Click here for draft statute (approximately 32 pages); click here for press release (approximately 3 pages)

A panel of former international tribunal chief prosecutors and leading experts has prepared a “Draft Statute for a Syrian Extraordinary Tribunal to Prosecute Atrocity Crimes.”  According to the press release, the panel—which is co-chaired by Professors M. Cherif Bassiouni, David Crane, and Michael Scharf—finalized the Draft Statute in the wake of the August 2013 International Humanitarian Law Dialogs conference at Chautauqua Institution.

According to the preamble to the Draft Statute, the Tribunal would “prosecute those most responsible for atrocity crimes committed in Syria by all sides of the conflict when the political situation permits, presumably following a change in government.”  The Tribunal would also be “complementary to the ordinary criminal and military courts of Syria, which would prosecute lower level perpetrators, and to an international tribunal if one were to be established or given jurisdiction to prosecute the highest level perpetrators.”  The provisions of the Draft Statute relate to matters such as organization of the Tribunal, jurisdiction, and the enforcement of sentences.  An annex to the end of the Draft Statute contains twenty-two “discussion questions” that would need to be resolved in establishing a Syrian Extraordinary Tribunal, such as where the Tribunal should be located and whether it should allow trials in absentia.