Turkey should face international court over genocide, says human rights report
A groundbreaking report endorsed by British human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy has said that Turkey should face International Court of Justice for being complicit in genocide of Yazidi people when Syria and Iraq failed in their duty to protect. The report has been made by prominent human rights lawyers. The report is aimed at highlighting responsibilities of states towards prevention of genocide on their territories even when they are carried out by third parties like Islamic State.
The group of lawyers is called ‘Yazidi Justice Committee’. The lawyers said that states had responsibility to prevent genocide taking place on their territory under international law. Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who is the chair of the committee has described the genocide as “madness heaped on evil”.
“Mechanisms in place could have saved the Yazidis from what is now part of their past, and part of their past partial destruction,” he said as quoted by The Guardian.
The report has resulted after a three year investigation. It examined the conduct of 13 countries. The report has concluded that three of these countries have failed to perform their duty to prevent genocide.
The report goes even further in case of Turkey and states that the country was complicit. It alleges that Turkey failed to police its borders to prevent inflow of Islamic State fighters. Officials in Turkey have said that these allegations are baseless.
