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Yazidis: Genocide

Question for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

UIN HL1639, tabled on 11 July 2022

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the report by the Yazidi Justice Committee State Responsibility and the Genocide of the Yazidis, published on 6 July, what steps they are taking to urge Syria to enact domestic legislation to ensure that the Genocide Convention is upheld in that country.

Answered on

25 July 2022

The UK is committed to highlighting the appalling violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Syria and to pursuing accountability for the most serious crimes. We use our position at the UN General Assembly, the UN Security Council and our leadership of the regular Syria resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council to draw international attention to the ongoing human rights violations and abuses in Syria, and consistently call for Syria to abide by international human rights conventions and norms. The UK Government supports efforts to pursue accountability for the most serious crimes committed in Syria, including through the UN Commission of Inquiry and the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism with which we signed an Memorandum of Understanding in March this year. These bodies were established with the express purpose of inquiring into and investigating potential war crimes. The UK has previously voted at the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court but such action has been blocked by Russia and China.