authentic now the pressure of needing to conform to a binary identity has been lifted. The way I dress varies, in correlation with my gender-fluidity and an understandable desire to be physically comfortable on stage. Some days I’m feeling more femme and others more neutral. More often than not I’ll be found at a festival sporting some brightly-coloured dungarees, some mud stains, cat-eye sunglasses, and messy hair. In UK folk music, I’m proud to be flying the flag for gender non-conforming musicians, and I feel extremely lucky to live in a world where we have developed the language and recognition of non-binary gender to facilitate this. CJLPA: Did you face any challenges growing up as a non-binary person in a rural area where there were few queer spaces? What spaces should be made for non-binary/gender non-conforming people who are unsure about their identity growing up? AG: Young people have a lot on their plate. While going through the various ordeals and dramas of education and finding an area in which to eventually earn a living, they also need to work out who they are and what their purpose is, on an existential level. We all go through a lot of experimentation in order to draw conclusions on our identity in an often turbulent trial and error process. We try something, we see how it fits, and either keep it up or lose it, and in order to feel secure in our conclusions we need to have just the right support, space, validation, and encouragement from our peers and guardians. Reflecting now, I have been extremely lucky in this regard. Something that troubled me is the idea of needing to conform to behaviours and appearances of my assigned gender at birth. It took me until I was an adult to realise that this thing that was giving my subconscious such a hard time was an issue that could be addressed by simply looking at my identity in a different way. I recognised my freedom as a grown-up and met other gender-queer folk pursuing a career in the arts thanks to the creative urban hub in Bristol I now call home. Naturally, this process began introspectively and then became something I decided to present outwardly when I was ready. Having always had a slight fascination with music and the way we develop as musicians, I have found that there are some gendered trends in terms of who learns what instrument, which is particularly noticeable in young musicians. In broad strokes, my experience is that young boys prefer to negotiate a masculine identity and seek catharsis through music, typically learning guitar, drums, or bass and starting bands with perhaps more rhythm and aggression. Young girls seek a broader range of creative outlets and tend to start by learning piano, bowed strings, woodwind, and vocals. This accompanies a noticeable attitude of self confidence in the former group, who mirror the behaviours of professional musicians they have seen live and on screen, whereas the latter group are sometimes more introverted in their approach, participating for self-development  and social aspects of music. Although there are many academics who have weighed in with fascinating discourse on why this might be, one sees similarities when looking back to the nineteenth century, when women were excluded from public performance and instead encouraged to participate in music purely in private. The same was largely true for composers, conductors, and many other public-facing roles in the music industry. Perhaps we still carry this bias today. Now, in the twenty-first century, we see the music industry progressing towards more even distribution of roles with regards to gender, race and class. For example, many orchestras have adopted blind audition processes to eliminate discrimination based on anything other than musicianship. However, there is still more work to be done to change our core beliefs and attitudes, particularly for young people, which result in stark imbalances in some parts of the music industry. For example, there are fewer women with jobs in percussion than there are men called David with jobs in percussion.[5] Not everyone wants to learn music, so speaking more broadly, I will talk you through a few ideas and scenarios which may amount to safer and more encouraging environments for a young queer or questioning person. Having a lack of queer role models as a young person can lead to them feeling hidden themselves, as they have no-one to show them that queer can also mean successful, happy, and empowered. This, combined with a culture of transphobic and homophobic language from peers, can amount to an extremely hostile place. It is important that we prioritise diversity in our educators, and expose young people to gender non-conforming people or cis-gendered people in roles which traditionally would have been taken by another gender. For the purposes of creating our fictional utopia, let’s have more male textiles teachers, female football teachers, and a couple of non-binary history teachers for good measure. Spaces with gender allocation are very important too. Changing rooms and bathrooms can be hostile environments for those who are experimenting with gender or transitioning, particularly young and vulnerable people. I would love to see more allocation of safe, gender-neutral spaces alongside separate gendered spaces, and an attitude shift which seeks to educate young people about gender and encourage acceptance and safer behaviour. The UK government has recently made two very dangerous moves with regards to this. Firstly they have said that the ‘rise in gender neutral toilets’ creates privacy issues and unfair disadvantage in a fairly obvious attempt to draw false equivalences between women’s rights and trans rights, as part of an ongoing anti-trans agenda (more on this later).[6] Secondly, Rishi Sunak said that new government guidelines will include rules about when schools must inform parents about children questioning their gender. Triggers for this are vaguely defined at the time of writing, but can include a young person experimenting with or changing their name, pronouns, or uniform. This is a very dangerous move from a safeguarding perspective, as it will effectively see teachers being forced to ‘out’ trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming pupils to their parents or guardians without their consent and without the time or space to safely develop their identity. Even if a young person simply wants to experiment with their appearance, play in a different sports team, or try different pronouns, this leaves the door wide open for systemic abuse, restricts the young person’s autonomy on a basic level, and can lead to homelessness. According to the AKT youth homelessness report (2021), half of LGBTQIA+ young people said they feared that expressing their identity to family members would lead to them being evicted.[7] Research from Stonewall shows that almost one in five LGBTQIA+ young people have experienced homelessness in their lives, and those rates climb to one in four amongst trans people.[8] Schools are meant to be safe spaces; in many cases the time a young person spends at school is the only time of the day when they are safe. We need to challenge the government on these guidelines, and we need to ensure that young queer or questioning people are protected and treated with the respect they deserve. CJLPA: Have you faced any challenges as a non-binary musician and, if so, how do you think these challenges could be addressed? AG: In terms of the intersection between my gender and career, I feel very lucky to admit that I haven’t faced many specific challenges as a musician so far… other than being mis-gendered a lot. The issues I face day-to-day are most likely ones that are shared by all non-binary and trans people when they are out and about. Working in music means that I have the advantage of working in a wide variety of hospitality settings each year, seeing a lot of different approaches to LGBTQIA+ inclusivity in those spaces, and opening up conversation about it with people who work there. This includes everything from fancy modern arts centres, to barns, city venues, sticky clubs, wedding venues, and, of course, festivals. I see a lot of different types of changing rooms, public toilets, and green rooms, and always breathe a sigh of relief when there is a dedicated genderless space for people like me who experience dysphoria in binary gendered environments. The main issue I face, and I am sure all my other trans or non-binary friends would echo this, is being constantly mis-gendered or misunderstood. Despite my efforts to speak publicly about issues non-binary people face, to send over information to relevant parties in advance, and to kindly remind people, where relevant, I still get referred to with the wrong pronouns in public while at work. Often this is simply a compère not having enough information, a missed opportunity to ask a question at the right time, a basic slip of the tongue, or another entirely forgivable mistake. However, it does matter. Back to my gender-inclusive utopia, I would love to see a music industry in the UK which champions inclusivity and diversity in every way by working on the language it uses and the questions it asks. If you work in the music industry, here is a little list of things you can do to make some positive differences to gender non-conforming folk: Practice pronouns. If you don’t already know, simply ask politely; Ensure that information about artists, staff, and crew which is passed on to other staff is accurate, up-to-date, and includes everyone’s pronouns; and Avoid saying ‘ladies and gentlemen’ when addressing a crowd. Say ‘they-dys and gentle-thems’ instead, or ‘ladies, gentlemen, and everyone in between’. If you say it confidently and quickly I promise the only people in the crowd who will notice the difference are those to whom it matters the most. CJLPA: What are some common misconceptions about non-binary people? AG: There are a few common misconceptions I hear regularly about non-binary people that I would like to address. First, we are all androgynous. This is simply not true, and doesn’t work as a way to identify someone and make assumptions about them. Some of us play with androgyny, some or all of the time, but there are also plenty of cis-gendered people who present androgyny too and don’t identify as non-binary. The best way around this is to remember it is never wise to make assumptions about anyone based on appearance, even if you may have heard others do this before without consequence. It’s dangerous and can cause harm even if you don’t intend it. Second, we’re offended every time you refer to us with the wrong pronouns or salutation/title. We are all human; we make mistakes and move on and that’s totally fine. Most non-binary people get mis-gendered quite a lot and won’t have a problem as long as you are trying your best, offer a correction, and you don’t make a fuss about it. The worst thing for me sometimes isn’t the act of being mis-gendered, it’s the aftermath of having to reassure and re-inflate someone’s slightly bruised ego after a barrage of disproportionate apologies from them. Just acknowledge the mistake and politely move on; it’s ok to make mistakes. That said, deliberate mis-gendering is an act of violence and should never be tolerated under any circumstance. As a side-note, in my experience, words like ‘man’, ‘dude’, ‘guys’, and ‘mate’ are usually not seen as particularly gendered by most people these days. It’s often the tone and the context in which you use these words which is likely to cause someone dysphoria—we just have to make sure we’re vigilant with our language and if we’re not sure of something, ask. Third, ‘cisgender’ is a slur. The Oxford English Dictionary defines cisgender as ‘describing or connected with people whose sense of personal identity and gender is the same as their birth sex’.[9] It’s as simple as that; nothing more, nothing less. No matter what you might have heard Piers Morgan say, this word is not intended to divide or insult people. Rather, it is necessary as part of the terminology which allows trans and non-binary people to exist, enabling us to define everyone fairly in reference to their assigned gender at birth. If you find this word offensive, I’d suggest this is due to an internalised transphobia which you may have picked up from TV, films, newspapers, and social media. Don’t worry, we can all become better allies no matter where we are coming from and there’s never been a better time to access the resources you need to self-educate about gender variance. Fourth, we all use they/them pronouns. Wouldn’t that be nice and simple? I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. There are a plethora of gender-neutral pronouns which folk use (like ze/hir, xe/xem, fae/faer etcetera), and many people use a combination such as she/they, where multiple types of pronouns can be used to refer to that person. Some people, whose gender is more fluid for example, will constantly vary the pronouns they use in accordance with their experience. The point is, all pronouns are equally important as part of our language. We all have them and we can all use the correct ones when referring to others if we make the effort. Fifth, pronouns are a preference. Whenever you see ‘preferred pronouns’ said out loud, written on a form, or on a list of options, politely call it out. ‘Preferred’ implies that they are optional and that others can choose which pronouns they use to refer to you (usually he/her). This is not correct. Pronouns can only be decided by the individual, and it’s important we reflect that in the language we use (for example, I do not prefer they/them pronouns, I actively use they/them pronouns). Finally, you can infer someone’s sexual orientation by the fact that they are trans/non-binary. This feels really obvious to say. However, I’ve seen so many examples of this assumption being made and it causing someone dysphoria or putting them in danger. Gender and sexuality are not the same thing and are not inherently linked in any way. Any person can experience a gender and a sexuality at the same time and there are no useful correlations. Never assume someone’s sexual orientation, full stop. It’s pretty rude, you can cause genuine harm, and most of the time you’ll probably get it wrong. CJLPA: How can friends or allies of non-binary people support you? AG: There are plenty of ways in which friends or allies can support and actively make life better for gender non-conforming folk. I’ve made lots of suggestions elsewhere in this article, so in order not to repeat myself I’ll go into more detail on three main areas which I feel require some work. Firstly, feeling understood. If you want to be a better ally as a part of modern western culture, one of the simplest things you can do is go and learn about the incredibly diverse and fascinating history of gender variance around the world and gain an understanding that, despite much of this language being fairly new to us at the moment, gender-variant identities are an ancient and wide-spread practice for humanity. For example, learn about the Hijra communes in South Asia whose origins go back to 400BC and still exist today, indigenous North American Two-Sprit people who traditionally, but not exclusively, fulfil a gender-variant identity, and the Ancient-Egyptian Sekhet which refers to a third gender that does not include men or women and dates back over 4000 years. This is just scratching the surface. Along the way, you’ll read some harrowing stories of how western colonisation has attempted to misrepresent, erase, and exterminate many of these communities, and discover how important it is that we learn about these amazing people. Be aware as you read, lots of the research you find will have been conducted through the western lens of binary gender and you may come across cultural appropriation too (for example, someone wrongly referring to themselves as these identities despite not belonging to these cultures and ethnic groups). Noticing this is an important step in the process. As an outsider, the hope is that when we see and start to understand the hundreds of cultures who have accepted gender-variance successfully before. This gives hope for western society becoming more accepting too. Secondly, feeling seen. Through a little healthy pedantry we can help a marginalised group in society feel more seen by using the right language. This is so important to building a world which not only validates but celebrates those groups. Be pedantic when it comes to pronouns (they, he, she, etc), salutations (Sir, Madam etc) and honorifics (Mr, Ms, Mrs, Mx etc). Never make assumptions, and if you’re not completely sure (and you actually need to know) ask, don’t assume. In case you were wondering, I use the honorific Mx which is often not included on forms. Similarly to the common honorific Ms (the modern understanding of which we have to thank those brave, pioneering, early twentieth-century feminists), Mx has developed for a reason in order to allow a group of people access to basic things. I’ve made it my mission to call out each and every instance where this is not an option on a form, and have generally been met with companies and institutions happy to change their process once I’ve explained it. There are a few disappointing exceptions I’ve encountered, such as energy giant British Gas, who have still not even responded to me after a year of emails about the matter. In these cases, when Mx is not an option, I’m slightly reluctant to admit in an academic journal, I use the honorific Dr as it’s often the only gender neutral option. My degree is a BA but maybe British Gas could pay for my doctorate one day by means of compensation? I find it bizarre that, in the UK, companies will often provide options for honourifics like Dame, Lord, Lady, Admiral, and Excellency, without a simple Mx. They also commonly include Christian honorifics such as Reverend or Father, whilst not including them from other major religions such as Islam or Judaism. Call this out. It may seem very insignificant to you, but it will mean a lot to someone out there if we can create options for everyone. Take note if you happen to work designing a form for anything other than medical reasons; perhaps don’t ask for someone’s personal information you don’t need to know. The number of times I’ve been asked my gender for no reason whatsoever is astonishing. Most of the time it is simply irrelevant; we are just taught and accept that we can know someone’s gender without questioning why. Finally, challenge the government on systemic transphobia. The UK government have recently announced that trans people will be banned from gendered wards in NHS hospitals, claimed that ‘they know what a woman is’ and said that the ‘rise in gender neutral toilets’ is a problem and have issued regulations ensuring that all new public buildings will have ‘separate male and female toilets’. [10][11] Whilst I agree that having separate toilets for men and women alongside gender neutral spaces is probably the way forward for now, there are several things about this I find very disturbing. Firstly, the government is actively choosing to allocate space for binary genders, whilst diminishing responsibility for planners and architects to allocate spaces for gender-nonconforming people. If there was no anti-trans agenda here then why would they not simply allocate for all three? Most public toilets come in threes anyway. Secondly, the government has said very little on the matter of allocation of toilets for disabled people who face a basic lack of access and provision in most public spaces. Many public disabled toilets currently don’t have safety rails, hoists or even ramp access. If they wanted everyone to benefit from reviewing public toilet regulations, surely this is the area which needs the most work. Thirdly, the research on which this decision was based directly contradicts it. You can read the study for yourself on the government website; their call for evidence presents that 83% of responses are in favour of non-gendered toilet provision whereas 12% are in favour of separate gender toilets only.[12] It also shows that safety concerns for trans or non-binary people using public toilets outweigh those for any other group. Their plan to ‘protect public toilet provisions for men and women’ is a purely political move which uses coded transphobic language and draws a false equivalence between trans people existing freely and the removal of protections for cis-gendered women. If 48% of trans people feel unsafe using public toilets (again, the government’s own research) then why is the government putting forward regulation which harms them? In addition, policing these spaces and promoting this mentality has, and will, also affect cis folk through beauty and behaviour standards, encouraging them to self-police and requiring them to look and dress in certain ways to access those spaces. The bottom line here is that trans rights do not take away cis-gendered peoples’ rights, and we can challenge the government on this through petitions and well-informed, high-quality journalism. For example, fighting for all women’s rights against the larger issue (the patriarchy) helps all women. More rights for trans and non-binary folk does not equal fewer rights for cis women and men. CJLPA: Where are your favourite queer-spaces and venues in Bristol? AG: There are plenty of safe spaces for queer people to enjoy in Bristol and it’s one of the reasons I am so deeply in love with this beautiful city. Strange Brew is a venue I talk about a lot as it has one of the best examples of how to do toilets. Three options are provided—urinals, gender neutral cubicles, and women’s only cubicles. I have never felt unsafe with that system, nor have I ever heard anyone take issue with it. I’ve never seen any queues, even when the venue is sold out, because everyone is catered for based on what they actually need. Take note venue architects! They also host amazing jam nights, live gigs, quizzes, drag, comedy, the lot. Other great spaces include Lost Horizon, Jam Jar, The Gallimaufry, Old Market Assembly, St George’s, and my local pub, The Greenbank, where I run a twice-monthly inclusive folk session which anyone is welcome to attend. This interview was conducted by Abi Dore, a Legal Researcher for the Human Rights Volume of CJLPA 3. In addition to her role at CJLPA, Abi is currently working as a Trainee Lawyer and will qualify as a lawyer in England and Wales in February 2024. [1] The Drystones accessed 17 October 2023. [2] Tarren accessed 17 October 2023. [3] Bob Fish, ‘Harriet Riley & Alex Garden’ — Sonder III’ (Folk Radio UK, 13 October 2023)  accessed 19 October 2023. [4] ‘Alex Garden’ (Trans Portraits UK, 2022) accessed 19 October 2013. [5] Emily Gunton, ‘Bang the drum for change: why do orchestras have so few female percussionists?’ Guardian (London, 8 March 2021) accessed 20 October 2023. [6] Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP, ‘All public buildings to have separate male and female toilets’ (Gov.uk, 4 July 2022) accessed 20 October 2023. [7] . [8] Chaka L Bachmann and Becca Gooch, ‘LGBT in Britain: Trans Report’ (Stonewall) accessed 20 October 2023. [9] ‘Cisgender’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries)  accessed 20 October 2023. [10] Aubrey Allegretti, ‘Trans hospital patients in England to be banned from female- and male-only wards’ Guardian (London, 3 October 2023) accessed 20 October 2023. [11] Badenoch (n 6). [12] Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, ‘Toilet provision for men and women: call for evidence—analysis of responses received’ (Gov.uk, 13 August 2023) accessed 20 October 2023.

How and why the international community failed Syria One of the most unforgiving aspects of the Syrian Conflict is the fact that its tragic episodes have unfolded in full light of day. No self-respecting journalist or policymaker can claim ignorance of their true nature. We knew of various developments that included arrests and bombings, instances of ethnic cleansing and cold-blooded massacres almost as they happened. Everything was reported in real time and documented in sound and picture. Even the horrible industrial-scale killings that took place in security centres and prisons, turned into veritable liquidation camps, did not escape this documentary trend due to myriad leaks and the brave whistle-blowers behind them. Despite all this, there were still those who chose not to see. Those who refused to believe what they were seeing, those whose interests made them disregard the truth and invest in misinformation, and those whose worldview and political calculations made them reluctant to act decisively to put an end to the unfolding tragedy. The result was another failure in living up to the ‘Never Again’ promises, regarding instances of genocide, and that failure has had implications for global security everywhere. It has upended political processes in countries far beyond the Middle East and has served to undermine the ‘Liberal Global Order’ on various levels. Without understanding the ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of these assertions, we risk repeating our mistakes in relation to other conflicts. No less importantly, we risk failing in Syria again, where the struggle is far from over and far from being as contained as it appears. In this short essay, I will briefly relate my impressions on the myth of containment of certain conflicts in an age of hyper-connectivity, on how such conflicts play out on the global stage, and on domestic scenes in various countries in an age of increasing political polarisation. I will also deal with the ‘usefulness’ of these conflicts to certain actors on the one hand, and the danger they pose to the interest of others on the other hand. Finally, I will deal with the global implications of neglecting the issue of accountability in regard to war criminals now turned drug kingpins as well. Let’s start with the basics The conflict in Syria did not start out as an armed insurgency, but as a largely peaceful protest movement against official corruption and authoritarian methods. It only turned into a violent insurrection following months of violent crackdown by the ruling regime of Bashar al-Assad. This is how the BBC describes this development: In March 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the southern city of Deraa, inspired by uprisings in neighbouring countries against repressive rulers. When the Syrian government used deadly force to crush the dissent, protests demanding the president’s resignation erupted nationwide. The unrest spread and the crackdown intensified. Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of security forces. Mr Assad vowed to crush what he called ‘foreign-backed terrorism.[1] The decision to take up arms was slow in the making on part of the protesters. Their preference in the face of the Assad regime’s violence and its deployment of tanks and artillery against unarmed civilians was to call on the international community to impose a no-fly zone over the country and to target the regime’s military infrastructure thus crippling its capacity to wage war against them. Such a step, they hoped, would force the regime into negotiating with opposition groups paving the way for political transition. As usual, in these critical moments, the international community waited for the occupants of the White House to lead the way, but the Obama Administration at the time had other concerns and priorities. Despite his promise to the American people to end America’s involvement in conflicts abroad, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Barack Obama had already found himself authorising the US military to lead NATO’s operations against the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. The intensive operations lasted throughout most of 2011, that is, at the same time Syrians were demanding international intervention. As such, despite President Obama’s call on Assad to ‘get out of the way’, the prospect of any direct US military move at that stage was categorically shut down.[2] As violence escalated, protesters, now joined by thousands of defectors from Assad’s armies, were forced to take up arms. Meanwhile, regional powers, led by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, began pouring money to support various rebel militias while pressing their American ally to get more involved. In mid-2012, President Obama sent military advisors and equipment to Turkey and Jordan to increase the fighting efficiency of moderate rebels operating in the southern parts of the country in the hope of forcing Assad to the negotiation table.[3] For all the conspiracy theories that proliferated before and since, that was the extent of America’s military involvement in supporting Syria’s rebels. The end goal for the Obama Administration has always been a negotiated transition rather than the kind of regime change that took place in Libya, not to mention Iraq. ‘There is no military solution’ to the Syrian Conflict became the often-repeated mantra in official briefings at the time.[4] These tactics only served to push Assad into further reliance on Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and various Shiite militias funded and trained by Iran and made up mostly of Iraqi mercenaries and Afghan refugees. In September 2012, President Obama drew his (in)famous red line on the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, asserting that: We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.[5] Despite this assertion, a major chemical weapons attack against a rebel stronghold near Damascus in August 2013 failed to change President Obama’s equation. As his remarks made clear, Obama seems to have been more concerned about the potential of having these weapons fall into the ‘wrong’ hands, meaning the Jihadi elements which have begun leaving their mark on the scene by that time, rather than having them deployed against rebel forces by the Assad regime. More importantly, Obama’s real calculus remained centred on avoiding entanglement in a conflict that by 2013 had clearly devolved into a proxy war pitting many regional players as well as different segments of the population against each other. What seemed like a brave and wise decision at the time, at least to some observers, created a vacuum on the ground that was soon filled by the Islamic State, a terrorist group launched in Iraq, that President Obama had once dismissed by comparing it to a junior varsity basketball team.[6] By 2016, American jets were finally flying over the Syrian skies, but rather than bombing locations manned by Assad loyalists and militias, the real cause of Syria’s suffering, they were targeting communities that have been invaded by the Islamic State. Their liberation would take years and would exert a tremendous toll on the civilian population. At the same time, Russian jets were busy pounding rebel positions in Aleppo in an intervention facilitated by Iran. Consequently, the survival of the Assad regime over the long haul would soon be assured. The rebels, who at one point controlled most of the country, will soon be forced to occupy small pockets in the Idlib province along the borders with Turkey. For its part, the US will find new allies among the Kurdish population in the northeast and its operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will drag on until early 2019. A small number of US troops are still operating in the region to fight against remaining pockets of IS terrorists, The US often finds itself having to mediate continually between Kurdish militias and Arab tribal fighters, while trying to alleviate Turkish fears regarding Kurdish separatist tendencies. Just when everybody thought that the recent drive by Arab states to normalise relations with Assad has put an exclamation point on his ‘victory’, major protests erupted in the southern parts of the country; in areas deemed to be under regime control; with the protesters demanding nothing less than the ouster of their ‘Dear Leader’, and adopting the same slogan that reverberated through the country back in 2011: ‘the people want to topple the regime’. A lot has changed and nothing has changed. The leaders of the United States and other democratic powers that have called for the departure of Assad and for a democratic transition in Syria are now facing the same dilemma: where do their values and interests intersect in Syria? Which is costlier in terms of human lives, credibility, and strategic interests: intervention or non-intervention? Or, as things almost always play out eventually: a carefully considered and planned intervention, or a reactive haphazard one? The Myth of Containment Nothing shatters the myth of the containability of civil conflicts in our hyper-connected world like the Syrian Conflict does, at least if people are willing to see. With Germany now housing close to a million Syrian refugees, and far right political parties making major headway in provinces and countries all over Europe, not to mention increasing racial tensions in all countries bordering Syria between natives and refugees. With regional powers using the conflict as an opportunity to advance their parochial interests and settle scores with Jihadi elements. With terrorist cells filling the void left by ill-equipped and abandoned moderate rebels, even after the collapse of the Islamic State Caliphate. With the Assad regime transforming the country into the world’s newest narco-state and flooding Syria’s neighbours with the drugs Captagon and Ecstasy. With the possibility that the Russian President Vladmir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2014 was heavily influenced by the decision of his American counterpart to back down from enforcing his red line on the use of chemical weapons in 2013.[7] While his decision to invade Ukraine again in 2022 seems linked to his perceived successes in Syria since the Russian intervention there began in 2015. With all these developments taking place around us as consequences of the Syrian Civil War, the concept of ‘containable conflicts’ should finally be put to rest. Our modern world has become too connected, hyper-connected in fact, to allow for intractable civil conflicts to be contained and not have far reaching ramifications far beyond their borders. Though the Assad regime seems to have adopted a wait-and-see attitude vis-à-vis the protests in the Suwaida Governorate in the southern parts of the country. While it keeps focusing its attention on the more violent front in the Idlib Governorate in the northwest, this policy could change at any given moment. For this reason, the United States and its regional allies, especially Jordan and Saudi Arabia, need to consider the importance of early decisive intervention to help secure these strategic areas. A conflict in the Syrian south, which will likely involve Russian airstrikes on critical infrastructure there, ie schools and hospitals, and which will surely rely on pro-Iranian militias in the field, would prove extremely violent, and could lead to a new wave of refugees that will surely destabilise the already fragile situation in Lebanon and Jordan. Terrorist cells, some affiliated with Islamic State, could easily take advantage of any chaos as well. The renewed conflict might indeed physically spread to Jordan and Lebanon. Captagon production will boom, and trafficking will reach far beyond the region’s borders. Nothing will be contained. The Polarisation Effect The Syrian conflict has unfolded at a time when the United States and other Western democracies are going through a deeply polarising internal ideological struggle over many vital aspects of their contemporary existence, including: the nature of their collective identity and its legitimate historical sources; how diverse their societies could or should be; their place in the world, past, present, and future; and what political current is genuine, patriotic, or progressive enough to lead the way forward. All aspects of foreign policy were being assessed in view of their potential impact on this existential ‘debate’ and its possible outcomes, especially which party will emerge as a winner and which a loser. In regard to the policy on the Syrian conflict, an unlikely ‘alliance’ of Realists, Progressives, the far right, and the far left carried the day. The alliance was not official of course, and there was no direct coordination between these camps necessarily, but their views on the Syrian conflict converged and heavily influenced both the public opinion and official policies in their countries. For their own particular ideological reasons, each of these camps is unhappy with the existing global liberal order, and they all want to see a much smaller global footprint for the United States and the West, including in such vital international institutions as NATO and the World Trade Organization. How the rest of the world fares as a result of this shrinkage or downsizing is not a major concern of theirs. All of them seem to think that the US and its Western allies are quite capable of shielding themselves from any negative consequences. By advocating a policy of non-intervention in Syria since the beginning of the conflict, then modifying their position to accept a narrow intervention focused exclusively on the Islamic State, their collective hope was for such an approach to weaken the much-reviled Global Order which America and its Western and democratic allies constantly needed to serve and protect. This is why today, the same camps are busy advocating a similar approach for dealing with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that is, a policy of non-intervention. Luckily for the Ukrainians, they have to deal with a much wiser and far more pragmatic president in the White House. For while President Joe Biden may not have disagreed with President Obama’s approach on Syria, the double blow to America’s international credibility as a result of failing to enforce its red line there, followed by the dangerously erratic foreign policy of President Donald Trump, and President Putin’s increasingly aggressive tactics, seem to have alerted him to the need for taking a strong stand on Ukraine and against Putin, to save and strengthen NATO—an institution that retains its credibility and necessity in President Biden’s calculus. Additionally, the liberal interventionists who had been the biggest policy losers in the fight for Syria seem to have learned from their loss and have managed to articulate their position much more clearly, forcefully, and earlier in the conflict. In this, they were helped by Ukraine’s close geographic and cultural ties to Europe and the West. But in Syria, the United States and its Western and democratic allies did not simply betray their values, they also undermined their own interests. Their failure in Syria was not simply a reflection or a byproduct of their own internal crises, it exacerbated them, something that is yet to be acknowledged widely in their decision-making circles. The political elite in the West, it seems, have become too disconnected from the realities elsewhere in the world to fully understand them or appreciate how deeply connected our world has become. Even the liberal interventionists suffer from this handicap. Their willingness to acknowledge the need for intervention does not necessarily lead to proposing the right policies for it or knowing how to manage it. At least they are willing to listen. They are aware of the problem. Interventionism is not always an expression of some lingering imperialist instinct or a reflection of imperial overreach. In our hyper-connected world, a measure of interventionism by democratic powers is needed as a way of ensuring adherence to certain standards of justice and accountability without which the current transition to multipolarity will be a much more bloody and violent affair than it should be. At a time when there are so many aspiring regional powers rising and flexing their muscles, if a real red line cannot be drawn on mass atrocities, even when they are being perpetrated by relatively weak regimes, such as Assad’s, then this will serve as a green light for more and more. The west will not be shielded from the impact. Here Come the Worms The Realists and Co. were not the only ones to have their little moment under the sun at the expense of the Syrian people. There was also Vladimir Putin and his merry band of cutthroats, liars, and thieves: the Wagner Group. There was Iran, and its own Shia militias spread out across the region fighting a 1400-year-old battle against illusory windmills. There were the Islamic terrorist groups who have performed over the years an intricate dance of merger and betrayal reflecting personal disagreements between the leaders and continually changing priorities of their regional donors. Both Russia and Iran benefited immensely from the struggle in Syria, or to be more specific, from the US-led approach to it. Every half measure President Obama adopted was exploited to the fullest by the loitering duo, not simply to strengthen their position in Syria, which has turned into a dual mandate of sorts, but also to improve their regional and global standing vis-à-vis the United States. This is especially true in the case of Russia where Vladimir Putin, using the various media institutions under his control, flooded the information scene with disinformation and lies about everything related to the Syrian conflict, from the chemical weapons attacks carried out by his aspiring mini-me, Assad, to the humanitarian organisation, the White Helmets, that has been doing an amazing job saving Syrian lives. Amplified by willing ideologues from the progressive, far left, and far right camps. His propaganda proved effective at creating fertile grounds for all sorts of conspiracy theories to take hold. The anti-war activists in the UK were particularly duped, reacting mostly to what had taken place in Iraq in 2003—the US-led invasion justified in part on the basis of faulty intelligence—rather than what was taking place in Syria since early 2011. They refused to believe any reports on the situation there, even those coming from myriad independent journalists and human rights organisations. Their minds were already made up and they only listened to sources that confirmed their beliefs. In 2013, the anti-war movement was so effective that it put enough pressure on the British Parliament to vote against UK’s participation in any military operations meant to punish Assad following the chemical weapons attack in Damascus. This development, in turn, helped influence President Obama’s decision to back down from enforcing his red line, and to eventually accept a Russian-sponsored deal that saved Assad’s skin. For spite, Yet Assad will use chemical weapons on a number of occasions in the future, as per UN reports.[8] As for Iran, despite Russia’s presence on the ground and regular airstrikes against its positions by Israel, it has now become so enmeshed within the military and security apparatuses of the Assad regime, to the point of raising alarm bells even within the ranks of Assad loyalists, being cited as one of the major motivations for the anti-regime protests taking place today in Suwaida. Shaikh Hikmat al-Hajiri, one of the top religious leaders of that majority-Druze region, has even called for Jihad against the Iranian invasion of the country, as well as for establishing secular democratic rule. Yet it seems that without a major shakedown of the entire system, ie toppling the regime, Iran’s influence in Syria is here to stay. Jihadists and terrorists now control a swath of land in the Idlib province along the borders with Turkey. The most powerful group among them is al-Qaeda offshoot that goes by the name of Tahrir al-Sham, and whose leader was released from prison by the Assad regime in early 2011 among hundreds of Jihadis and terrorists in a macabre move designed to give credence to Assad’s claim that he is fighting terrorists. Meanwhile, the Islamic State itself still retains pockets and cells scattered in the Badiyah area, in the Syrian desert stretching from northeastern parts of the country all the way to the borders with Jordan in the south. The presence of so many war criminals on the scene is bound to complicate issues of stabilisation, transition, and accountability. It also makes them all the more necessary, otherwise, the lesson that will be learned by dictators throughout the world is that impunity will triumph. Indeed, this, it seems is the governing ethos of current global dynamics, and that’s a deadly reality that does not augur well be it for peace, accountability, or democracy, anywhere. Accountability To paraphrase President Obama’s favourite quote by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr: ‘the arc of the moral universe is indeed long, but it doesn’t bend towards justice by itself’. Those who believe in justice need to push hard to bring criminals to account. Today, and as we witness the rekindling of revolutionary fires in Syria, bringing to account the war criminals that have devastated the country is more vital than ever. The list of the war criminals of Syria is long indeed, but its constituents are rather obvious. They include Assad himself of course, as well as his generals in the military and security apparatuses, especially those who orchestrated the liquidation of tens of thousands political detainees in ‘industrial-scale’ massacres not seen since World War II. They also include Russian generals and Wagner mercenaries, Iranian ‘advisors’ and other sectarian operatives funded by Iran, and certain Jihadi elements and operatives affiliated with the Islamic State and other terrorist movements. Syrians are not waiting for the international community to make its move and are already trying to get a measure of justice on their own working with well-established legal experts. Several trials against lowkey operatives who were apprehended after they fled to various European cities have already taken place or are underway. A trial in France is also targeting two of Assad’s top security chiefs, Ali Mamlouk and Jamil Hassan, for ‘complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes in killing two French nationals of Syrian-descent’.[9] The two are being tried—in absentia, of course, but the symbolism is nonetheless significant. Meanwhile, the governments of the Netherlands and Canada have brought a case against Syria before the International Court of Justice ‘for torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment of its own population’. The basis for the case is evidence ‘gathered by various bodies, including the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, the UN’s investigative body for Syria’.[10] Despite the significance of these steps, it could be far more effective to establish a special tribunal under the auspices of the United Nations General Assembly, to try Assad himself and all other criminals, and to issue indictments. If the International Criminal Court could issue an arrest warrant against Putin, the head of a nuclear state, there is no reason why an international tribunal cannot issue similar warrants against Assad and other war criminals in Syria. Admittedly, executing these warrants may not be easy, but it’s not impossible either. Decision-making in democratic states is never an easy process, especially in times of crises, especially in regard to foreign policy, and especially when so many of these countries have a long history of imperialist (mis)adventures. Where the debate about it is never-ending and remains very bitter and highly charged. Syrians and other peoples from the Global South who look to democracies for help on any issue have to understand that. An American president, for instance, operates under many constraints, and has at any given moment, a number of crises that require his attention, where he has to consider issues of national interests, of global power balance, and of national and international law (because yes, they do really matter). Then, there is always the question of the President’s own worldview, priorities, and predilections. The same applies for many Western leaders as well. So, while Assad can go to Putin, hat in hand, and beg for his support, and while Putin can make that decision without having to consult anyone, no American President or any other democratically elected leaders can behave in a similar fashion when asked for help, no matter how sympathetic to the cause he happens to be. This ‘calculus’ needs to be understood and even appreciated by Syrians. Democracy is messy and we need to learn how to deal with the mess, especially now as a second revolution seems to be looming. For their part, people in democratic societies have to come to terms with their increasing responsibilities in a hyper-connected and hyper-interdependent world. The lines between foreign and domestic policies are continually blurring, and that requires us to develop a deeper understanding of ‘foreign’ policy. With so many of our citizens being first-and second-generation immigrants, and with so many refugees living in our midst with the promise of more to come, be it legally or illegally, how do we define ‘foreign’ these days anyway? Whether we live within a unipolar or a multipolar world order, order needs to be maintained, that is, policed. There needs to be standards and accountability. A world rife with impunity is poisonous to all, even the most rich and powerful states. If we ever needed to draw a real red line, it should be done now and in regard to mass slaughter. The promise of ‘Never Again’ should not continue to seem so hollow and hypocritical. Peace and stability should never be seen as higher virtues than liberty and justice. Our survival as a civilization existing in a moral universe requires them all. *** Since the submission of this article in early October 2023, much has taken place: Jordan has carried out several airstrikes inside southern Syria targeting infrastructure and persons affiliated with drug-trafficking, with these strikes occasionally leading to civilian casualties.[11] A court in France issued arrest warrants against Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher for complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes.[12] And a new deadly conflict has erupted in Gaza which could pave the way for a larger regional confrontation, according to many analysts. The varied and polarizing global response to this conflict once again shatters the myth of the containability of certain ‘local’ developments. But it also highlights a major moral dilemma that democracies are facing today, as many of the same political actors currently rallying in support of Palestinians have previously opposed intervention against the Assad regime and oppose Western support for Ukraine. While the West may not be responsible for the crises in Syria, Gaza, and Ukraine, its interests and its security are clearly impacted, hence the imperative to reach internal consensus on how to effectively deal with these situations. Ammar Abdulhamid Ammar Abdulhamid is a well-known Syrian human rights activist, author, poet, and political analyst living in Washington, DC. He is the president of the Tharwa Foundation; a nonprofit organisation that encourages diversity, development, and democracy in the MENA region. Furthermore, he is a Parliamentarian and Director of Policy Research at The World Liberty Congress; an organisation that looks to support and speak out for pro-democracy movements. His work over the last two decades has looked to endorse the political and social modernisation of his native country of Syria. [1] ‘Why Has the Syrian War Lasted 12 Years?’ (BBC News, 2 May 2023) accessed 18 December 2023. [2] ‘Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa’ (National Archives and Records Administration, 19 May 2011) accessed 18 December 2023. [3] Michael R Gordon and Elisabeth Bumiller, ‘U.S. Military Is Sent to Jordan to Help with Crisis in Syria’ The New York Times (New York, 10 October 2012) accessed 18 December 2023. [4] Barbara Plett Usher, ‘Obama’s Syria Legacy: Measured Diplomacy, Strategic Explosion’ (BBC News, 13 January 2017) accessed 18 December 2023. [5] ‘Remarks by the President to the White House Press Corps’ (National Archives and Records Administration, 20 August 2012) accessed 18 December 2023. [6] Shreeya Sinha, ‘Obama’s Evolution on ISIS’ The New York Times (New York, 9 June 2015) accessed 18 December 2023. [7] William Christou, ‘For Syrians, Russia’s Road to Ukraine Started in Damascus’ (The New Arab) accessed 18 December 2023. [8] ‘Security Council Deems Syria’s Chemical Weapon’s Declaration Incomplete, Urges Nation to Close Issues, Resolve Gaps, Inconsistencies, Discrepancies’ (UN Press, 6 March 2023) accessed 18 December 2023. [9] ‘France issues arrest warrant for Syria’s President Assad – source’ (Reuters, 15 November 2023) accessed 18 December 2023. [10] ‘The Netherlands and Canada to Bring Case against Syria before International Court of Justice’ (Government.nl, 12 June 2023) accessed 18 December 2023. [11] ‘Suspected Jordanian air strikes in southern Syria kill 10’ (BBC News, 18 January 2024) accessed 4 February 2024. [12] Chris Liakos, Claudia Colliva, and Dalal Mawad, ‘France issues arrest warrant for Syrian President Assad’ (CNN, 16 November 2023) accessed 4 February 2024.

Ronald W Meister is a distinguished legal professional serving as Senior Counsel at Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman in New York City. Holding the prestigious role of Chairman of the Board at the National Institute of Military Justice, Meister brings a wealth of experience in litigation across federal, state, and military trial and appellate courts. With a background as a military judge and a history of representing active duty reserve and former military personnel, his legal journey is marked by expertise and dedication. Notably, Meister has played a significant role in legal matters around Guantanamo Bay, defending in 2014 a Navy nurse refusing to continue force-feeding detainees. His impactful contributions to the legal landscape make Ronald Meister a standout figure in the field. CJLPA: We are pleased to welcome you today, Mr. Ronald Meister, to interview with The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art. By way of introduction, you are currently a Senior Counsel at Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman and Chairman of the Board of the National Institute of Military Justice. Prior to this, you concentrated on litigation and federal, state, and military trial and appellate courts. You were also formerly a military judge and represented active duty reserve and former military and personnel among your vast experience. You also offered your legal services at Guantanamo Bay, which is what we would like to focus our interview on today. To begin, in July 2014, it was reported that a Navy nurse refused to continue force-feeding detainees at Guantanamo Bay. You acted as lead attorney for this former Guantanamo nurse. Can you please tell us what prompted you to take on this case? Ronald W Meister: Well, as you mentioned, I served as a Navy JAG (Judge Advocate General) officer and as a defence counsel and military judge during the Vietnam era. I have continued my involvement in military justice since then and to this day as chair of an organisation called the National Institute of Military Justice. I have been involved in Guantanamo matters, coordinating an observer program for NIMJ and travelling to Guantanamo. I have written briefs on Guantanamo Bay cases for the US Supreme Court. When this case arose, I was contacted by a retired brigadier general, who had been involved with an organisation called ‘Physicians for Human Rights’. He brought the case to my attention and asked if I would be willing to represent the nurse, which was the kind of case my education and experience had prepared me for and would be interested in doing. CJLPA: Particularly in this case, the nurse faced a potential discharge from the military for refusing to continue administrating force-feedings at Guantanamo. How did the Navy explain the complaint against them? RM: The Navy is not in the business of explaining, the Navy is in the business of ordering. And they wanted the medical personnel at Guantanamo to do certain things. And they are unhappy when they do not do them. To the extent that there was any explanation at all, they expressed, perhaps regarding it as compassionate, a desire to prevent prisoners from committing suicide by refusing to eat. CJLPA: From your observation of this case, was force-feeding a means of discouraging the detainees’ protests against their living conditions, or rather an attempt to prevent them from risking death? RM: There is no doubt that they are trying to discourage protests. There is no evidence that any detainee was on the verge of death from a hunger strike. They wanted to discourage prisoners from conducting what they called ‘asymmetrical warfare’. The Navy had the guns, the military had the ammunition, and the person had nothing, so they were fighting back with the only available tools. And one form of protest was to engage in a hunger strike. CJLPA: Could you discuss the legal obstacles you encountered while taking on this case and how you overcame them? RM: The principal philosophical obstacle was the ingrained military habit of obeying orders, which are presumed to be legal. And there is considerable difficulty to carry the burden of proving that the order is illegal. We also faced a Supreme Court decision from 1950 called Johnson v. Eisentrager, which held that US courts had no jurisdiction over German prisoners of war held outside the geographic boundaries of the United States. So, the Eisentrager case had been upheld and enforced by that time over the years and was a precedential obstacle that had to be overcome or distinguished. CJLPA:  Eventually, the US Navy dropped all charges against the nurse. What factors do you think played a key role in this outcome? RM: Well, they did not tell us why. As I said, they are not in the business of explaining. We had enlisted the support of some extremely helpful organisations, who felt that the vindication of nursing ethical obligations was important, principally Physicians for Human Rights, which I mentioned before. We also succeeded in getting the help of the American Nurses Association, which was very vigorous in support of our client and ultimately, at the conclusion of the case, granted him an ethics award—the first one they had ever issued. We got some support to a lesser degree from the American Medical Association. This profoundly conservative organisation was less enthusiastic, at least at the outset, than the American Nurses Association. But they did help. Presumably, due to the attention focused on the case, the Department of Defense, which has a Committee on Medical Ethics, ultimately issued a statement supporting our position. That was persuasive once we had some support within the Department of Defense. I think a couple of other things that helped us are that the nurse himself had a highly admirable military record. He had, by that time, over 17 years of service. He had asked the Navy to send him to nursing school, which they did, where, among other things, he learned nursing ethics. We also never disclosed his identity because we wanted to avoid any possible argument that he was doing this for publicity or his career. Even after the charges were dropped, even after efforts to bar his successful retirement from the Navy were over, and after he retired and started receiving his military pension, we did not disclose his name. So, indeed, when the ANA granted him its ethics award, I accepted it on his behalf and ultimately delivered it to him. We used to call him ‘Lawrence Nightingale’. But we never disclosed his actual name. CJLPA: In this case, it seems that the court of public opinion or the pressure of publicity was not necessary to get the Navy to drop charges, but rather just the internal investigations and the dialogue between both sides. RM: There was a degree of press attention to the case in the military and civilian press. So again, while we did not receive or expect an explanation, I think all of those factors together persuaded the people making the decisions ultimately to drop this case. CJLPA: In addition to representing the Navy nurse, you also prepared the brief for the National Institute of Military Justice as amicus in support of petitioners in respect to the Rasul v. Bush case. For our viewers, Rasul v. Bush was the landmark US Supreme Court case that decided that US courts have jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions filed on behalf of the foreign nationals imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. I would like to ask you a few questions about this brief used in respect to Rasul. Reflecting now, what was the strongest legal argument in that brief that ultimately won the court over and why? RM: There is no evidence that any arguments we made in our amicus brief made a difference to the court. There were a huge number of amicus briefs filed in support of the petitioners in the three related cases Rasul, Padilla, and Hamdi. And there is no mention anywhere in all the Supreme Court opinions in all three cases of any of the amicus briefs. We made arguments that included domestic and international law arguments, and arguments specifically grounded in the Geneva Convention, of which the US is a signatory, and which is binding in US courts. None of the international law arguments entered the court’s opinion. That is not to say that the pressure of some arguments was ineffective. We just do not see that described as the rationale for the decisions in the case. CJLPA: In the brief, you exposed the double standards in the application of the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, or the GPW under international law, whereby the US government declared the detainees to be outside the law, such that none of the existing rules governing the treatment of individuals detained in combat applied. Meanwhile, the US expected other nations to abide by international law and extend protections to Americans captured or detained in armed conflict. What impact, if any, do you think this double standard has had on the US? RM: Well, let’s talk about what arguments were ultimately persuasive. You have to read behind the opinions and try to deduce what caused the Supreme Court to come out the way it did. The ultimate factor, I think, is that the idea that Guantanamo Bay was outside of the law, outside of US law, outside of international law, was too much for a majority of the Supreme Court to swallow. Courts have been telling the executive in the United States for years what it cannot do. That goes back to Marbury v. Madison under Chief Justice Marshall in the early 1800s. It most famously came to a head in the Steel Seizure Case (Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer) in the US Supreme Court. So it is not unfamiliar for the Supreme Court to say to the executive, ‘you cannot do this’. And I think the effort of principally Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to create a place in Guantanamo that was totally outside the law—domestic law, international law, Cuban law, any kind of law—where there would be no accountability whatsoever, was too much for the court to swallow. So, while in Rasul, the case in which we submitted our brief, the court relied exclusively on US domestic law and, to some extent, its roots in the English common law, I think when you take the three cases together and the many opinions, there may have been a bit of cover for a desire to apply some of the standards of international law, though they never said it. The most important of these is Justice O’Connor’s opinion in the Hamdi case. Justice O’Connor wrote for four justices that there was accountability. She never uses the words Geneva Convention. But she writes an opinion that gives Hamdi and those in his condition procedural rights equivalent to what is provided in the Geneva Conventions, though she never says that. She makes up a structure that she says is applicable, including the right to counsel and knowledge of the charges against you. And she just says, these would be good things, and we think that, as on oversight of the justice system you ought to be doing this. Well, we have a structure. You do not need to make these things up. We have a document interpreted to tell you what kind of rights people have. It’s called the United States Constitution. And because of that, Justice Scalia, who I think it is fair to say, was a more sophisticated thinker on constitutional issues than Justice O’Connor was, just tears this opinion apart. He says: ‘You are making up a constitution’. But it worked for her and for the three judges who joined her, and then for the two other judges who joined the plurality opinion, to make a decision in the case. So, while you cannot find in the opinion a reliance on international law, you do if you read it in a certain way, as I do, and you find that the concepts of international law are what turned the tables in that case. So that is the background. You asked me about the double standard. Other countries regularly point out the hypocrisy of the United States in preaching to them what they can do with prisoners, what they can do on the battlefield, what kind of force can be used, when the US itself is a principal purveyor of torture, and is a principal purveyor of massive retaliation, as for example in Iraq, and that decreases this country’s credibility when it seeks to enforce standards on the others. CJLPA: You mentioned how Justice O’Connor discusses international law concepts without explicitly referring to international law. Why do you think there is a reluctance to rely on international law within the judgment specifically? RM: There has been a long unwillingness in this country to submit its conduct to international oversight and control. At least in our modern memory, it goes back to our unwillingness to join the League of Nations after World War I. There has certainly been a trend of isolationism in the history of this country, unwillingness to submit to certain international tribunals, and a feeling that we know what is best for ourselves. Still, at the same time, we tell other people what is best for them based on our standards. And one of the great exceptions to that was this country’s adherence to the Geneva Conventions. And if you look at the background and the rationale of those provisions, much of it is with the understanding that it protects US forces: if we adopt these standards and comply with them, we have a stronger argument that our forces fighting overseas will be protected. I wonder if that concept prevails to the present day and certainly it was not at the forefront of Secretary Rumsfeld’s mind, when he said, ‘We are going to put people in a position without rules’. CJLPA: You also set out various protections and guarantees codified in the military justice system, including the right against self-incrimination, the right against cruel and unusual punishment, or the right to a speedy trial. The detainees went through military courts, and yet none of the detainees ever got to realise these rights. Why? RM: Well, it is not accurate to call these people detainees. The government, the Defense Department, wants to call these people detainees, as if they are just waiting for a bus to come along. They are prisoners, long-term prisoners. They are prisoners in very harsh conditions. So, some people prefer to refer to them as prisoners. Whatever the term you use, these are neither military courts nor courts-martial. The rights we describe in our brief are those that developed under, most recently, the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice, which has been in effect since the early 1950s. And they are well-established. But military commissions are a very different animal. Military Commissions are made up ad hoc. And the rules are made up ad hoc. There was a long process of developing rules for these particular commissions that went through several rounds of legislation and litigation in the courts, and several times, Congress had to go back to the drawing board and start all over again. And ultimately, through those rules, a right of counsel was recognised. Other rights are enforceable in military courts, as in US civilian courts, like the right to a speedy trial, which are not effective in these military commissions. And you have people who have been awaiting trial for over a decade, or over two decades, since some of the alleged behaviour occurred. So, to respond directly to your question, the prisoners did not get the rights guaranteed in military courts because they were not before a military court. They were before a military tribunal. And we have to recognise that those are two different things. CJLPA: In the context of the war on terror and Guantanamo Bay, it is concerning to see how clear, coherent laws are disregarded in the name of national security. From your perspective, as a former judge, how can we ensure that the checks and balances system will not be interfered with again, as it was for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners? RM: I can only say what was reportedly attributed to Jefferson: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. There have to be people who are prepared to take up unpopular causes for unpopular defendants. And that has been the case in this country. There are many good people I know that you have interviewed, many others who forcefully stood up for the rule of law. And that is not an easy choice and was not inevitable in this case. When military tribunals were established first in Guantanamo, the National Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers took a policy position that they would not participate, they wouldn’t defend any of these defendants because it was an unfair, unjust, and indefensible system, and they didn’t want to be part of it. That position turned. Many dedicated lawyers, solo practitioners, academics, large firms, and small firms took up the cause of providing defence and making arguments, essentially that: ‘We’re better than this. The country is better than this. The country deserves better than this’. There will always be people who will do that. There have been books written about them. There’s a wonderful book called The Guantanamo Lawyers that talks about the efforts that they have made here. It is also much dependent on the atmosphere at the time, a time when there are attacks on the United States, a time when there were 1000s of people killed. At any time of warfare, the courts, like any other institution, are in a defensive posture and do things out of concern for public safety and national defence. In retrospect, when much of that fear goes away, they have second thoughts about these things, so we have to be careful not to be entirely in a moment of fear and to recognise the historical context, which is very difficult. CJLPA: That leads to my final question: what legacy would you like our viewers to draw from Guantanamo Bay? RM: It is a question with many facets to it. From the standpoint of my involvement, one lesson is what I just said a moment ago: if we have standards, if we have ideals, if we have processes, if we have rules, then those rules ought not to be easily overcome by fear, by a desire for retribution. And we have to be true to our principles. The Constitution is a wonderful document that continues to evolve despite the views of so-called originalists. It has to change with context, and new situations always arise. Guantanamo had some precedents in the establishment of military commissions. Only a few were on this scale, though there were in the Civil War and other times attempts to forego the civilian process completely. While during the Civil War, the courts were far more willing to accept the exigencies of the military condition, they later came to a more balanced understanding of what was permissible and impermissible. But we have rules. We do not need to invent rules to apply the rules in cases like this. And we need people who don’t think they’re above the law and that what they do is beyond the law. CJLPA: Thank you, Mr Ronald Meister, for taking the time to speak with us today, to tell us about your legal experiences with respect to Guantanamo Bay and for offering your valuable insights. It has been a great privilege for us and a very fascinating discussion. This interview was conducted by Nadia Jahnecke, Legal Editor and Founder of Human Rights Volume of CJLPA 3. In addition to her role at CJLPA, Nadia is currently working as a Trainee Lawyer and will qualify as a lawyer in England and Wales in March 2024.

Soomaya Javadi is a Hazara human rights activist who fled Afghanistan with the help of the 30 Birds Foundation. Actively advocating against ethnic or gender-based discrimination, she is part of the '#StopHazaraGenocide' movement. Currently, Soomaya is working as an early childhood educator and studying at the University of Saskatchewan. CJLPA: Welcome, Soomaya Javadi. I’d like to begin by thanking you for taking the time to come and interview with The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art. You are truly a remarkable and inspiring figure to all women across the world, as despite the pain and suffering you endured with the return of the Taliban, you continue to fight for human rights both for women and the Hazara ethnicity. I would like to begin by asking you to tell us about your childhood briefly. What was life like before the US pulled out of Afghanistan and the Taliban came to power? And what were your main worries at that point in your life? Soomaya Javadi: Thank you for inviting me, it’s really an honor to speak to you. So, I was a dentistry student before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. I attended high school in Kabul and then studied dentistry at university. I have spent most of my childhood in the Islamic Republic of Iran and we were Afghan refugees. The condition of Afghan refugees in Iran or in Pakistan is not good. For example, an Afghan refugee does not have the right to study, nor to own a property, a car, or house in Iran. I am a Hazara woman. I belong to the Hazara ethnicity, which is one of the most persecuted ethnic groups in the history of Afghanistan. And I am Shia—Shia Muslims are a minority against the Sunni majority of Afghanistan population. Things are more difficult for Hazara women who are considered twice as inferior because of their gender, race, and ethnicity. When I started university, one of my professors said in the first week: ‘You guys are taking the seats of men. Your ultimate goal in life is just to stay at home and bear children, so why bother?’. He thought that he was giving us advice or something. I think it’s not easy to be a woman anywhere in the world—with all the discrimination—but it was much harder in Afghanistan. And I think that every day that my peers and I went to school or to work, we were fighting against the patriarchy that existed in Afghanistan and exists now. CJLPA: Thank you. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like growing up. Following up from this upbringing, after the US withdrew their troops, the Taliban soon regained the power to establish their authoritarian regime. Can you please tell us about the atmosphere in your community when Kabul first fell to the Taliban? SJ: So, as you know, our President Ashraf Ghani escaped before the Taliban even got to Kabul. He escaped, and that made everyone panic. What is going to happen to us? I remember that, around two weeks before the fall, one of the Taliban leaders said: ‘If we want, we can get all of Afghanistan in two weeks’. I thought that he was bluffing. But maybe that was the only true thing he said, because two weeks later, they got Kabul. I remember that the day Kabul fell to the Taliban, I went to the university to ask for a kind of certificate or a paper showing that I had studied five and half years here because I was a few months away from graduation. I asked the people in charge to give me some paper so that, if anything ever happens, I can show that in a few months, I would be a dentist. They said that I should go to the Ministry of Education. I went to the Ministry of Education. They said I should go back to my university and ask them. I was told to go here and there but nobody was willing to give me that proof of education. Around 3pm, I went to the university for the last time and stopped this professor to ask for his signature on a paper saying that I had studied here. He replied: ‘That’s not my business. I don’t care if you have studied here’. I knew why—because I was Hazara, and I was a woman. He would rather have ignored me than helped me. When I called him earlier, he said: ‘Yes, please come’, because from my voice on the phone, he couldn’t know that I was Hazara. But as soon as he saw my face, he was not willing to help me anymore. Once at home, at 6pm, I saw the Taliban’s flag on the President’s house—which we call ‘Arg’. I couldn’t sleep that night. And two weeks after that, I was sleeping maybe two hours every 24 hours. I just couldn’t believe what was happening to us. That night, my fifteen-year-old brother and I packed our books in big bags because we didn’t know what was going to happen—we had around 500 books in our home. We were told that they were searching house by house. The only thing we had were books so we took them out into the backyard, burnt some of them and buried most of them. At 4am, we were done. I was lying in bed in the dark, thinking I wasn’t dead yet. Beside my empty bookcase, I choked back my tears and thought: ‘Have I ever existed? Has my life ever existed?’. All the things that I have done, all the books that I have read—I was a dentistry student, a free and independent woman. I had my life, and in a second, in one night, everything was done. I was nothing from now on. Since that day, the Taliban have announced eighty-six commands to limit women’s lives. CJLPA: It seems like you were very proactive when the Taliban took back power and Kabul fell. You went immediately to get your papers from Dentistry to prove that you are a student. You and your family were quick to bury the books in any sort of evidence to suggest that you were an educated strong woman. Was that a preparation for the worst case scenario? Or did you have a feeling that the situation would get as bad as it did? SJ: I knew the history, so, yes, I think I knew what was going to happen. The Taliban killed 2,000 to 8,000 Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998. During three days, they entered the city and shot anything that moved. This is the Taliban. I knew how they treated women last time, how they treated other ethnicities other than Pashtuns. In the first week, I saw photos of Hazara male journalists who were tortured. They published photos of their bodies full of bruises and blood everywhere. My father was a journalist and I feared for his life and for every member of my family. You know, when humans decide to do bad, to be evil, there’s no limit for that. And the Taliban now are breaking a new misogyny record. CJLPA: Thank you very much for sharing this horrific and terrifying situation happening. I would also like to ask you what was the reaction of the men in your community when they first learned that the Taliban had come to power? SJ: I’ve been asked this question a lot. The Taliban may be the most misogynist government in the world today, but they don’t just act against women. They are a group of people who represent only one gender, one ethnicity, and one religion. I will give you an example of what happens to men in my community: Raja is a Hazara Shia man who has been married for the last 15 years to a Sunni Pashtun woman. They were arrested and tortured when the Taliban came. Their children could hear their parents’ voices as they were being tortured in the other room. Raja explained that they put a pipe in his mouth, hit him, kicked him, and used electric shocks on him. When he asked what his crime was, the Taliban told him it was because he was Hazara and married to a Pashtun woman, so he should suffer the worst. They then tortured him, killed his brother, and forced him to leave his religion as Shia and to become a Sunni. Only then they released him. This is the way they treat all people, not just women—it’s much more complicated than that. So men and women were scared when the Taliban came because they all knew they were going to treat people would be terribly. CJLPA: Was there defiance in Afghanistan when the Taliban first came to power? Did people try to do anything or were they just hiding? SJ: So the first thing that happened was then the President escaped, so people panicked and went to the airport. You may have seen photos and videos on social networks of people clinging to planes. But since then, women have been protesting in the streets asking for their rights back. The Taliban hit and arrest them, but they don’t stop. Alia Azizi—a Hazara woman—was the head of the prison in the city of Herat before the Taliban arrived. One of the Taliban commanders told her to come and see him or she would be arrested. She goes there but she never came back. She has a husband and children. A year later, photos of her appeared on social media and certain news platforms, showing that she had been forced to marry a Taliban commander. It’s a very familiar story, like Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale—being forced to marry when you have your own children, your own husband. This is how women are treated. But, even beside those kinds of treatments, women were protesting on the streets with their bare hands and no guns, just demanding the Taliban to give them their rights back. When they were arrested, I remember in the spring of 2022, I saw this video of women being forced to confess and say they were being hired by the foreign countries to go on the street and protest. It was obvious they were forced to confess. There were these news reports and photos published on various news platforms showing that women that went to protest, their dead bodies were found in the trash. The Taliban don’t even bury when they kill—they put the bodies in the trash so that people can see them and be afraid. They just want that fear to grow among people. But despite those kinds of treatments, women are still going on the street and are still demanding their rights from the Taliban. But nobody hears them. They have no other support. CJLPA: Those stories are completely awful and it’s hard to believe that it’s all happening in the 21st century. Could you please tell us what are the worst crimes occurring in Afghanistan to date that go unaddressed and unaccounted for by the international community? SJ: The women’s situation in Afghanistan is something that people talk about, and people address, but they don’t take action about it. It’s as if the Taliban had taken women hostage and were threatening to the world to accept the Taliban’s power, otherwise they will harm women. It should be the other way around. It shouldn’t be the Taliban using women’s situation as a leverage on the international community. That’s one of the problems that have been raised but people don’t react or take action against it. Another problem is that, after the Taliban came, the Kuchis—the Pashtun nomads—another ethnicity in Afghanistan—they force people to leave their ancestral lands and they are backed by the Taliban and they go to to different cities in different provinces in Afghanistan especially, they force Hazara people to leave their lands, or they would be killed. When Hazara people go to the authorities—which are the Taliban—to say that this is their land, the Taliban will not listen to them and they’ll back the Pashtun nomads becuase the Talibans are also mostly Pashtun. The Hazara people are forced to leave their lands while they have nowhere to go and no money because they can’t even take anything with them—their animals, or their possessions. Besides that, they would come and ask people for money. They would say: ‘Someone’s brother was killed in that village 30 years ago so you and the whole village have to pay for it’. And there is no investigation on that. The Taliban just back those people. That’s the way other ethnicities are being treated in Afghanistan. But where were they in the last 20 years? Why now? Because the Taliban now have the power, the Pashtuns also have the power. That’s something that is not addressed properly. The genocide against Hazara people that is going on in Afghanistan is not addressed properly. In 2020, there was a terrorist attack on a maternity hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi, Western Kabul —a Hazara resided area. The terrorists attacked pregnant women who were hours or minutes away from labor. They killed two newborns. In 2021, there was a terrorist attack on the Sayed ul-Shuhada school—a girls’ school. Around 80 little girls were killed, and many were injured and disabled forever. In 2022, the same thing happened at a boys’ school—Abdul Rahim Shaheed. In my neighbourhood in Kabul, in Dasht-e-Barchi, there are numerous terrorist attacks and killings every month, and the Taliban and the terrorists can do anything they want with impunity. They kill mothers, children, and newborns. This is genocide and no one is holding them accountable. CJLPA: You mentioned that many people had to leave their houses. The 30 Birds Foundation helped you and your family escape Afghanistan. Before you had to leave Afghanistan, did you bring anything with you? SJ: When leaving our home, we were so afraid so we didn’t take too many things. We just had one suitcase for all of us—we were a family of five at that time. I think we just got a pair of clothes for every one of us, toothbrushes, some things that are necessary. And the only thing that I took that was very dear to me was my diary, and some documents to prove that I was educated. I didn’t take any of my books or anything. We couldn’t get many things or it would have been too heavy for us. We wanted to be lighter to move faster. We went to Mazar-i-Sharif, which is a seven to ten hour journey, where we were told that an airplane would take off. We stayed in Mazar-i-Sharif for around two weeks but that airplane never took off because there was some change in the Taliban’s leadership at that time. The 30 Birds Foundation told us to go back to Kabul as there was no way we could fly from Mazar-i-Sharif. We were so hopeless. We were trying to find a way to get out, but it was impossible. We headed back to Kabul, but on the way, our bus broke down because of bad luck. We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains. There was no other car or bus that could take us. We had to walk through those mountains for several hours. We could see the Taliban’s vehicles with their guns. I was fearing for my life and my family’s lives. I still have the videos and photos of those hours. My brother was carrying the big suitcase. It was summer, it was hot. I had this black hijab and this was humiliating because I didn’t believe in that hijab, I was just scared and I had to have that. It was forced on me by the Taliban. I remember that my dad told me: ‘Walk like if they’re not here, don’t look at them, just walk’. We managed to find another car and went to the next city. What was supposed to be a seven-to-ten-hour journey to Kabul took us a day. The next morning, we had to be at the border. We went there at night to make sure we weren’t late. We had nothing. Some of us slept on the dirty ground, others slept in the car. I was so hopeless, so dreamless, and I wasn’t even sure we could get somewhere. I thought that my mind was very empty. I was just losing everything, leaving everything—my home, the places that I loved, the people that I loved, my friends, the objects that I liked, books, diaries, everything. And it’s funny because after a month—when we finally came to Canada—the first thing the officer told us when we landed and came out of the airplane wasn’t ‘Hello’. He said: ‘Happy birthday’, like if we were born again. I felt dead the night I was sleeping on the ground at the border. And when the officer said ‘Happy birthday’, it was another life. CJLPA: Thank you Soomaya for sharing that experience. That’s just absurd trauma for you and it’s just outrageous that you and so many individuals in Afghanistan had to suffer such gruesome atrocities in so many different forms. So I appreciate you going into detail to spread the awareness because these are things that people do not know about that’s happening. So it’s really important that we address this. I want to shift a little bit to discuss some of the points you mentioned earlier about talking about accountability and the international community needing to know what’s happening and needing to respond to the Taliban. And, not negotiating with terrorists, because as you said, they are using women as leverage, but it should be the other way around. The first question I want to ask you specifically is in respect to the United States. With all the political discussions around it, what were your thoughts when the US first pulled out? SJ: I felt like a character in a video game who thought they had a life and a goal, but then, I was just played by others. When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, there was nothing I could do to change anything. I felt betrayed. I thought that I had a life, but no, I was not born to live. On 23 August, I wrote in my diary: ‘I wish I had never heard that all humans are equal. I am not equal. And there is no way I can be equal. I wish that I had never been taught that I am a human, because I’m not when I don’t have the rights. I wish that I wasn’t lied to when I started to study, when I learned how to read, when I learned how to write, when I learned how to dream’. In Geneva, you were in Geneva, I mentioned this little girl I know who is in Afghanistan and who is one of the most remarkable young ladies I have ever seen in my life. The way she sings, the way she talks, I remember her and I think she has no choice about what she wants to do with her life. It’s the Taliban who determine who or what she will be. Do you trust the Taliban enough to leave your own daughter to them? Do you trust the Taliban enough to leave countless lives to them? That was how I was feeling. CJLPA: Thank you for sharing that. It is such a heartbreaking situation and as we speak, that is just ongoing and continuous. This is why it’s so important that we continue the dialogue because at the end of the day, politicians need to know what’s happening, individuals need to know what’s happening to pressure their governments to respond. On that note, I know this is a question for politicians to address, but from your perspective, what kind of things would you like to see actioned from the international community that you think could scare the Taliban or pressure them to slowly move away from these human rights abuses that they’re committing out of fear? SJ: The first thing that I want to say is that we are not a project. We are people, and this is our lives. It’s not some kind of project that you work on for some time and then you stop. We are not projects, we are people. I’ve been seeing some efforts to engage with the Taliban. I am asking the international community: Do not engage with the Taliban! Do not engage with the Taliban! Do not engage with the Taliban! I ask you and I urge you: please, do not engage with the Taliban! What Taliban? The Taliban who kill women? the Taliban who kill children? the Taliban who confiscate people’s land and who represent only one gender, one religion and one ethnicity, while ignoring the others and everything else? The Taliban who say that women are not allowed to go out of their homes without a male chaperone? What do you have in common with the Taliban to engage with them? I ask every influential woman, influential politician who is a woman: the Taliban are breaking a new record of misogyny every day, and you should stop them. It’s not only about Afghan women, it’s about women. Yes, there is a gender apartheid in Afghanistan. But if you look closely, it’s more than that—a woman in Afghanistan is equal to nothing. When you don’t even have the right to go out of your home, you’re treated like you are nothing. And that’s about women, not just about Afghanistan. I come from a family who has been suffering from genocide, deprivation, and exile for generations. My great grandfather’s family was killed by Abdullah’s army when he was around 12 years old. He was forced to leave his land and he went to northern Afghanistan to start his own family. And then my grandfather and my uncle were killed by the Soviets, and when I say Soviets I mean the Afghan people who became communists. My father was forced to leave his homeland when he was 15 years old. He lost his father when he was two, his mother when he was eight, his brother when he was six. Despite this, we stayed in Afghanistan for a long time because my parents wanted to see their children raised in this country and have freedom and equality. I, as a woman, was fighting for equality. Every day I went to school, every day I went to work, I was saying: ‘No matter how hard it is, I am here. I am a Hazara Shia woman who is equal to you’. The international community must hold the Taliban accountable for all the crimes, atrocities, and killings they have committed. They must be held accountable. I was asked why the Taliban are so scared of women and I answered it then. But now, I think the Taliban are not afraid of anyone. They do what they want because they have total impunity for the way they treat people. So my plea to the international community is to hold the Taliban accountable for what they are doing, especially for the way they treat women, and for the Hazara genocide. We want the Taliban to be accountable for what they are doing to Hazara people. CJLPA: That’s a brilliant response and I think that needs to be spread in that discussion because at the end of the day if the dialogue keeps continuing, you’re just speaking to terrorists. They’re not going to respond. They’re not afraid of us. They’re just going to take advantage of the fact that we’re trying to make peaceful discussions and they’re going to continue with their human rights abuses. So I think the way you just framed that so perfectly really hones in on that. Following up on that, do you think that cutting off the dialogue with the Taliban and not engaging with them could become dangerous for all the Afghan people, now that there’s no oversight of what’s going on? Or do you think that if we cut off the dialogue with the Taliban, they will feel pressured to minimise the abuses that are occurring and succumb more to international standards? SJ: I know that the Taliban are using international humanitarian aids to support themselves, their soldiers, and allies. The international humanitarian aid going to Afghanistan is not helping people who are in need. It is supporting the Taliban and their allies. If you engage with the Taliban, if you approve of them, they will not change, they will not remove all the rules they have put in place to limit women’s lives. I think that the international community must stop helping the Taliban with this aid and assistance, and that it must put bans on the Taliban. That’s the way you engage with a bully. You shouldn’t invite them and talk to them. You shouldn’t take them on private jets to talk to them. They are terrorists. The only way that they will understand what you’re saying is to put pressure on them, to have diplomacy with them, to put bans on them, and to use leverage on them. They want the international community to approve of them, so they have to try for it. It’s just the international community talking about engaging with the Taliban, but the Taliban are not doing anything. They are just continuing with all the atrocities. That’s what makes me angry. CJLPA: Thank you. After everything you’ve endured, you still stand here today as a strong Hazara and Shia woman. How do you overcome this loss and empower yourself as a woman to continue fighting for this battle? SJ: The other day, I was biking—I live in Saskatoon, Canada—and I remembered that when I was 16 years old, or 15 years old, I thought I didn’t want a job. I didn’t believe in it anymore. But I also remembered that one of my dreams was to bike, but without a scarf on my head. In September 2022, there was a terrorist attack at the Kaaj educational centre in Dasht-e-Barchi, Western Kabul—the neighbourhood where I used to reside. In that attack, many Hazara teenagers were killed. One of them was Marzia, a teenage girl whose diary and things she was writing were vastly shared on social media. On one page, she mentioned her dreams, which included riding a bicycle and listening to music, visiting the Eiffel Tower, eating pizza in an Italian restaurant, meeting the Turkish writer Elif Shafak. So I told myself: Don’t ever dare to take this moment for granted. You are biking without a scarf, and you have freedom. So it’s on you to fight for people’s freedom’. I know what is happening to them, I was in their situation. I didn’t want that for myself, and I don’t want that for any other woman, for anyone. I think that I need to tell their stories, because if I don’t, who would? CJLPA: I think that’s exactly the point: if you don’t, who will? It’s unjust that that burden is put on you, but you have been voicing the voices of so many Afghan women and the Hazara and spreading awareness about what’s ongoing. Further to all the work you’ve been doing, how do you think we, as a society, can help empower women, specifically in Afghanistan, but also all around the world where misogyny is taking place? SJ: I think the world needs more compassion. As I said before, we should start seeing people as people, not as projects. When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, I thought that I was not born to live as a human being. I was born to be on the casualty list on some kind of news. When you see in the news that a terrorist attack has caused around a hundred victims, that hundred could be 101, so that one person was even ignored in the news. So I think the world needs more compassion. We should listen to the stories and, whatever our position, we should try to stop it. I ask everyone, regardless of their position, to do whatever they can to prevent the world from engaging with the Taliban. Maybe I’m not expert enough to know what the right way is, but I know that engaging with the Taliban doesn’t help. It will just make them more powerful. And when they have enough power, they will do what they did 20 years ago on 11 September. CJLPA: On a final note, what is the lasting message you want readers and viewers to think about for the current situation in Afghanistan? SJ: I want you to know that people in Afghanistan, women, and men, are people. There are many people who are fighting against the Taliban. They could be women who protest on the streets every day, they could be girls who are still studying at home, who are being tutored by their family members. There are even underground schools in Afghanistan, and after what happened to the Sayed ul-Shuhada school, people were still sending their daughters to school because people in Afghanistan—especially Hazara people—believe in education and want it for their daughters and sons. So I appeal to you to stand with the people who want freedom instead of standing with the Taliban or standing impartial. CJLPA: Thank you Soomaya for your time today and for answering these very personal, difficult, and painful questions. We are truly inspired by your heroic work and for standing by your people as you continue to fight for human rights and democracy in Afghanistan. And by exposing these outrageous and shocking international crimes, we will continue to spread your story and this message in our upcoming publication. Thank you. SJ: Thank you so much. This interview was conducted by Nadia Jahnecke and Angelina Spilnyk. Nadia is Legal Editor and Founder of Human Rights Volume of CJLPA 3. In addition to her role at CJLPA, Nadia is currently working as a Trainee Lawyer and will qualify as a lawyer in England and Wales in March 2024. Angelina is a graduate of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine, in 2022 with a major in International Public Law. Alongside her position as a Legal Researcher at CJLPA, she is pursuing a Master's in Maritime Law at the University of Southampton.

Clive Stafford Smith is a British human rights lawyer who has spent his career working against the death penalty in the United States, along with representing more than 80 Guantanamo Bay detainees. He is also co-founder of Reprieve, an NGO that challenges human rights abuses in the courts of law around the world. This interview was conducted in two parts: the first written, the second recorded. Whilst the whole interview is reproduced below, the video includes only the second half. CJLPA: We are pleased to welcome you today, Mr Clive Stafford Smith, to interview with The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art. You have devoted an inspiring career as a human rights defence lawyer, having represented over 300 prisoners facing the death penalty in the Southern United States. You are also co-founder of Reprieve, a human rights not-for-profit organization, and more recently a newer non-profit called 3D Centre. In addition to this, what we would like to focus on in our interview today is your work at Guantanamo Bay, where you volunteered your legal services in 2002 and have since helped secure the release of over 80 detainees. You opened up your book Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay And The Secret Prisons in a manner that I think truly sets the scene. Particularly, your imagery of an iguana at the US base in Cuba. Can you briefly explain the difference between an iguana’s rights and the Guantanamo detainee’s rights? Clive Stafford Smith: We figured out that the environmental laws applied in Gitmo even though the US government said the Constitution didn’t. This set up the nice paradox that if you kick an iguana you might get 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, but if I kick you—assuming you are not an American—nothing happens. So we claimed in the US Supreme Court that if our clients had ‘equal rights with iguanas’ it would be a step up. CJLPA: Before the Guantanamo cases, you dedicated your life’s work to defending prisoners on Death Row. Reflecting back, how would you compare the experience in defending clients from capital punishment compared to defending clients at Guantanamo? CSS: It is very similar. The point of the death penalty is that the US faces a very real societal problem—a high murder rate, often precipitated by drugs and alcohol, always committed with guns, largely by society’s disenfranchised. The obvious way to address this is to vastly improve education, have a better approach to drugs, ban guns, and create a meaningful welfare system. That is expensive and long term. So the chosen political ‘solution’ is to blame a small number of young black men, and execute them, as if that will solve anything. With Gitmo, we had a large and expanding group of people who hated us, largely because their dubious leaders blamed us for every ill. In turn, we thought the best way to address the patent inequities in the world was to pretend that all these ills were caused by Muslim extremism and to say that if we punish 780 fairly random bearded Muslim men we would be able to say we had taken action. CJLPA: Were there any similarities in the legal procedure and what were the main differences worth noting? CSS: Ironically, the reason the best lawyers in Gitmo were death penalty lawyers from the state courts (not the federal) is because they were the people who understood political cases. It is not about the legal procedure (which is hopeless in both fora) but about bringing power to powerless people. CJLPA: It would be interesting to get your view on the psychology of Guantanamo, to better synthesize how and why the US was capable of kidnapping innocent men and locking them away for years without a charge or trial. In your opinion, what is it about ‘terrorism’ that brings it to a whole other league where justice and the rule of law are merely a memory? Even the Nazis, the spies from the Soviet Union sharing secrets about a nuclear holocaust, were given a trial. CSS: It is ironic that in what was touted as a war to protect democracy and the rule of law the law was the first casualty. But then it does tend to come back to whether we respond with any good sense, or simply to convince a gullible domestic audience that we are doing something. In this case, there is the added factor that the US is just not attuned to being attacked. The US was not—thankfully!—used to being attacked. Our territory has really been attacked on three occasions: 1812, 7 December 1941, and 11 September 2001. Terrorism is just a word we use when people have complaints that, while sometimes justified, the powers that be do not wish to recognize. CJLPA: Even before the legal questions eventually went before the Supreme Court about constitutional rights, habeas corpus, or due process, the first challenge was knowing who was captured. You were one of the first lawyers that got involved in fighting for the detainees at Guantanamo and took on the crucial role of identifying clients. Can you explain how you did this? CSS: There were three of us who brought Rasul v. Bush and we divided up responsibility: Joe Margulies was essentially in charge of researching law; Mike Ratner was building a coalition of lawyers, and I took on identifying the prisoners and getting permission to represent them (as we could not get to them, we needed a ‘next friend’, who would normally be a family member). It was not until 2006 that we finally got a list of the prisoners. Until that point, for over 4 years, who was in Gitmo was classified. I was building a list from the start, from media reports of missing people around the world. Unsurprisingly it was very inaccurate. In Yemen, for example, the per capita national income was then $300 a year. If they wanted to hire a US lawyer for $1500 an hour, if they didn’t eat all year they could get just 12 minutes. So we needed to let people know we would do it for nothing.  So I would go to each country, hold a press conference, and say that I was there to provide free representation. People would come forward to a designated hotel, and I would get them to sign authorizations. The main thing was to say sorry. I did a lot of that. CJLPA: Despite the fact that the US did not allow any spot of dignity for the detainees, you still found loopholes around this. I particularly like your idea with Binyam Mohamed, when he asked you for a number ten shirt from the Dutch football team. Can you briefly explain the idea behind this? CSS: So the Military Commission was just a kangaroo court, not worthy of us taking it seriously. Rather than that we just illustrated its folly. And it kept Binyam amused, as he had a great sense of humour. The rules said you could not dress your client in Orange (that would look like the dreadful early photos), but you could dress him in ‘Culturally Sensitive Attire’ (which was meant to make us look like we were being culturally sensitive). Obviously the answer was to find something that was cultural but orange, so Binyam chose the Dutch No 10 shirt since he was the tenth person in the Commissions (or Con-missions as he rightly called them). CJLPA: Last time I spoke to you, you told me about the story that you would tell the detainees to make them understand what the Americans were doing, the story of the Br’er Rabbit. Can you briefly explain it and why you told the detainees this story? CSS: If you say please don’t do something they would always do it. And so I explained to everyone the old story of Br’er Rabbit and the Briar patch where he got caught by Brer Fox and his Tar Baby. Br’er Rabbit is the small clever slightly arrogant rabbit (us), and Br’er Fox is the big stupid animal representing the US government. So Br’er Rabbit said ‘Please don’t throw me into the Briar patch’ because he wants the Fox to do just that. That is often what we wanted too, and the US government almost always fell for it. So I told the story in English, French and my execrable Italian (to some Libyans who spoke it—I could not remember the word for Rabbit) and that went around the Base. It came back later that the authorities thought there was some escape plan code named Rabbit… CJLPA: I want to continue by discussing the aftermath of Guantanamo. The tragedy extends beyond the release of detainees. The US initially labelled Guantanamo detainees as the most dangerous terrorists globally and then expected other countries, each with their own political agendas, to accept these men as refugees. Can you shed light on some of the difficulties your clients have faced since their release? Additionally, how are they attempting to reinvent themselves? CSS: It’s important to stress that the predicament of Guantanamo detainees didn’t cease with their release. The US government not only released them, branding them as the most dangerous terrorists globally but also attempted to link them back to their alleged crimes upon release. Take the case of Binyam Mohamed, for instance. When he was sent back to Britain, authorities handed a secret document to the BBC, containing information extracted through torture. During an interview with Mohamed, a BBC journalist pulled out this document and began questioning him based on it. It was only because I was present there and had seen that document in secret before that we were able to stop it, because it was nothing but false evidence obtained through torture. Moreover, they systematically sent people to countries where they had no connection. Mohamed El Gorani, for example, was a young kid of only 14 when he was taken to Guantanamo. He was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, but his family originally hailed from Chad. The US sent him back to Chad, a place he had never been to, in the middle of nowhere. The authorities in Chad aren’t known for being enlightened, and he had no support there. In addition, I’m going to be in Dubai in a couple of weeks. Many prisoners were sent to Dubai, where they were subjected to treatment worse than what they experienced in Guantanamo. While some countries have been more reasonable, the overall assistance people received in reintegrating into society has been minimal. For instance, if you know someone with just $3,000, like Ahmed Rabbani, who is attempting to open his Guantanamo restaurant in Karachi, it’s a daunting task as he lacks the necessary funds. We managed to raise some funds for him to provide a roof over his head, but he has had his entire life taken away from him. CJLPA: I also want to ask you about the labelling of terrorism because, in fact, most of them were not charged with terrorism. CSS: In the case of Guantanamo detainees, only one was charged with terrorism, and there was no official charge of ‘conspiracy to commit terrorism’ due to a lack of appropriate legal grounds. Instead, detainees were often charged with other offences. The term ‘terrorism’ is indeed used broadly and sometimes controversially. Various countries apply it differently, leading to diverse interpretations. For example, Israelis label every member of Hamas as terrorists, and some British people refer to the Irish as terrorists. So all sorts of countries are doing it. Pakistan indicted Imran Khan as a terrorist. Imran Khan reached the age of 70, without a traffic ticket and suddenly he’s got 200 Federal criminal charges against him, including terrorism. So you know, this is just a stupid word that’s used to try to make people blind to the realities of what’s going on. CJLPA: Moving a bit away from that, but focusing on the definition of terrorism: it’s a term that people have attempted to define in various countries over the years and have consistently failed, leading to constant amendments. Yet there’s always this push because, nonetheless, there’s a sense of needing to justify that it is an entirely different crime, different from murder, for instance. For example, that the victim in terrorism is not the victim; they’re merely an instrument of instilling fear among the public, or that it’s about sending a political message, and these features are what supposedly differentiate it. What’s your outlook on having a separate definition of terrorism? Do you think it makes sense? And how does having that charge in itself affect obstruction of justice? CSS: There’s more than just the word terrorism, there are effectively two words beginning with ‘T’ that are used to blind everyone in this whole debate. One is Terrorism, and the other is Torture. So there’s a whole debate about whether what happened to my clients was torture. I don’t care if was torture. You know, we’re looking at this in such a foolish way. There was a time when we thought that just being unpleasant to someone was bad. Certainly, if you have a suspect, and you slap your suspect, that’s not good. But it’s not torture. So suddenly, the debate has become about whether these people a) are terrorists, and b) whether we’re torturing, which is just a totally fatuous debate. Because it’s acting as if treating people badly is acceptable, as long as it falls short of torture. So, you know, I don’t like any of this discussion. I think it just blinds people to any sensible debate. CJLPA: And I wanted to ask you about any accountability that has happened sense, which I know is minimal. But did any of the detainees receive compensation from the US government for the wrongful detention and acts of torture? CSS: What do you think? No, of course not. They haven’t received an apology let alone compensation. No one’s admitted that anything was done wrong. Now, we got compensation for some prisoners, but never from the Americans. We got it from the British government for their complicity in what the Americans did. The Canadians had to pay Omar Khadr for their complicity. Then there was the only really successful litigation in America, to get compensation from the two psychologists who came up with this whole thing. They were paid $81 million to come up with a method of abusing prisoners. And so they were sued because they didn’t have sovereign immunity, they didn’t have the defences that the US has created for itself. But of course, their contract with the US included the fact that the US would indemnify them for anything that they might lose through being sued. So neither of those two doctors actually lost anything their lawyers were paid for, and all their costs were paid. And so in that small way, I suppose the US had to pay a small amount of money. And we’re about to do it again, on behalf of Abu Zubaydah, I hope. But the short answer is no. The US has wasted millions and millions of dollars, by now it’s over billions of dollars, on Guantanamo. But they certainly have done absolutely nothing to ensure that the people that they mistreated so badly would not become vehement enemies of America. CJLPA: Following on that, are there any legal recourse or legal actions that have been in motion since their release? Either for the detainees, or in the sense of the misinformation that was released to the public at the time about how they were labelling them as terrorists? CSS: The only way to get accurate information out to people is for us to do it. And then the media has been woeful in this regard. You look at the New York Times. On their website, they have been on the Guantanamo docket. The Guantanamo docket was leaked by WikiLeaks. And I ended up testifying in Julian Assange’s hearings in the UK on that particular subject, because I would perfectly willingly believe that the US intentionally leaked that themselves, because that isn’t the information I get to see. I was all excited when I heard that WikiLeaks had leaked secret documents from Guantanamo Bay, because I thought you were going to get to see what I got to see. But that’s not true at all. What they leaked was the very, very minimal documents that the US government comes out with on each prisoner. And it is effectively the wet dreams of the torturers that they thought were true. And there’s a lot I can’t talk about that because it’s secret, and I can’t tell you or I have to kill you. And that’s quite hard to do over Zoom, so I’m constrained. So, the one thing I can tell you is one case in which I got everything declassified, just to illustrate. So it’s the case of Younous Chekkouri. And with him, there was a 13-page document about what an evil wicked terrorist he was. And when I litigated that in Federal Court, we had 1811 pages, proving all of that was total bullshit (I think that’s the legal term). So for each page they had, we had about 130 pages proving it false. And you don’t get to see that. But the evidence against these guys is just such nonsense, and the media is so gullible. Just publishing that. And we ask the New York Times to put up there, that this is not evidence, this is not true. The vast majority of this has been tortured out of people. Instead, they put one little disclaimer saying lawyers dispute whether this is true. So these men, and they’re all men, will be dogged for the rest of their lives by this sort of defamatory rubbish. CJLPA: It’s interesting, though, because you do sometimes hear about these criminal cases where individuals got released after finding out that they’re innocent, and there is compensation sometimes in those circumstances. But in this instance, when it’s been quite clear, and it’s in public information that they have been held, without ever having been charged, without having a proper hearing, that to this day, there’s not been any sort of attention to it. CSS: There’s not been a single instance, in which the US has admitted they made a mistake. You know, to begin with, when they released someone they had all six of the secret agencies saying that this person was no threat. And to begin with, for a little while, they said that you’d been cleared. But they suddenly realized what that sounded like. So instead, they changed the verbiage to say that ‘you have been found to be no longer a threat to the US or as coalition allies’. So they use that language just so they never, ever have to say the words ‘I’m sorry’. Which is ironic as all these Republicans who are so incredibly high on taking responsibility for your mistakes, and want to punish people who do make mistakes, are surely the very last people who are ever going to admit that they made a mistake. CJLPA:  Both political parties, Republican and Democrat, and I think that’s what makes it so disappointing with the Democrats as well. CSS: Totally. I mean, Obama said he’s getting rid of Guantanamo and torture. Never did get rid of Guantanamo, but instead he created assassination. So instead of having detention without trial, we have the death penalty without trial, which is obviously even worse. CJLPA: In light of this, where does international law come into play? Is this an indication of international law’s weakness? Or merely one of the circumstances where it has failed? What is your perspective on that? Specifically, as well, I know that the US has not signed too many treaties in this respect. CSS: How many treaties has the US signed that are enforceable against us? Human rights treaties? Zero. There’s not a single one. There used to be one, which was the United Nations Treaty on Consular Relations. But we’ve withdrawn from the enforceability clause of that. So there’s now none. So international law is of no relevance to the people in Guantanamo Bay at all. And it’s a great tragedy, because one day the US will need international law. When China is top dog, and the US is complaining about their rights being trampled on, they’re going to say, well, I wish when we were top dog, we’d signed up to all this stuff and enforced it. But they won’t, because they’re willing to enforce it against, you know, maybe a few dictators from Africa, but they’re not willing to have it done to any Americans. So as a consequence, it has no relevance to what we do at all. CJLPA: But also, more broadly, not in the sense of treaties, but just international law in the sense of war crimes. How is this any different than when you’re at war, and then you’re taking people against their will and detaining them, and there’s no trial, and there’s torture. I mean, it’s what’s currently happening in the world, where we are claiming war crimes, and the UN is speaking up. But in this instance, there’s still to this day, nothing said about it. CSS: Well, there’s a lot said about it, actually. But it’s all said in exactly the opposite way that we would like. What we have done has licensed a bunch of repressive regimes to do the same thing. And you know, how many times have you seen in Syria or wherever that some group of people that we don’t like would dress up the prisoners they had in Guantanamo orange outfits, and just say that they were doing the same as Guantanamo. So, you know, in terms of humanitarian law and practice, what we did in Guantanamo set us back decades. And it’s such a shame because in the early days when I still thought the law was vaguely relevant to Guantanamo, I did a lot of work on the Nuremberg tribunals, where the bad guys were really the British. Because Winston Churchill said, ‘let’s just kill 10,000 Nazis’. And Stalin said, ‘Oh, let’s give a trial, a Stalinist trial to 10,000 Nazis and then kill them’. And it was only the Americans who insisted on due process to the extent that a very limited number of people were hanged, and 30% of the people were acquitted, which was really a credit to the US. But we’ve thrown all of that away, which is really a shame. CJLPA: My next question is in light of what we’ve just been discussing about the crimes that are committed and how the government is abusing their power, in the name of national security. Why do you think we still have laws that give the executive the power to abuse human rights in the name of national security? CSS: Well, I don’t think we really do have laws that give them the power to do it. It’s just they do it and no one is able to stop them. And it’s really interesting. I’m teaching a course at Bristol University this year. And one of the first things, it’s about the US Constitution, and it’s about actually how wonderful the US Constitution is compared to anything the British have. The British legal system is abysmal compared to what we have. Britain has Belmarsh. Belmarsh is very, very active. Britain has its own secret courts, which are way worse than the American secret courts, on account of the special advocate. If you’re a terrorist, and they want to use secret evidence against you in Britain, they appoint you a barrister who you get to meet now before you know any of the evidence, and then after that, when your barrister gets to see the evidence, the barrister can never talk to you again. So this person is meant to be representing your interests and is not allowed to even talk to you. You know, at least in Guantanamo, we’re trusted to see secret evidence and not reveal it to the client unless we have gone through steps to make it possible. And, you know, obviously, we obey that because I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them not to listen in on everything we do. CJLPA: Is that just what happens? Or is that what’s permitted? For instance, under the Terrorism Act? CSS: That’s the rules they come up with. But the British are so pusillanimous that they don’t challenge it. I met with them when this was first put up and I said, you’ve got to do what we’ve done in Guantanamo, which is we don’t take part in a system that’s that rotten. We challenge everything about it. But instead, now they go along with it. These are all the people who probably went to the same private school that I did. And so the British system is vastly worse. The American system, at least we sued them. We won in the US Supreme Court. We got access to them. We set up a structure that’s far from perfect, but it’s resulted in the release of 96% of the people so far. So, you know, that’s vastly better than Britain. But most of that has to do not with the law. The law has been important just to get in there. But of the 750 people who are no longer in Guantanamo, the courts have ordered the release of one. That was Asadullah Harun, who was coincidentally my client. But the other 749 are no longer there because of the Court of Public Opinion. And that’s about going in there, getting the truth out, and then publishing it to the world, which we do all the time, and it’s a battle because they try to make it all secret. But in Britain, you wouldn’t get it, no one does that. They just have a secret little hearing that the prisoners are not allowed to be at. And then they sentence the prisoner to years and years in Belmarsh. It’s dreadful. CJLPA: What is the role of the judges regarding Guantanamo? How involved were they with the executive? Were they just interpreting cases and making their decisions in order to make sure that they were appeasing those in power? CSS: I don’t care what the judge is doing in Guantanamo. The judge is totally irrelevant to the system. You know, when you’re in a kangaroo court, the only thing you can do is get out of that court. So I’m not the least bit interested in anything they do, I’m interested in releasing and reducing them to a laughingstock. That’s what we did in Binyam Mohamed’s case: we just took their rules, I gave a copy to Binyam, he had a wonderful sense of humour and just took the piss out of them. And then I reported myself to the Bar Association in this case, because it was unethical for me to follow their rules. And I did that just to get out of their little kangaroo court. Even if it meant that I was in a court in America, at least that was likely to be more fair. So the person who’s the judge in the commission is just a puppet of the government and should be ignored at every level. CJLPA: In the present day, where are we left with Guantanamo Bay and the detention centre? Is it a matter of individually getting the clients out? CSS: Individually we got of most of them, and we’ll get a whole bunch more out in the next few days. And then the end, there’ll be 10 people left in Guantanamo. And those will be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his mates; probably most of them were involved in some way in 9/11. So, what you’ve got is a capital murder of 3,000 people, and they’re not going to get the death penalty against him. And that’s extraordinary. This illustrates how totally pointless their whole process is that in the worst crime ever committed against the US, they’re going to lose. And that’s not because of the Commissions or the courts or anyone, it’s because of what we did, it’s because we tortured people, and we went so far astray. So in the end, there will be ten poor guys stuck in Guantanamo forever. And you know, they’ll end up dying of old age there, which is not a great thing, I suppose. But it’s a lot better than what would have happened to them if they’d been in a real court. CJLPA: And finally, what do you think is the legacy of Guantanamo Bay? Do you think the world’s learned from these horrifying events and the world is moving in a better direction in the name of human rights? CSS: No. I wrote a piece that was for Al Jazeera a while back about taking my grandson on a tour of the Guantanamo Bay Injustice Museum. I don’t know if that’ll ever happen. I hope so. One of the very first times I ever went to Guantanamo would be almost 20 years ago now. The nice sergeant who was showing us around was talking about how he wanted to close it down as a military base and open it up as a tourist destination. You know, it’s got an airport, it’s got lots of very secure hotel rooms, it’s got a McDonald’s, it’s got the Guantanamo Golf Course on Recreation Road, it’d be fabulous. And I thought, yeah, it’d be great. And we’ll have a museum to human folly and injustice. I hope that does happen one day. I hope we give it back to Cuba. And I hope Cuba turns it into something like that. I think the chances of that happening are fairly slim. But it’s what should happen. CJLPA: This has been an absolutely fascinating discussion. Thank you Clive for taking the time to speak with us today, to help spread knowledge and insight about the ongoing violations happening at Guantanamo Bay. This interview was conducted by Nadia Jahnecke, Legal Editor and Founder of Human Rights Volume of CJLPA 3. In addition to her role at CJLPA, Nadia is currently working as a Trainee Lawyer and will qualify as a lawyer in England and Wales in March 2024.

In his opening remarks during the 74th ExCom of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in October 2023, the High Commissioner Filipo Grandi outlined that, despite borders and policies restrictions, 108.4 million people have had no choice but to flee their homes due to climate change, persecution, war, violence, human rights violations or instability.[1] This proves a reality, that people will always be on the move, but how they move depends on governments’ policies and procedures. When regular pathways are heavily restricted or closed, forcibly displaced people are prone to exploitation, abuse, and human rights violations by smugglers and traffickers. For example, according to the Missing Migrants Project, to date, 28,189 migrants have gone missing in the Med since 2014, with over 2,500 missing in 2023 only.[2] However, challenges that asylum seekers and refugees experience are not limited to the danger of death or human rights violations. Thousands of asylum seekers in the European Union wait for years to hear about their asylum claims decisions. In the UK for example, in August 2023, the asylum backlog reached record high, with 175,000 waiting for a decision on their asylum claim, living in limbo and uncertainty.[3] Other more depressing and worrying examples are related to forced returns to countries of origin when they are not yet safe, like Denmark’s returning Syrian refugees.[4] All the above, accompanied with the rise of the right wing in Europe draws a gloomy picture for asylum seekers and refugees who have reached Europe, and those who will be forced to do so.[5] In addition to cruel policies, in many instances, the EU policies also fell short of responding to the emerging and forgotten conflicts and humanitarian crises. EU responses lacked an emergency or early warning system and were taken by shock during certain events like the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 and the following humanitarian crisis. Moreover, the lack of holistic and concentrated approaches to humanitarian disasters made responses short-sighted and exclusive. The above shows systemic failures in the EU to live up to the international obligations towards asylum seekers and refugees, especially because refugees have been excluded from spaces where decisions on their lives have taken place. In addition to the fact that governments should be accountable towards the affected communities, having refugees—regardless of their legal status—absent from designing policies, is a missed opportunity. Refugees have the solutions and the insights and their voice is crucial for a welcoming Europe. Earlier this year, in January 2023, over 100 refugee leaders from all over the EU gathered in a three-day summit to draw a picture of an inclusive and welcoming Europe. Participants crafted a roadmap that holds the key to solutions of the main challenges that refugees face. Listening to them, and transforming the scene in Europe based on their contributions would lead to more inclusive, relevant, and dynamic refugee responses and plans. I—Political Exclusion These challenges are underpinned by a fundamental issue, which is the lack of refugees' meaningful participation in creating policies and making decisions that affect their life in the host countries. The lack of avenues for participation and the tokenistic inclusion of refugees and instrumentalisation of refugee organisations and spaces have been counterproductive, and led to policies that cannot respond to the needs of displaced people, but in most cases put them in danger and limbo. History has shown that social movements most effectively bring change when they are led and organised by affected communities. When looking at the movements for women’s rights, civil rights, LGBTQI+ rights, against apartheid, or for independence, there is a clear pattern: the leaders are representatives from their communities. We, affected communities, are best-placed to inform policy needs and implementation. Participants in the summit attributed the lack of refugee participation to the lack of access to political participation and the deliberate exclusion from decision making. In cases when refugees and/or migrants are invited to participate, their participation is tokenistic and does not confer changes in the power dynamic or lead to actual changes. The importance of the meaningful refugees participation—and of course the migrants participation—in the different contexts, is the recognition that they are capable active participants and not ‘vulnerable’ people as usually referred to. The key solutions that participants in the summit came up with are the increase in political engagement of migrants and refugees, and particularly the inclusion of young refugees and migrants in decision-making. Refugee participation should be sustained, ethical and funded. Refugee-led organisations or migrant-led organisations should receive stable, flexible, and long-term core funding. Another main factor in making sure that refugees and migrants are participating effectively and informing policy is to build their capacity. Refugees and migrants participation should never be instrumentalised, and they should be involved on an equal footing as partners in the decision-making process. The Meaningful Refugee Participation pledge is based on the core belief that solutions to refugee problems should come from refugees themselves, and that policies are only effective when inclusive and allow refugees a say on their issues.[6] Towards the Global Refugee Forum and beyond, meaningful refugee participation is the answer. We have begun to see a shift already in increasing engagement of refugees, with more refugees on state delegations, on panels, and incorporated into dialogues and consultations on refugee policies. Nevertheless, these shifts have mostly taken place at the behest of certain champion states, NGOs, or other actors: we have yet to see a truly systemic change in the refugee response sector so that refugees like ourselves are routinely participating in all levels of strategising, funding, and implementing programs, policies, and other responses that influence our lives. II—Financial and Economic Exclusion Asylum seekers and refugees, forced to flee their home countries due to violence, persecution, and instability, embark on a daunting journey towards safety and security. However, the path to socio-economic empowerment is fraught with insurmountable obstacles. To appreciate the gravity of this challenge, one must understand the sheer scale of the number of people forced to flee their homes globally as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations. According to the UNHCR as of December 2022, this number stood at 108.4 million and continues to grow. Refugees are not just statistics but individuals with dreams, skills, and untapped potential. Yet, their aspirations for financial stability and economic self-reliance often encounter systemic and multifaceted barriers. This is also a reality even for those who find themselves fleeing to Europe. The findings from the European Coalition of Migrants and Refugees (EUCOMAR) 2023 report also attest to the intricate web of challenges that impede the financial and economic empowerment and settlement processes of asylum seekers and refugees in their European host societies. Key identified issues included bureaucratic complexities, stereotypes, and systemic barriers such as experiences of intersectional discrimination, prejudice, exclusion, lack of recognition of migrants existing educational achievements and expertise, language barriers, limited financial literacy and lack of information, weak or non-existent social networks, and lack of support for migrant and refugee-led organisations. Systemic Barriers The financial and economic exclusion of refugees and migrants is rooted in systemic oppression which manifests in various forms such as experiences of intersectional discrimination, prejudice and stigma embedded in policies, as well as in the labour market and financial service providers. For instance, owing to discriminatory practices in the job market, many migrants and refugees are denied equal opportunities for employment and career progression. In many countries, despite their qualifications and skills, refugees are relegated to precarious, low-paid so-called ‘3 D—dirty, demeaning, and dangerous jobs’.[7] According to the European Summit report, this is particularly the case for racialised blacks and people of colour and indigenous migrants, women, undocumented, elderly, and uneducated migrants who might negatively self-select.[8] This type of employment perpetuates instability and precarity in their lives. Similarly, these systemic barriers and intersectional discrimination have a domino effect and further impact various other aspects such as access to the labour market, financial services and entrepreneurial ventures as well as recognition of previous skills, educational achievements and expertise. Human Capital and Skills Recognition Another critical aspect of refugees' and migrants' economic exclusion that came up in the findings was the lack of recognition of their skills and qualifications. It was highlighted that delays or non-validation of existing skills and expertise hinder access to suitable job opportunities and also limit access to high-paying jobs as well as career progression prospects. Language Barriers Language is a fundamental tool for navigating a new host country. Yet many financial institutions use complex and inaccessible language and financial technologies. Thus, refugees' and migrants´ interaction with financial services is often hindered by these language barriers. This unfamiliarity with technical financial jargon is coupled with a general lack of trust in the financial sector due to experiences of discrimination. As a result, many refugees and migrants lack information and awareness about the financial systems and resources available to them. This lack of knowledge and understanding of the terms and features of financial products and services can lead to financial decision-making that does not align with their best interests. It may also lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the terms and features of financial products and services, adding to their exclusion. Bureaucratic Complexities—Legal Frameworks Access to formal financial services, a fundamental component of financial inclusion, remains a significant obstacle for many refugees. The European Summit report pointed out that refugees and asylum seekers experienced many bureaucratic complexities when accessing banks and financial institutions. Participants reported experiencing prejudice from financial service providers who questioned their means of income. An OECD report also indicated that banks often assumed refugees and asylum seekers were in the country temporarily hence they classified them as high-risk clients.[9] Thus, financial service providers were hesitant to open bank accounts, lend money to refugees and asylum seekers, or microfinance their entrepreneurial enterprises.[10] Access to basic financial services, such as opening a bank account, is often restricted for asylum seekers and those with undocumented status in some countries. Unlike labour migrants and foreign students who usually possess proper identification documents and residency rights, newly arrived refugees often lack valid identity documents.[11] Additionally, stringent requirements such as fixed address, identification documentation, and proof of stable income often lead to the rejection of bank account applications, further contributing to financial exclusion. This limitation deprives asylum seekers of financial autonomy and stability, making it difficult to send or receive funds, save money, or access bank loans.[12] Moreover, the continued tightening of financial regulations, aimed at combating money laundering and terrorist financing, inadvertently works against the economic integration of refugees.[13] Even when host governments accept alternative forms of identification, international banks and financial institutions owing to a lack of knowledge and awareness of refugee issues and legal frameworks may still have reservations about accepting their applications.[14] Weak Social Ties and Networks Studies have shown that due to stigma and prejudice, some refugees and migrants may find it difficult to create networks in the host country. Thus, they resolve to stick to their home country communities or ethnic enclaves which can also perpetuate a cycle of exclusion and poverty. Refugees with intersecting social positions such as women, disabled, LGBTQI+, undocumented, and unemployed, often find themselves without a support network to rely on and some might not have social security access as a safety net to fall back on. Consequently, they end up falling between the cracks, especially in times of crisis, as we witnessed during and post COVID-19 and in the current crises of rising inflation, conflicts, and wars. This absence of a robust safety net exacerbates the economic hardships faced by further marginalised refugees such as LGBTQI+ people, Black and People of Colour who may lack the support systems available to other segments of the refugee population.[15] Lack of Support for Migrant-led Organisations Refugee and migrant-led organisations often face numerous hurdles from institutional and political to funding and personal. Administrative, language, and knowledge barriers affect their access to funding. They also compete with established non-community-led NGOs for limited funds, highlighting the need for increased transparency and consideration of refugees' and migrants' specific expertise. Refugees and migrants often lack the knowledge and understanding required to navigate complex financial systems in host countries. This absence of awareness extends to legal frameworks for establishing organisations, setting up bank accounts, and adhering to tax regulations making it even more challenging to secure funding. The complexity of these systems necessitates seeking legal guidance, which is often costly and inaccessible for underfunded organisations led by migrants and refugees. III—Asylum Reception and Integration Policies When it comes to asylum reception and integration policies, many issues arise. Apart from policy challenges including lack of policy responsiveness, emergency response, and clarity about procedures, structural ones hang on too. In the European summit, refugee leaders reported difficulty for refugees in accessing the information on asylum and procedures, and the unavailability of data, in addition to language barriers, bureaucracy, work and residency rules and travel expenses. Added to that, the imbalanced responsibility-sharing within the EU countries of asylum seekers and refugees. Low quotas of refugee allocation paused an extra challenge. Participants suggested solutions for the EU governments to uphold the rights of displaced people seeking asylum in Europe and called for trust within the displaced communities. This trust would pave the way to combating discrimination and will preserve the safety, justice, and rights of the displaced people. Access to information and simplified translated information on procedures would save lives. Participants reiterated the need for safe and regular pathways like community sponsorship and family reunification. Negative narratives around refugees are an added layer to the problem. Participants recommended developing a positive media narrative of sponsored refugees and good practices and developing a refugee-led advocacy and policy dialogue strategy. Despite the fact that the EU abides its own human rights convention,[16] and is signatory to the Geneva Convention, the journey to realise these ideals by asylum seekers and refugees is far from straightforward. The European summit’s report illuminated the intricate challenges encountered by asylum seekers and refugee communities throughout the EU's asylum procedures, detention centres, and integration endeavours. The participants stressed that it is imperative to adopt an intersectional perspective to unveil the numerous layers of human rights transgressions that diverse groups of asylum seekers and refugees experience. Furthermore, it called for the need to conduct a thorough examination of the flaws, constraints, and potential biases inherent in the EU's approach to tackling these issues. The participants discussed that the process of seeking asylum, which is the initial and most pivotal point in the path of asylum seekers, is bound by challenges in the EU and navigating its complexities can be perplexing. As per the right to seek asylum,[17] many asylum seekers often experience significant delays in the processing of their applications, resulting in a state of limbo characterised by prolonged uncertainty and heightened vulnerability. Participants noted that the intersectional perspective highlights how specific groups may face additional hurdles during the asylum process. LGBTQI+ asylum seekers, for instance, may fear disclosing their sexual orientation in countries with less progressive attitudes, which can further complicate their claims. Similarly, individuals with disabilities may struggle to access appropriate accommodations or support during the process. Variations in national laws and practices lead to disparities in how asylum seekers are treated. For example, some EU nations have violated the principle of non-refoulement by forcibly returning asylum seekers to perilous situations.[18] Moreover, the right to legal representation is inconsistently applied,[19] with some receiving comprehensive legal aid for a fair process while others have limited access to such crucial services. To create a more cohesive and all-encompassing asylum policy, it is essential to ensure secure and regular pathways for refugees. Participants also discussed the importance of safe access and regular pathways, highlighting the challenges faced at both policy and structural levels. They also referred to community sponsorship and family reunification. The participants of the summit highlighted the need for a more unified and equitable asylum policy in the EU. This includes addressing the challenges of policy responsiveness, transparency, and structural barriers, as well as ensuring secure and regular pathways for refugees. Detention centre conditions have been a subject of concern for the summit’s participants. The detention of asylum seekers—including children—can be prolonged, with overcrowding, inadequate healthcare, and subpar living conditions ,[20] which infringe their right to liberty.[21] This includes issues like overcrowding, inadequate healthcare, and substandard living conditions, all in clear violation of international human rights standards, notably Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which explicitly prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment.[22] An intersectional perspective uncovers the varying experiences of detainees, particularly those belonging to vulnerable groups, as outlined in Article 24 of the EU Reception Conditions Directive.[23] During the summit, women participants stressed the need for protecting women and children, as they are especially at risk in detention settings, where they may become victims of gender-based violence and abuse. Disabled participants expressed their fears of encountering obstacles in accessing vital healthcare, intensifying the suffering associated with detention. The Dublin Regulation, responsible for distributing the processing of asylum applications, has led to an unequal distribution of refugees among EU member states. This approach places a disproportionate burden on countries like Greece and Italy, where overcrowded refugee camps often struggle to provide essential services. The participants also highlighted that vulnerable groups such as unaccompanied minors and survivors of gender-based violence, are at a heightened risk within these challenging conditions. Integration Challenges: A Rocky Road to Inclusion Despite its significance in the asylum process, refugee integration faces obstacles due to inadequate integration policies. These challenges manifest in high unemployment, limited education access, and housing difficulties. An intersectional approach recognises distinct barriers for specific groups, such as specialised mental health support for torture survivors and tailored educational programs for refugee children. Discrimination based on gender, race, or ethnicity further hinders integration. Human rights-based integration policies should ensure equal access to work (the right to work and enjoy fair and favourable conditions of work, enshrined in Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,[24] is often violated in the case of refugees the summit participants said), and education (refugee children's right to education, as emphasised in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,[25] is often thwarted by language barriers, discrimination, and lack of resources) and, similarly, equal access to housing (discrimination against refugees and migrants in housing and employment were highly mentioned and stressed during the summit by the participants—a clear violation of Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights further hampers integration and jeopardises the right to an adequate standard of living).[26] A critical analysis of the EU's approach to asylum seekers and refugees reveals several weaknesses and limitations. One of the key challenges mentioned in the summit lies in the lack of harmonisation and consistent implementation of asylum and migration policies across member states. This creates disparities in the treatment of asylum seekers, undermining the principle of equal protection under the law. ‘The EU's focus on border control and deterrence, rather than a primary emphasis on human rights protection, often leads to policies that prioritise security over individual rights’, said one of the participants. As a result, asylum seekers can face criminalisation, detention, and deportation, particularly when seeking entry. Comprehensive data collection and analysis that consider the intersecting identities and vulnerabilities of asylum seekers and refugees are often lacking. This oversight hampers the development of policies and interventions that address the specific needs of different groups. Conclusion In view of the above discussion, it is patently clear that the challenges surrounding the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees within the European Union are undeniably complex, deeply ingrained, and demand urgent attention. The complex and interconnected nature of these issues was vividly explored across three pivotal domains: policy and political participation, economic exclusion and marginalisation, and asylum policies and regular pathways. The voices of summit participants resounded with a unified call for comprehensive, systemic changes to uphold the EU's commitment to human rights and solidarity. With regard to the issue of policy and political participation, the clarion call is for a harmonised asylum policy. Participants emphasised the critical need for a unified approach, consistent implementation, and inclusive policies. They stressed the importance of recognising and responding to the unique vulnerabilities of refugees, underlining the imperative role of independent monitoring mechanisms to ensure that detention centres align with human rights standards. The plea for immediate action and systemic changes to address human rights violations echoes a key recommendation for a more compassionate and rights-centric asylum system. Turning to economic exclusion and marginalisation, participants illuminated the financial and economic obstacles faced by asylum seekers and refugees. The recommendations presented a roadmap toward economic empowerment and inclusion. This includes a push for inclusive banking systems, cross-sectoral collaborations, and the development of fit-for-purpose funding programs. Establishing a dedicated European banking institution, support for entrepreneurship, and specialised micro-credit systems were pinpointed as crucial elements. The overarching message is clear: economic empowerment is a linchpin in the holistic inclusion of refugees, requiring concerted efforts across sectors and robust support structures. In the sphere of asylum policies and regular pathways, summit participants underscored the necessity of a nuanced understanding of refugees and a challenge to negative stereotypes. The recommendations spanned from demanding accountability and transparency from member states to addressing economic challenges and fostering social inclusion. A comprehensive approach prioritising human rights in all policy decisions emerged as the central theme. The participants emphasised the importance of awareness, equal access to the labour market, training, language learning programs, special quota arrangements, and tax relief. The creation of support networks was highlighted as a pivotal step in enhancing the social capital, financial autonomy, and overall inclusion of refugees during their settlement process. The consequences of inaction are enormous given the overwhelming surge of challenges faced by refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants in Europe. The times demand a united front, where policies are not just documents but living embodiments of empathy and where economic empowerment is not just a goal but a means to human dignity. Immediate and collective efforts are needed to ensure the EU is a living embodiment of its values and guiding principles centering on human rights, solidarity, and compassion. This call to action is not only a moral imperative but a commitment to the very principles that undergird the EU. Maysa Ismael, Shaza Al Rihawi, and Miles Tanhira Maysa Ismael is a programme coordinator with the Global Refugee-led Network. She has worked on refugees’ issues since 2010. In Damascus, Syria, she worked with the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, and the International Organization for Migration. In London, she worked in the field of freedom of expression, protecting civilians in conflict and women, peace and security. She is also a fellow with Beyond Borders' 1325 Women in Conflict fellowship, and a member of the steering group of the Refugee Journalism Project. From co-founding influential refugee initiatives like Global Refugee-Led Network, the European Coalition of Migrants and Refugees, and Global Independent Refugee Women Leaders to shaping global dialogues on displacement, Shaza Al Rihawi is a passionate advocate for human rights and climate justice. A champion for refugees and displaced people, Shaza's voice resonates through prestigious platforms like Oxford University, COP28, and SDGs, calling for a more just and inclusive world. Miles Rutendo Tanhira is a Zimbabwean-Swedish International Migration researcher and Founder of Queerstion Media. He is a peace and LGBTQI+ rights activist and a core team member of the European Coalition of Migrants and Refugees. His achievements include being one of the recipients of the European Parliament´s Intergroup on LGBTQI+ rights' Go Visible Award and being selected as one of the Human Rights Campaign´s Global Innovators. He has served on several voluntary boards, including the War Resisters International (WRI) from 2010- 2019 where he contributed to the Handbook for Non-Violent Campaigns 2nd edition. [1] UNHCR, ‘What is the difference between population statistics for forcibly displaced and the population that UNHCR protects and/or assists?’ (UNHCR)  accessed 1 December 2023. [2] Missing Migrants Project, ‘Migration within the Mediterranean’ (Missing Migrants Project)  accessed 2 December 2023. [3] Callum May, James Gregory, and Mark Easton, ‘‘I struggle not knowing what the future holds’ - Asylum backlog reaches record high’ (BBC News, 24 August 2023) < https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66603767> accessed 2 December 2023. [4] Martha Bernild, ‘Syrian Refugees in Denmark at Risk of Forced Return’ (Human Rights Watch, 13 March 2023) accessed 2 December 2023. [5] Eline Schaart, Pieter Haeck, and Jakob Hanke Vela, ‘Far-right leader Geert Wilders wins Dutch election’ (Politico, 22 November 2023) accessed 1 December 2023. [6] Global Refugee-led Network, ‘Refugee Participation Pledge’ (Global Refugee-led Network) accessed 1 December 2023. [7] Sara A Quandt et al, ‘Illnesses and injuries reported by Latino poultry workers in western North Carolina’ (2006) 49(5) American Journal of Industrial Medicine 343. [8] Jaffer L Najar and Anila Noor, ‘New Voices for an Inclusive Europe’ (Second European Summit of Refugees and Migrants, 2023). [9] OECD, ‘Responses to the refugee crisis: Financial education and the long-term integration of refugees and migrants’ (2016) accessed 8 November 2023. [10] ibid. [11] UNHCR, ‘Financial Inclusion’ (UNHCR) accessed 8 November 2023. [12] Adèle Atkinson and Flore-Anne Messy, ‘Promoting Financial Inclusion through Financial Education: OECD/INFE Evidence, Policies and Practice’ (2013) accessed 6 November 2023. [13] OECD, 34 OECD Working Papers on Finance, Insurance and Private Pensions (2014) [14] UNHCR (n 11) [15] Miles Tanhira, ‘The Invisible Outsiders Within: An Intersectional Analysis of the Lived Experiences of Transgender African Migrants’ Integration Process in Sweden’ (Malmö University Publications 2022). [16] European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1953. [17] Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 Article 14. [18] The Refugee Convention 1951 Article 33. [19] Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 2009, Article 16. [20] UNHCR, ‘UNHCR stresses urgent need for States to end unlawful detention of refugees and asylum-seekers, amidst COVID-19 pandemic' (UNHCR, 24 July 2020) accessed 3 December 2023. [21] European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1953 Article 5. [22] ibid Article 3. [23] Directive 2013/33/Eu of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection (recast) 2013 Article 24. [24] Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 Article 15. [25] ibid Article 26. [26] Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 2009, Article 21.