After IS, justice for Yazidis? 'The world has moved on'

In the early morning hours of August 3, 2014, the extremist "Islamic State," or IS, group attacked communities in northern Iraq that were home to the ethno-religious Yazidi minority.

Yazidi men were executed on the spot and women and children were captured, with thousands eventually being sold into slavery.

By 2017, the IS group was declared defeated in Iraq. Today, most members are either dead, imprisoned, or in hiding. But many Yazidis are still waiting for justice.

Progress made

There have been positive developments over the past decade, Murad Ismael, head of the Sinjar Academy, an institute in northern Iraq for Yazidi education, told DW. 

That includes the resettlement of Yazidi survivors in third countries and international court cases trialing former IS members, he said. It also includes international recognition that IS committed genocide against the Yazidi and the Iraqi government's Yazidi Survivors Law of 2021. That legislation offers reparation of sorts to abused Yazidi women, including a monthly income of around $500.

But there's still more to be done, Ismael and others argue. Of around 7,000 Yazidis captured by the IS group, 2,600 are still unaccounted for and mass graves are still being exhumed around Iraq.

And things are not looking so positive for the ongoing pursuit of justice. "I think the world, including Iraq, is now moving beyond the IS chapter altogether," Ismael said.

Unfortunately this year, the Yazidi suffered another serious setback: the unexpected closure of the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the IS group). The organization, commonly known as UNITAD, started work in 2018 to investigate IS crimes, including those committed against the Yazidis, but it will be dissolved in mid-September.

UNITAD is in Iraq at the invitation of the country's government and late last year, the Iraqis said it was no longer needed.

The head of UNITAD, Christian Ritscher, warned that his team would not be able to finish their work by September.

"Many survivors … see UNITAD as the only hope to achieve meaningful justice in Iraq," an open letter by 33 different advocacy groups added. "For its work to stop so abruptly … would be a disaster for survivors, Iraq, and the international community. It would send the signal that justice is not a real priority."

Why close UNITAD?

There are several reasons for UNITAD's unexpected end.

It's partially political, Ismael argues. Besides simply moving on historically, "anything international seems not to be welcomed by the new Iraqi government," Ismael says. 

In May this year, Iraq requested that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, which has been working there since 2003, be withdrawn. 

Local media reports also suggest there was friction between UNITAD and the Iraqi establishment. Iraq does not have a law that covers what are known as "international crimes" — that is, serious violations of international law like crimes against humanity, genocide, torture or enforced disappearance.

That is why no IS members have been charged with international crimes in Iraq, Bryar Baban, a Kurdish law professor, pointed out in an analysis for the Paris-based French Research Center on Iraq earlier this year. "Regrettably, UNITAD was unsuccessful in urging Iraqi authorities to enact such legislation," he said.

In Iraq, IS members are usually prosecuted using anti-terrorism laws, he continued. "The Iraqi justice system lacks fair trials, with some as brief as 10 minutes. Trials do not include victims and survivors... and atrocities committed against Yazidis are rarely factored into Iraqi judicial processes."

Additionally, Iraq uses the death penalty, which the UN opposes. This is why, local media suggested, UNITAD had not always been enthusiastic about sharing evidence with the Iraqis. 

Impact of UNITAD's closure

"There will be a big void that needs to be filled," Pari Ibrahim, director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, told DW during an event held by the Atlantic Council this week. "We were really counting on UNITAD."

But what legal experts and advocacy organizations are most worried about is what happens to the evidence UNITAD has collected. Some of this has come via the Iraqi government but UNITAD also had investigators conducting interviews in the field.

"A lot of survivors went to UNITAD because they trusted the UN mechanism," Ibrahim pointed out. "A lot did not want to share their testimony with Iraqi prosecutors." They didn't trust them, she explained.

Reports suggest Iraqi officials may now want to keep evidence and conduct trials inside the country. They have also hinted that they should be the ones that give permission to third-country prosecutors to use Iraqi evidence.

But, as law professor Baban writes, what if Iraq refuses to pass on evidence: "Could we not face a denial of justice?"

What now?

Yazidi advocacy organizations have suggested the UN keep UNITAD's evidence safe, or that another special tribunal be created to take its place.

"Ultimately our position is that we want justice to happen in Iraq," Natia Navrouzov, director of the advocacy organization Yazda, said during the Atlantic Council event. "Because this is the homeland of the Yazidis and other minorities that were targeted, this is where most of the survivors, the evidence, the perpetrators, and the crime scenes are. But what is missing is the trust."

There's a draft law in Iraq to allow the prosecution of international crimes but it has yet to be passed. And Iraqi authorities are not transparent enough about their plans, Navrouzov argued. "Right now the message is that 'we're closing UNITAD and we will take over,'" she says. "But where is the trust-building part?"

"I believe in fighting but, as I said before, I also think the world has moved on," Ismael, head of the Sinjar Academy, concluded. "But we Yazidis cannot move on. We hold onto this idea of accountability and justice because, for us, it's personal — while for the rest of the world, it's political. For them, IS is done, it's finished. But we can never forget."

Edited by Richard Connor