What is the Syrian Accountability Project?
•Started at Syracuse University College of Law in 2011, The Syrian Accountability Project (SAP) is a cooperative effort between activists, non-governmental organizations, students, and other interested parties to document war crimes and crimes against humanity in the context of the Syrian Crisis.
Now in its third phase, the project aims to produce impartial, high quality analysis of open source materials and to catalogue that information relative to applicable bodies of law; including the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute, and Syrian Penal Law. |
Who are SAP’s Partners?
•SAP has recently been re-designated as a “special project” under the Umbrella of the Law Journal “Impunity Watch” (IW) at Syracuse University College of Law. This will enable the project to continue as long as necessary, and when it is finished, IW’s good stewardship of our documents will ensure that Syracuse retains a strong Conflict Mapping capacity for the future.
•Additionally, as a member of the International Working Group on Syria, SAP works very closely with the organizations listed to the right. |
Who are SAP’s Clients?
•Since the primary objective of SAP is to help secure justice for the Syrian people by providing date or use by a future justice mechanism for Syria, our clients and consumers are primarily like-minded Government and International Organizations.
•SAP has worked closely with the Syrian National Coalition and other activist organizations to ensure that our approach is consistent with distinctly Syrian notions of justice. •The organizations to the right are our primary clients. |
Objectives of the Syrian Accountability Project•Impartial documentation:
To provide the best open-source picture of the Syrian Conflict available by compiling and analyzing all relevant source material from an impartial stance and presenting data in a way which contributes to the reader’s understanding of both daily events and the conflict as a whole. •Representational charging: To assist a future prosecution team in obtaining justice for the victims of the Syrian Conflict by providing resources that assist in the work of representational charging. While it is impossible to charge every crime that has been committed in a conflict this size, through representational charging we can ensure that each type of offense committed in each region is at least represented proportionally in the ultimate indictments. In so doing, we hope the Syrian people will be left with a sense that, even if every offense could not be charged, justice was still served through the scope of the indictments. |
Work Product
• The project organizes its work product in two main documents:
•Conflict Narrative: Organized by month, date, and region, the Conflict Narrative recounts the situation on the ground in Syria as a series of events. The Conflict Narrative also includes information on key geopolitical developments relative to the major players in the conflict.
•Crime Base Matrix: Organized relative to applicable statutory law, the Crime Base Matrix catalogues those events which represent violations of the Laws of War and Syrian Penal Law.
•Conflict Narrative: Organized by month, date, and region, the Conflict Narrative recounts the situation on the ground in Syria as a series of events. The Conflict Narrative also includes information on key geopolitical developments relative to the major players in the conflict.
•Crime Base Matrix: Organized relative to applicable statutory law, the Crime Base Matrix catalogues those events which represent violations of the Laws of War and Syrian Penal Law.
Organization of the
Syrian Accountability Project Phase IV
Future Work Product•While SAP recently finished its Phase III work product, our project is far from concluded. The following are examples of work product which will be completed in the near future:
•Unit Mapping Projection: Using Google Earth Pro, analysts from SAP’s Unit Mapping Team will be plotting incidents from our Conflict Mapping Narrative and relevant source reports from other monitoring groups onto a physical map of Syria with an eye toward establishing the movements of individual armed units throughout Syria. Using this information we will establish those commanders who bear the greatest responsibility for specific crimes. •Sample Indictments: Using the information from the Unit Mapping Projection, we will be drafting sample indictments charging those individuals who bear the greatest responsibility with applicable violations of both International and Syrian Domestic Law where appropriate. •Research and Revision: SAP’s research team will be working constantly to improve upon our data and update our Conflict Narrative and Crime Base Matrix as new and better source material becomes available |
The Big Picture: the Chautauqua Blueprint•In addition to producing its own deliverables, SAP is proud to support the recently unveiled Chautauqua Blueprint
•The Chautauqua Blueprint is a Draft Statute prepared by a panel of former international tribunal chief prosecutors, international judges, and leading experts which aims to provide a model for a Syrian Extraordinary Tribunal to Prosecute Atrocity Crimes. It reflects insights gained from a series of meetings and workshops over the past two years, which brought together Syrian lawyers, jurists, and civil society leaders with international experts to discuss an approach to transitional justice uniquely tailored to Syria. •Given SAP’s efforts to document atrocity in Syria, SAP is naturally supportive of the Chautauqua Blueprint. SAP continues its work in hopes that our data will one day be used in a Syrian Extraordinary Tribunal, like the one proposed in the Chautauqua Blueprint, to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity. |