This section lists some organizations which have worked on researching, promoting, and protecting human rights, collecting evidence of gross human rights violations, and pushing for accountability. They can be useful resources to learn more about the potential for accountability and to bring testimonies to a very wide audience with an eye to the protection of the witnesses.
The European Center for Constitutional Law and Human Rights (ECCHR) aims to counter injustice with legal interventions. ECCHR contributed to the submission of evidence and information pertaining to the two individuals on trial at Koblenz and was thus pivotal in the landmark judgments rendered by the court in early 2021 and early 2022. ECCHR also provides periodic updates on the cases it supports, thus playing an important role in the efforts to inform the public as well as policy and legal experts.
The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) works to collect evidence of crimes regardless of jurisdictional matters, empowers local communities to help in these efforts, and then analyzes and stores them to provide evidence and analytical support to national and international justice and accountability efforts. With their evidence, they supported, for instance, the prosecution at the Koblenz trial. CIJA has already collected a significant number of documents proving the crimes of the Syrian regime and its Allies, which will no doubt be pivotal in any future prosecutions. Moreover, their extensive network of people on the ground allows them to keep collecting more information as more crimes are committed, thus proving that the regime and its Allies are still perpetrating these crimes.
The Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) is a US-based non-profit organization aiming “to bring an end to the atrocities against Syrian civilians through advocacy, humanitarian initiatives, and the pursuit of justice and accountability for war crimes.” Over the past decade, it has helped bring forth several court cases, both civil and criminal, against the Assad regime in Europe and the United States. Furthermore, through their Victims Fund program, they have supported witnesses and survivors, such as Caesar, in their efforts to make their experiences known to the world.
Amnesty International (AI) works all over the world to protect and defend human rights and to speak out against human rights violations. The organization publishes yearly reports on the human rights situation in both Syria and Iraq, as well as in the broader MENA region. They also have spotlights on specific issues, such as unlawful detentions.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has country-specific focuses on the human rights situation and regularly publishes reports. On October 20, 2021, for instance, they published one on the abuses that Syrian refugees who return to Syria have to face. Human Rights Watch is a very well-known, well-established, and well-respected organization, which can be a pivotal partner in our efforts to amplify our message. Furthermore, its periodic report presents a unique possibility for exposure of our cases and research on a broad scale and to a broad audience of policy makers, legal experts, scholars, as well as to the general public.
