Ireland, along with a group of like-minded countries, successfully pressed for the adoption of a resolution by the UN General Assembly in December 2016 to establish the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes under international law committed in Syria. In addition, Ireland has agreed to contribute €100,000 to the operating costs of the Mechanism. Ireland continues to work with its UN partners to support the establishment of the Mechanism and to ensure its full operational capacity as soon as possible.
Ireland currently supports a broad range of efforts to ensure full legal accountability for all war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria as part of a sustainable peaceful resolution to the conflict, including the Independent International Commission of Inquiry established in August 2011 by the Human Rights Council to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law since March 2011 in Syria. We have also consistently called for accountability and the referral of the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
Ireland is also a strong and consistent supporter of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) whose Fact Finding Mission (FFM) was set up in 2014 to “establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic”. We support their work financially with annual contributions amounting to nearly €1 million since 2014. In addition, Ireland has contributed €200,000 specifically to the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mission an independent mechanism established to determine the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Ireland reiterated its strong support for the FFM and the OPCW-UN JIM at a recent meeting of the Executive Council of the OPCW, convened to discuss the alleged chemical weapons attack in the Syrian province of Idlib on 4 April 2017.
