Crimes Without Courts: A Conversation with Saad Kassis-Mohamed

An Interview with Saad Kassis-Mohamed, Chairman, Human Rights Association

Interviewed by Sarah Nader, Legal Research Officer, Kurdish Rights Centre

More than a decade after the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) launched its systematic campaign of genocide, sexual slavery, and mass atrocity against the Yazidi people, accountability remains fragile, fragmentary, and far from complete. Thousands of Yazidi women and girls were subjected to sexual violence, forced marriage, and enslavement as part of what multiple international bodies have recognised as genocide. Yet few perpetrators have faced justice, and the international legal architecture tasked with responding to such crimes continues to strain against its own limits. In this interview, Saad Kassis-Mohamed of the Human Rights Association speaks with Kurdish Rights Centre’s Sarah Nader about where international law stands today and where it still falls short.

Sarah Nader: Saad, for readers who may be approaching this issue for the first time, could you briefly describe what happened to Yazidi women under ISIL and why this situation warrants specific attention under international law?

Saad Kassis-Mohamed: Thank you, Sarah. What ISIL carried out against the Yazidi community and against Yazidi women in particular was not incidental to its campaign. It was doctrinal. ISIL published theological justifications for enslaving Yazidi women, categorizing them as polytheists whose enslavement was religiously sanctioned. Women and girls were captured, catalogued, bought, sold, and distributed as spoils of war in an organized market. We have documented price lists, receipts, and internal communications that reveal the industrial scale of what occurred.

Under international law, this meets the definition of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention: acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. It also constitutes crimes against humanity – specifically enslavement, sexual slavery, rape, and forced pregnancy – and war crimes under the Rome Statute. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria documented these crimes extensively in 2016, as did the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh (UNITAD). The legal characterization is clear. What remains contested is enforcement.

Sarah Nader: You mentioned UNITAD. Can you explain what that body does and how effective it has been in advancing accountability?

Saad Kassis-Mohamed: UNITAD was established by UN Security Council Resolution 2379 (2017), specifically mandated to collect, preserve, and store evidence of acts committed by ISIL that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. It is a critical innovation – it was designed to fill a gap that existed because Iraq is not a party to the Rome Statute, meaning the International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over crimes committed on Iraqi territory.

UNITAD has done genuinely important work. It has collected hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence, worked with survivors and families of victims, and built structured case files that can be transmitted to national jurisdictions. However, it has no prosecutorial power of its own. It is, in essence, an evidence repository and support body. The translation from collected evidence to actual prosecutions depends entirely on the willingness and capacity of national courts – primarily Iraqi courts – to conduct trials that meet international fair trial standards.

That is where we hit significant structural friction. Iraqi law does not currently have a domestic genocide law, meaning prosecutions rely on terrorism statutes, which are inadequate to capture the specific nature of what was done to Yazidi women. Using counter-terrorism frameworks to prosecute genocide flattens the experience of victims and denies formal recognition of the crimes against them.

Sarah Nader: You have touched on jurisdiction as a constraint. What are the main jurisdictional challenges that prevent Yazidi perpetrators from being prosecuted at the international level?

Saad Kassis-Mohamed: The jurisdictional picture is genuinely complex. The ICC, as I noted, lacks jurisdiction over Iraq. Syria is also not a party to the Rome Statute, and Russia and China have blocked Security Council referrals that would have granted the ICC jurisdiction over Syria. This is a structural failure of the international system – the countries most responsible for atrocities in the region have shielded themselves and their allies from ICC reach.

The remaining avenues are universal jurisdiction prosecutions in third-party states – Germany has been the most active, with several convictions of ISIL members under its Code of Crimes against International Law. Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Finland, and others have also pursued cases. But universal jurisdiction cases are resource-intensive, depend on suspects being physically present in the prosecuting jurisdiction, and can only proceed case by case. They cannot substitute for a systematic accountability process.

There is a growing call from Yazidi organizations and international legal scholars for a special tribunal – a dedicated international or hybrid court for ISIL crimes. The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide has endorsed this concept. We at the Human Rights Association support it strongly, but it requires political will that has not yet materialised. Several key states remain opposed, and the Security Council deadlock over Syria makes multilateral action extremely difficult.

Sarah Nader: What specific protections exist or should exist for Yazidi survivor-witnesses who engage with accountability processes?

Saad Kassis-Mohamed: This is an area that has improved but remains seriously inadequate. Any survivor who engages with a legal process – whether testifying before UNITAD, providing evidence to a national court, or participating in civil proceedings – faces real risks. Retraumatisation through invasive questioning, security risks from ISIL-affiliated networks, community stigmatisation upon return, and the practical burden of travel and participation in processes conducted far from their homes.

The ICC has relatively well-developed victim and witness protection mechanisms, including anonymity, protective measures, and psychosocial support. But many Yazidi cases are not before the ICC – they are before national courts whose procedural protections vary enormously. Some jurisdictions have conducted secondary victimisation through questioning practices that focus excessively on the survivor’s conduct rather than the perpetrator’s.

What we advocate for is the consistent application of survivor-centred, trauma-informed approaches across all forums engaging with Yazidi women. This means gender-sensitive interview protocols, female interviewers where preferred, the right to legal representation throughout, access to psychosocial support before and after testimony, and clear, enforceable anonymity protections. It also means ensuring that survivors are informed participants in accountability processes – not simply evidentiary resources.

Sarah Nader: Reparations have featured prominently in discussions about Yazidi justice. What does international law say about reparations in this context, and where does the current framework fall short?

Saad Kassis-Mohamed: The right to reparation for victims of gross human rights violations is well established in international law – in the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation, in the Rome Statute’s Trust Fund for Victims, and in the jurisprudence of international human rights bodies. Reparations encompass restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-recurrence.

In 2021, Iraq passed the Yazidi Survivors Law, which is a landmark piece of domestic legislation that provides for financial compensation, psychological support, and a range of other measures for survivors. We welcomed it as an important recognition. However, implementation has been deeply inadequate – the registration process is bureaucratically burdensome and practically inaccessible for many survivors, particularly those who remain displaced or who have resettled abroad. Funding disbursements have been delayed. The law also does not reach foreign nationals who perpetrated crimes and have since returned to their home countries.

At the international level, ISIL does not have state assets that can be seized for reparations purposes in any straightforward way. The ICC Trust Fund for Victims mechanism is potentially available but only in cases where the ICC has jurisdiction, which as we discussed excludes the majority of Yazidi crimes. Closing this gap requires creative legal architecture, including the possible designation of a dedicated reparations mechanism through the UN.

Sarah Nader: There are approximately 2,700 Yazidi women and children still unaccounted for, more than a decade after the initial attacks. What legal obligations does this create, and what is being done?

Saad Kassis-Mohamed: The obligation to investigate enforced disappearances and account for missing persons is a binding obligation under international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The right of families to know the fate of their relatives is recognised in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, the Human Rights Committee, and regional human rights bodies.

UNITAD has done important work mapping mass grave sites in the Sinjar region and coordinating forensic investigations. The International Commission on Missing Persons has provided technical expertise. However, the pace of excavation is slow, access is complicated by the ongoing instability in the region and competing authorities in Sinjar, and DNA identification processes are underfunded relative to need.

For the women and children still believed to be alive – held by ISIL-affiliated networks in Syria or living under assumed identities – the situation is even more complex. Some have been located through intelligence and community networks; repatriation and reintegration support is inconsistent and inadequately resourced. The legal obligation to search for them does not expire, but the political attention and funding needed to discharge that obligation is fading as the crisis recedes from international consciousness.

Sarah Nader: What do you see as the single most important reform needed to strengthen accountability for crimes against Yazidi women under international law?

Saad Kassis-Mohamed: I would highlight jurisdictional reform. The current patchwork – relying on universal jurisdiction in willing third states, a constrained UNITAD mandate, and inadequate domestic courts – is insufficient to the scale of the injustice. A dedicated international or hybrid tribunal with explicit jurisdiction over ISIL crimes, prosecutorial authority, and the capacity to handle cases involving hundreds of perpetrators across multiple nationalities would transform the accountability landscape.

Such a tribunal would also send a deterrent signal beyond this specific conflict. One of the enduring failures of international criminal law is that perpetrators of mass atrocity frequently calculate, correctly, that the probability of facing justice is low. Demonstrating that sexual slavery on this scale produces sustained, effective prosecution – not simply symbolic condemnations – matters for the future protection of women in conflict.

I want to be clear that this is not a distant or utopian proposal. The legal groundwork has been laid by UNITAD. The evidence exists. What is missing is political will. States that claim to support international justice need to translate that commitment into the concrete diplomatic work of negotiating and funding a tribunal. Yazidi survivors have been patient and courageous in their engagement with international institutions. They deserve more than process – they deserve results.

Sarah Nader: Finally, what message would you want Opinio Juris readers – many of whom are international law practitioners, scholars, and students – to take from this conversation?

Saad Kassis-Mohamed: I would offer three things. First, the legal arguments for accountability in this case are strong and extensively documented. This is not a situation where the law is unclear or where attribution is contested. The evidence is there. What is needed is a legal community that continues to push for the institutional and political conditions in which that law can be applied.

Second, I would urge attention to the domestic dimension. Supporting Iraqi legal reform – including the adoption of a domestic genocide law and strengthening the capacity of Iraqi courts to conduct fair and trauma-informed proceedings – is unglamorous but genuinely important work. International criminal law ultimately depends on functioning national systems.

Third, I would ask that the field not lose the human centre of this conversation. Behind every legal category – genocide, sexual slavery, enforced disappearance – there are individual women whose lives were devastated and who are navigating reconstruction in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. The purpose of international law in this context is to serve them. The measure of its success is whether they experience justice, safety, and recognition. By that measure, we have significant distance yet to travel.

About the Participants

Saad Kassis-Mohamed is Chairman of the Human Rights Association, where he leads work on human rights documentation, accountability, and legal advocacy for communities affected by conflict in the Middle East and North Africa. He has worked closely with international bodies, national courts, and civil society organisations on accountability mechanisms for ISIL crimes and the protection of vulnerable populations in conflict-affected settings. The HRA’s full report on this subject is available at: wcrfoundation.com/crimes-without-courts-why-justice-for-yazidi-women-remains-unfinished.

Sarah Nader is a Legal Research Officer at the Kurdish Rights Centre, specialising in human rights documentation, transitional justice, and the protection of vulnerable populations in conflict-affected settings. She coordinates the Centre’s legal research partnerships with civil society organisations across the Middle East and North Africa.