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Why the Arab League cannot become a genuine ‘Arab Union’

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Photo Credit: Nicolas Raymond, licensed under Creative Commons

The Arab League has not succeeded in unifying the Arab world. Since Arab states are deeply divided on issues such as Iran, Islamism or Israel, some argue that the Arab League is a name without a meaning; others that it is under U.S. dictation; and still others that it continues to struggle with disunity and dysfunction. This general sentiment has been fostered by the Israel-United Arab Emirates (UAE) normalisation of August 2020 which, as many Twitter users claimed, represents a “death certificate” to the Arab unity – that is, the irrevocable coup to this unity which allegedly ends any hope.

It can be argued that the Arab League’s dysfunction is due in large part to the dilution of its normative structure. To support that, it is necessary to focus on the two norms that have laid the foundations of the League – unity and sovereignty – and argue that the contradictions which lie in these foundations have impeded the League from being truly effective. A case is made that these contradictions ended with the prevalence of sovereignty upon unity. This came along with a weakening of the League in dealing with mediation or conflict management. Finally, the sovereignty norm itself has faced inconsistencies which continue to weaken the League’s normative structure. Difficult, then, to find the possibility of a coherent “Arab Union”.

At the end of WW II, the struggles for independence re-emerged from where it stopped before the war – e.g. Iraq in 1932. These led to a period of decolonisation movements in the Arab world: Lebanon (1943), Syria (1946) Jordan (1946), Libya (1951), to name a few. The legal principle of uti possidetis juris, through which Arab states could assert ‘the inviolability of their boundaries from external interference’, had accelerated the importance given to the sovereignty norm in the Arab world. Colonial powers were then simultaneously rejected yet considered as a model to follow embodied by the Westphalian structure. In the meantime, another norm has recovered some influence: the Arab unity. Drawn from the Nahda – the Arab Renaissance – and encouraged by independence movements and the Palestinian cause, the notion of a shared Arab identity gave force to the unifying ideology of pan-Arabism – i.e. the maximalist version of Arab nationalism. Eventually, this identity seems to have ‘prioritised independence from and unity against these [Western] non-Arab actors’.[1]

Therefore, in 1945, the Arab League was built upon the conjunction of these two norms, sovereignty and unity. Initially, the League was indeed viewed as ‘a prelude to Arab identity’ after having escaped from colonial domination; and sovereignty was considered as a necessary means by Arab nationalists.[2] Constructivist scholars go further in explaining the League’s foundations. They contend that the mutually constitutive relation between international organisations and its member states sheds light on the identity of both the Arab League and Arab states. In particular, unity and sovereignty norms were constitutive of Arab states, meaning that they were part of their identities and interests. Whilst the unity norm was the expression of a shared belief in a common destiny – pan-Arabism –, the sovereignty one was the condition for head states to ‘legitimise their regimes’.[3] These norms were then central parameters in the sense that they were necessary to make the League emerge.

Within the normative structure of the League, the centrality of these norms also lies in their regulative function. As Griffiths stated: ‘international institutions have both regulative and constitutive functions.[4] First, although the Arab League’s Charter does not clarify what is an Arab state, the ethno-cultural criteria to enter it seems beyond doubt. Thus, it can be argued that the unity norm is regulative since only Arab states are eligible for pan-Arabism ideology. Concerning the second norm, sovereignty is also regulative as officially stipulated in the Charter: ‘safeguard their independence and sovereignty’. Finally, these two norms have been central to build the Arab League, constituting and regulating Arab states behaviour. Yet, a contradiction lies in this centrality and will lead a norm to prevail on the other.

The League, in its practice, has sought to encapsulate the contradiction between the Westphalian structure – encouraged by the governing elite – and pan-Arabism. As some argued, Arab nationalism pushed ‘Arab states to embrace the rhetoric of Arab unity […], and to fear Arab unity in practice because it would impose greater restriction on their sovereignty’.[5] Indeed, pan-Arabism precisely denies the legitimacy of states and, thereby, their sovereignty. The creation of the Federation of Arab Republics in 1972, made up of Egypt, Libya and Syria, well illustrates the incompatibility between unity and sovereignty aspirations: this union lasted barely six years. Likewise, the union between Egypt and Syria, which started in 1958, ended in 1961.

At the end of the 1970s, the contradiction between these two foundational norms reached the point of no return with the prevalence of sovereignty upon Arab unity. The first blow against unity came when Sadat, the Egyptian President, signed in 1979 a separate Peace Treaty with Israel that excluded other Arab states. Realism is useful to understand this shift in Egyptian interests. Here, the material structure reflected by the self-help principle – namely, defending Egyptian interests first and exiting from the state of war – prevailed on the normative structure: the Arab unity. Finally, the coup de grâce to pan-Arabism was given by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Then, the collapse of the unity norm that followed these two geopolitical facts weakened the normative structure of the Arab League which, for some, ‘would never truly recover’.[6] This latter feeling may be explained by a second contradiction that the League will face: sovereignty per se restricts the mandate of the League.

The sovereignty norm, which both constitutes and regulates Arab League states’ behaviour, has indeed particularly constrained its practice. To deal with mediation and conflict management in the Arab world, the League is as limited as its member states are because any intervention in a member state might be seen as a violation of the sovereignty norm. This logic can explain the African Union decision, in 2003, to modify its rule about sovereignty in order to allow intervention within its member states. The argument advanced was to ease the practice of defending democracy. With this empowerment of an international organisation similar to the League, many critics emerged in the Arab world against the constraint of non-intervention.[7] Thus, a parallel could be drawn between the African Union decision and, in the same year, the interference of the Arab League in the Iraqi political process – as if intervention was becoming tacitly possible. Indeed, in the name of Arab identity, the League openly criticised the Iraqi Governing Council for allowing Kurds and Shia to build a regional autonomy in Iraq. Therefore, being more and more violated, the sovereignty norm seemed to gradually lose its prevalence during the 2000s, until almost completely in 2011.

Scholars tend to agree on qualifying the year 2011 as a ‘major change’ regarding the Arab League policy of intervention, even though some interventions occurred in the past such as in 1976 during the Lebanese civil war. The second foundational norm, sovereignty, was strongly marginalised in the salient case of Libya. In the context of the civil war, the League condemned mass killings for the first time, something that it did not do before with, for instance, Saddam Hussein’s crimes in Iraq. More than this, the League was deeply involved in enforcing the United Nations’ norm of Responsibility to Protect.[8] Indeed, its endeavour to push for a no-fly zone above Libya, claiming that Gaddafi’s government had lost its sovereignty, illustrates well this policy change. This push, together with many other negotiations, led to the adoption of the resolution 1973 authorising an intervention to protect Libyan civilians. Thus, it is interesting to notice that despite the decline of its two foundational norms and the consequent confusion of its normative structure, the League still succeeded in reaching positive outcomes. The case of Libya mentioned above (2011), the creation of the Arab Peace Initiative for the Palestinian cause (2002) or the role of mediator the League played in the Lebanese crisis (2008), all are instances of relative successes that some scholars put forward.

But to conclude, these fragile achievements should not hide the substantive contradictions that lies in the normative structure of the Arab League: two foundational norms have lost their centrality and, therefore, undermined this international organisation. The more salient example might be its ‘complete inability to deal with active civil wars,’ which have turned into humanitarian disasters. Thus, the Arab League has probably missed the opportunity to embody a genuine union that would at least, such as the European Union, guarantee peace among its members. It is a pity given that the Arab world is the only place on Earth where so different countries share as many attributes as they do – a common language, to name the most obvious one. The weakening of the League’s normative has blurred the overall mandate of this organisation.

[1] Raymond Hinnebusch, “Identity in International Relations: Constructivism versus Materialism and the Case of the Middle East,” The Review of International Affairs (2003): 360.

[2] Farah Dakhlallah, “The League of Arab States and Regional Security: Towards an Arab Security Community?”, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (2013): 399. https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2012.726489.

[3] Michael Barnett and Etel Solingen, “Designed to Fail or Failure of Design? The Origins and Legacy of the Arab League,” in Crafting Cooperation: Regional Institutions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2007),181. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511491436.006.

[4] Martin Griffiths, Fifty key thinkers in international relations, (London: Routledge, 2009), 123.

[5] Barnett and Solingen, “Designed to fail”: 181.

[6] Dakhlallah, “The League”: 404.

[7] Ibid: 400.

[8] In Luke Glanville, “Does R2P matter? Interpreting the impact of a norm,” Cooperation and Conflict (2016): 188.

Conflict & Health in the Eastern Mediterranean Series: How does the Syrian Civil War affect health care workers?

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by Dr Abdullah Alhouri

Syrian Health care workers gathered in New York City calling for an end to attacks on health care facilities in Syria

This article is part of our Conflict & Health in the Eastern Mediterranean Series. Read the Series Introduction.

Since 2011, Syria has been ensnared in an armed conflict [1] which has had a devastating impact on health care services. Most crucially, the foundations of Syria’s health care infrastructure have been destroyed. This has resulted in a dramatic increase in both morbidity and mortality in the country, and it is expected that this will only continue to worsen [2].

One of the most exacerbating factors behind the national health crisis is the falling numbers of trained health care workers (HCWs), who have often been victims of violence during the conflict and have been consequently forced to leave the country. These HCWs play a vital role in health care delivery during conflict and in the reconstruction of the health care system following a cessation of conflict [3].

Doctors, and other HCWs, flee because they or their families face the prospect of violent death or the threat of widespread violence. Some HCWs leave looking for a stable environment in which they can live and practice their profession safely. Reports indicate that the number of HCWs is exceptionally high among Syrian immigrants [1], with the World Health Organization (WHO) estimating that up to 70% of HCWs have left the country. Beyond those lost to migration, 782 medical personnel were reportedly killed between 2011- 2016 [4]. Because of the falling numbers of skilled medical professionals in Syria, the WHO had voiced concerns early in the conflict regarding the quality of current health services and uncertainties regarding how such medical expertise will be rebuilt.

Another important driver of the health crisis is the socioeconomic challenges that negatively affect HCWs currently operating in Syria. Like most Syrians, many HCWs have lost their property and savings. Moreover, their medical facilities are frequently unable to pay them a salary. Consequently, most are living below the poverty line. This has a marked impact on their ability to work and has forced many of them to accept, often without pay, incredibly challenging working conditions.

Furthermore, the quality of health care provided by the remaining HCWs is questionable since many of them experienced long interruptions to their training programmes, with continuous medical education impossible amidst constant conflict. These insufficiently trained physicians have been obliged to treat medical conditions and perform surgeries for which they lack specialization. This is because of the absence of qualified staff and the continued urgency of the situation. Looking for practical solutions to resume medical training and support the remaining HCWs is an important aspect that needs urgent exploration. Without it, there certainly are negative impacts on the quality of care provided to the Syrian people even after a cessation of conflict [4].

On top of the current situation, what rubs salt into the wound is the spread of Covid-19. The pandemic has created further pressure on Syrian medical staff, who are already exhausted after 10 years of conflict. Over 40,000 cases have so far been detected, and over half of them are in the Northern and North-western parts of the country, areas where health care system has been devastated by direct attacks on hospitals and other health care facilities. Moreover, Coronavirus continues to claim the lives of many Syrian medical staff. For instance, on 16th of February 2021 the Syrian Ministry of health announced that 22 health care providers died due to Covid-19 infection; the actual number could be much higher because of the scarcity of Covid-19 testing.

Despite a continuous deterioration of Syria’s health care system, no actions have been taken to deal with this issue. According to the WHO, more than half of the population in Syria (12 million out of 20 million) require medical attention. Additionally, WHO reported that only 50% of hospitals in Syria are fully functioning, with 25% of hospitals across the country only partially functioning because of a scarcity of medical staff, tools, medications or physical facilities. The remaining 25% are completely out of service. This is the stark reality of the present situation. It is a problem that must be tackled without further delay, because to continue as such will lead only to yet higher rates of mortality and morbidity.

To solve this crisis, several things need to happen. First and foremost, it is important to protect HCWs by enforcing legislation and laws that guarantee their rights and safety, providing them with modern equipment necessary for delivering adequate health care, and attracting them by increasing their salaries. This is the only way to curtail migration of HCWs and to ensure that they are able to practice in a safe work environment.

Second, it is important that the trust between the population and the doctors be restored since the political affiliation of doctors has been a factor affecting the relationship between patients and doctors. For example, patients are reluctant to go to doctors who are known to be part of the opposition because they fear retaliatory persecution by the state in light of the counter-terrorism law passed in July 2012. Therefore, to restore people’s trust, it is crucial to change how belligerents, including the government and the opposition, and individuals look at HCWs and affiliate them with one group or another. This, in turn, is key to increasing the safety of HCW’s.

Third, the international community needs to apply pressure on the Syrian state to force it to respect international humanitarian laws, which sternly prohibits attacks on health care facilities and workers, especially in opposition-held areas. Beyond this, it is also important to support dialogue around protecting health worker and facilities and mechanisms for achieving such protection. Such movements ideally involve civil society leaders, including community and religious leaders, who hold important status in their respective communities and are influential in times of conflict and crisis [5]. In conclusion, the health care system in Syria will continue to deteriorate, perhaps to a point of no return, unless serious actions are taken to ensure the safety and protection of HCWs, their facilities, and their livelihoods.

References

  1. Loss, Julika, Yamen Aldoughle, Alexandra Sauter, and Julia von Sommoggy. 2020. “‘Wait and Wait, That Is the Only Thing They Can Say’: A Qualitative Study Exploring Experiences of Immigrated Syrian Doctors Applying for Medical License in Germany”. BMC Health Services Research 20 (1). doi:10.1186/s12913-020-05209-2.
  2. Omar A. Understanding and Preventing Attacks on Health Facilities During Armed Conflict in Syria. Risk Manag Healthc Policy. 2020;13:191-203
    https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S237256
  3. Bou-Karroum, Lama, Amena El-Harakeh, Inas Kassamany, Hussein Ismail, Nour El Arnaout, Rana Charide, Farah Madi, Sarah Jamali, Tim Martineau, Fadi El-Jardali, and Elie A. Akl. “Health Care Workers in Conflict and Post-conflict Settings: Systematic Mapping of the Evidence.” Plos One 15, no. 5 (2020). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233757.
  4. Omar, Abdulaziz. “Understanding and Preventing Attacks on Health Facilities During Armed Conflict in Syria.” Risk Management and Healthcare Policy Volume 13 (2020): 191-203. doi:10.2147/rmhp. s237256.
  5. Karroum, Lama Bou, Amena El-Harakeh, Inas Kassamany, Hussein Ismail, Nour El Arnaout, Rana Charide, Farah Madi, Sarah Jamali, Tim Martineau, Fadi El-Jardali, and Elie Akl. “Health Care Workers in Conflict and Post-Conflict Settings: Systematic Mapping of the Evidence.” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3458503.

Doctor Alhouri is a medical doctor. He graduated from the University of Jordan- School of Medicine.

Feature - Climate Change, Conflict, and Children’s Rights Abuses: Syrian Refugees in Turkey

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by Chiara Scissa

In limbo in Lesbos: Doctors without Borders labelled the Mória Refugee Camp as the ‘worst refugee camp on earth’ (Image credit: Getty Images/AFP/F. Perrier)

Introduction

The world is becoming increasingly aware of the interconnections between climate change, human rights, and its implications on affected populations and countries. It is now widely recognised that climate change adversely impacts the right to life, property, and an adequate standard of living by hampering access to hygiene, water, and food but also adequate healthcare, among many basic necessities. This fact has been most visible during the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011.

According to the data of the Syrian Ministry of State for Environment Affairs and the World Bank, the annual temperature in Syria has increased at a rate of 0.8°C per century since the 1950s. This change is reflected in an increased frequency, length, and intensity of droughts and heatwaves. Decades of unsustainable agricultural policies, the consequent overexploitation of water and soil resources, coupled with the effects of climate change resulted in desertification, higher temperatures, and reduced precipitations. These developments dramatically impacted the agricultural industry, at that time representing twenty-five per cent of Syrian GDP.

Although in-depth research studies have so far not confirmed a causal link between climate change and conflicts, other scholars, such as Ingrid Boas, nevertheless stress that drought and water scarcity may be included among the complex and interlinked pressures that characterise the unrest in Syria. To make matters worse, water infrastructure there was consistently under attack. In a country already hit by drought, attacks on water networks cut services for weeks during the armed conflict, with millions of people suffering from long and deliberate interruptions to a water supply.

According to UNICEF, disruptions in Aleppo encompassed a deliberate forty-eight-day shutdown of a water treatment plant that served two million people. Indeed, the organisation straightforwardly claimed ‘attacks on water and sanitation are attacks on children.’ Without safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), children’s health, nutrition, safety, and education are at risk. They are exposed to preventable diseases including diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera and polio which may potentially disrupt their early development if not treated on time. Children are also at risk of undernutrition and malnutrition, vulnerable to sexual violence and injury as they collect water.

The report continues by noting that children under fifteen are, on average, nearly three times more likely to die than adults from vector-borne diseases, such as diarrhoeal disease, related to unsafe water and sanitation than violence directly linked to conflict. As a matter of fact, seventy per cent of annual children’s death are attributable to diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, and the lack of oxygen at birth. For children under five, this probability increases more than twenty times.

With millions of refugees streaming into Europe since the onset of the war, Turkey, as Syria’s closest and ‘safest’ neighbour has been the focal point of this population movement. However, Turkey’s response to the refugees has been a human rights abomination, particularly when it comes to children and minors. This article will describe the steps Turkey has taken to undermine the human rights of Syrian children and why it should not be considered a safe third country.

Children’s rights abuses in Turkey

It has been estimated that due to the Syrian civil war, as of March 2019, one million Syrian children became orphans, 4.7 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance, and another 490,000 of said children are in hard-to-reach areas. Overall, six million Syrians are internally displaced, while another 5.6 million people have left their home country. Most of them fled to Turkey. In response, Turkey passed two foundational pieces of legislation in 2013. First, the Law on Foreigners and International Protection no. 6458, which entered into force in April 2014, and second, the Temporary Protection Regulation – TPR, in 2014. Given that Turkey is one among very few countries which still has the geographical limitation to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, Syrians and non-European asylum seekers may only be entitled to the weaker standards provided under the TPR.

As pointed out by several authors, temporary protection has a more limited scope than the refugee protection and, in non-compliance with its provisions, health and education services as well as access to social assistance and employment to Syrians are often not delivered. For instance, UNICEF stressed that the situation for refugee children in Turkey remains particularly challenging, given that around 400,000 Syrian children are still out of school and are therefore at likely risk of isolation, discrimination and exploitation. Of 4 million registered Syrians in Turkey, 3.6 million were awarded the TPR, including around 1.5 million children under 18, of which 532,000 are under 5 years of age.

To date, Ankara is yet established a comprehensive human rights framework. Nor does it provide for a specific law addressing (un)accompanied minors. However, under Article 3 of the TPR, (un)accompanied minors are persons with special needs, thus entitled to additional safeguards and priority access to rights and services, such as healthcare, psychosocial support, and rehabilitation. Pursuant to the Turkish Civil Code, unaccompanied minors shall be appointed with a legal guardian, a provision that the Asylum Information Database (AIDA) claims is not respected most of the time.

In this respect, it has been noted that lawyers in Ankara have witnessed difficulties, while in some cases appointed guardians had no qualification for that role. AIDA also noted the persistent coexistence of different procedures applying to the reception and guardianship of unaccompanied minors in Turkey, which gives rise to different standards of treatment. AIDA considers, for instance, that in 2019 the legal assessments of new guardians in Antakya have not been conducted carefully.

Additionally, although Turkey has ratified both the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2001 Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Exploitation and Abuses, Amnesty International claims that, between 2014 and 2018, Turkey has unlawfully deported Syrians to their home country, violating the principle of non-refoulement. According to such peremptory norm, States are not allowed to remove, deport or expel a person to a country where their life and liberty would be threatened, or where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.

This allegation has been also confirmed by Human Rights Watch and questions have been raised by Ambassador Tomáš Boček, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on migration and refugees of the Council of Europe, on the observance of its international obligations. Amnesty showed that episodes of deportation persisted respectively in July 2019 and May 2020. The victims are mostly men, but there is evidence of children and families deported. Moreover, Syrians at risk of deportation are often left without legal recourse or remedy to prevent their illegal removal, and the UNHCR does not have access to immigration removal centres, as also noted by the European Parliament.

Furthermore, Amnesty International, Save the Children, the European Council for Refugees and Exiles, and the Council of Europe accuse Turkey of unlawfully detaining Syrian asylum seekers. In 2017, there were 21 temporary accommodation centres for temporary protection beneficiaries. Some of these have turned into de facto detention centres for Syrians with insufficient food and dire conditions, especially for children. In practice, unaccompanied minors are kept in removal centres in border cities and a number of children begging or selling small objects in the street are detained in police stations, where they often receive documents cancelling their right to stay.

Children with their families are generally detained in removal centres where they are not granted education. For all these reasons, recently, the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey violating Article 3 ECHR (prohibition of torture), Article 5.4 ECHR (right to remedy), Article 5.1 ECHR (freedom of movement), and Article 13 ECHR (fair trial) in the case of detention pending expulsion of a mother and her 3 children, all Russian nationals, arrested for attempting to cross the Syrian border after entering Turkey.

Finally, another severe breach of children’s rights in Turkey concerns the employment of children under the age of 15, which remains a considerable problem in Turkey. The influx of refugees has led to a quickly growing number of Syrian children working especially in textile factories and agriculture. A 2020 Save the Children report finds that often families only pay smugglers for their children’s trip to Turkey. From there the children need to find jobs to continue their journey to Western Europe.

This particular pattern of emigration exposes them to exploitation, abuses, kidnapping, and detention by smugglers as well as by Turkish authorities. According to Save the Children, ‘out of 254 children interviewed in March 2019, almost thirty per cent worked in one of the transit countries before reaching Belgrade. Almost all of these children (97%) worked in Turkey. Based on the testimonies of those willing to provide this information, the prices of transferring migrants from the country of origin to the desired destination ranged from EUR 6,000 to over EUR 10,000’.

Conclusion

In light of the persistent violation of fundamental freedoms and human rights of Syrians and other non-European persons in need of international protection in general and of (un)accompanied minors in particular, the unfilled lack of a comprehensive human rights framework, and the increasing limitation to basic civil and political rights by the central Turkish government, it comes clear that Turkey cannot be considered anymore, if ever, as a safe third country, where international protection applicants may find guarantees of adequate protection standards.

Similarly, the heads of government and state of the EU Member States that in 2016 signed together with Turkey the so-called EU-Turkey Statement cannot shy away anymore from their international obligations and responsibilities. Neither Turkish President Erdoğan’s autocratic regime, nor the absence of a national human rights framework persuaded the EU to consider Turkey as an unsafe country for refugees and asylum seekers. On this behalf, President Erdoğan repeatedly threatened the EU to open the border with Greece as a way to convince the Union to financially support Turkey’s intervention in Syria. In March 2020, the EU refused to increase its financial aid to Ankara, claiming that EU Member States would not bow to President Erdoğan’s threats. A few days later, the Turkish President opened the gate and thousands of migrants stuck at the Turkish-Greek border to exit the country.

Ankara used migration to put pressure on a weak EU, unwilling to take on its responsibilities towards migratory challenges. The externalisation of actions to curb migration through informal agreements with unsafe non-EU countries, which unlawfully impedes people to leave their soil in exchange for financial and economic benefits, leads to human rights abuses, to breaches of international and EU law, and to extremely serious damages against the victims involved. Many scholars have also pointed out the high risk for the parties involved to violate the principle of non-refoulement, since the removal of asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey as the first country of asylum seems not to fulfil the requirement of sufficient and effective protection.

Such a human rights-breaching deal – that trapped over twelve thousand asylum seekers in the Moria refugee camp, which has a capacity to house two thousand - should end immediately. As long as EU Member States will continue to limit the access to international protection in their national territories and to add external barriers to stem migration flows, the Common European Asylum System cannot be more than empty words on the EU Official Journal.

Chiara Scissa is a PhD student in Law at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa, Italy) and Human Rights and Migrant Protection Focal Point at the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (UNMGCY). Her main research interests in migration and refugee studies include the impact of climate change on human rights and environmental migration. Email: [email protected]

Should Female Foreign Fighters be Repatriated?

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While as devoted as their male counterparts, female Jihadis are an underexplored topic of analysis in understanding racidalisation (Image credit: AFP)

It is a woman who teaches you today a lesson in heroism, who teaches you the meaning of Jihad, and the way to die a martyr‘s death … It is a woman who has shocked the enemy, with her thin, meager, and weak body … It is a woman who blew herself up, and with her exploded all the myths about women‘s weakness, submissiveness, and enslavement.

-Al-Sha’ab editorial, February 2002

Since the decline of Islamic State (IS), national governments are faced with the dilemma of leaving the remaining Jihadi foreign fighters and their families in Syria or repatriating them for prosecution in their home countries. This article focuses on the choice of the British Government to leave these individuals in Syria. It does so by discussing the associated difficulties to reintegrate jihadi women within society and its impact on existing counterterrorism (CT) strategies and de-indoctrination processes in the United Kingdom. Specifically, the role of female foreign fighters within the culture of Salafi-Jihadism remains underestimated, particularly with regards to their devotion to the cause and survival of the terrorist network.

Historically, a large participation of women in terrorists networks can be seen. According to Jessica Davis, female suicide bombers counted between twenty-eight to thirty-one per cent in Chechnya, while these numbers stand at fifty-four per cent in Nigeria. Similarly, during the 1970s and 1980s in the German Red Army, women counted for one third of the overall number. In the meantime, between 1986 and 2005, of the seventeen terrorist organisations which used suicide-bomb as a tactic, women were active in half of them. The article concludes that due to the lack of access to terrorist networks and their affiliated organisations, experts generally focus on male foreign fighters, as they cover positions of relevance within the organisation. In this sense, opting for repatriation of these individuals could result in a unique opportunity to advance the knowledge on rehabilitation and de-indoctrination procedures.

In terms of numbers, in 2017, there were over 40,000 jihadi fighters who travelled to Syria to fight under the banner of IS. Of the total number, thirteen per cent (or 4,761) were women, with another twelve per cent (4,640) were minors, who joined the terrorist grouping between 2013 and 2018. Since its defeat, around four-hundred foreign fighters, among them about fifty to sixty women, could or have returned to the United Kingdom (UK). A number of these women have not been able to return as Downing Street exercised its power to strip such citizens of their British nationality. This power, granted by the Immigration Act 2014, states that the British Government reserves the authority to deprive a person of their citizenship should that individual have conducted himself or herself in a manner that could compromise the UK’s interests.

One example of a female foreign fighter stripped of her British citizenship is Shamima Begum, a case which British newspaper put in the spotlights. The problem, however, is larger than her. Causing devastation on multiple occasions, the UK confronts a long history of home-grown terrorists which keep CT agencies in constant pursuit. One of the most prominent and famous cases is Samantha Lewthwaite also named the White Widow, the wife of the London 7/7 attacker, Germaine Lindsey, and currently on Interpol’s most-wanted list. Lewthwaite fake her detachment from her husband’s actions and beliefs and convinced the prosecutors of her innocence. She escaped British and European authorities disappearing shortly after. Lewthwaite is also linked to a series of other terror plots including the 2012 bombing in Kenya and in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013.

At present, the British government decided that foreign fighters should remain in Syrian prison camps. However, the terrorist threat continues, with al-Qaeda’s increased activity in the region could potentially see remaining IS fighters join, detainees released, and both groups absorbed into the Base’s operations. According to the head of MI6: ‘They are likely to have acquired both the skills and connections that make them potentially very dangerous and also experienced extreme radicalisation.’ In this sense, IS’ weaker presence in the region does not reflect a decrease in the overall influence of terrorist organisations, which are likely to benefit from the situation. At the same time, repatriating these individuals would likely result in a higher investment of resources for monitoring and de-indoctrination purposes. Such a development would add further pressure on the criminal justice system and counterterrorism units.

What makes female jihadi fighters so significant in light of such debates? Academics tend to focus primarily on the role of men in terrorist organisations as they cover positions of relevance. The lack of ample information regarding female fighters makes them equally dangerous, and all the more important to understand. Lacking the most up-to-date information on women’s ‘path to Jihad’ makes it difficult for Counterterrorism experts to produce appropriate de-indoctrination procedures fitting these profiles. However, from the available information on radicalisation and focusing on case studies in which women were the subjects, it is possible to understand this important element.

Women often cover ‘less visible,’ albeit critical roles within terrorist organisations. They are educators of the next generation, facilitators, and perpetrators of the jihadi cause through recruitment and management of finances displaying a deep devotion to the cause and a continuation of the religious struggle. The level of indoctrination they have been subjected to in their homes or in camps, but also due to the nature of the motivations for joining the organisations contests to this fact. Multiple psychologists including Yoram Schweitzer and Farhana Ali identified these causes as being much more personal for women. Indeed, they can be with the ‘Four Rs:’ Revenge (the loss of a dominant male in their lives such as husband, father or brother), Redemption (due to alleged or real sexual misconducts), Respect (inability to conceive children or being considered marriageable), and Relationship (being daughters, wives or sisters of well-known insurgents).

Based on their analysis, it is crucial to consider the individual’s unique path to radicalisation and indoctrination. Such a path is clearly based on personal experiences via the justification of events happening to them, their families, and their community. Specifically, each individual justifies the use of violence and the adoption of Islamic extremism based on how they interpret their familiar links to terrorists, often citing hatred against those who killed their family members, and even societal pressure. In a nutshell, ‘terrorist behavior is a response to the frustration of various political, economic, and personal needs or objectives.’ Therefore, this link between personal experiences and an individual’s personality transform women, who choose to follow the path of radicalisation, becoming strong believers in violent jihad and demonstrating extreme devotion to the cause.

To conclude, whether to support or criticise the British government on its decision to deny the return of these individuals depends on an in-depth and accurate analysis of the pros and cons of such decisions. The long history of home-grown terrorism in the United Kingdom constitutes an important element of analysis in the choice to repatriate or leaving these individuals in Syria. The example of Samantha Lewthwaite, for example, shows the difficulties associated with the processes of de-indoctrination. In this sense, women have demonstrated to cover essential roles in the fields of recruitment, finance, and perpetration of terrorism, showing a new way to interpret the figure of the ‘terrorist.’ Such a shift inspired scholars to coin an alternative version named the ‘female jihad,’ to understand female fighters’ unique path to radicalisation and, thus, creating a new window of analysis. In this context, repatriation ought to be seen as an opportunity to develop more rigorous de-indoctrination processes which are currently still in the pioneering stage, while using the protection of these individuals as examples to disillusion prospective foreign fighters.

Francesco Bruno is a full-time first-year PhD Candidate in Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, focusing on the organisational practices and choices of terrorist organizations with al-Qaeda as a primary case study. He received a BScEcon in International Politics from Aberystwyth University in 2016 before moving to the University of Manchester where he obtained a MA in Peace and Conflict Studies in 2017. During his studies, he took part in research trips in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Rwanda where he conducted fieldwork regarding the pacification and peace processes. Francesco’s main areas of interest span from Peace processes to state-building as well as counterterrorism and counterinsurgency with a focus on Afghanistan and Iraq

The Lasting Relevance of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Case of Syria

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by Etfa Khurshid Mirza

Unexploded barrel bombs allegedly dropped by government helicopters are pictured here in Idlib, Syria in 2015 (Image credit: Getty Images)

 

A history of conventions, agreements, and treaties runs throughout human civilisation. The 19th and 20th Centuries witnessed a rise in such conventions, thereby paving the way to cap burgeoning conflicts globally. Yet, despite such mechanisms being implemented, the world still witnesses many of the deadliest wars, with toxic chemicals being a primary weapon of choice. The poison gasses of the Great War and the atomic bomb that settled the Second World War left many casualties in its wake; with the former compelling world leaders to negotiate a new convention that sought to prohibit the deployment of Chemical Weapons (CW).


Being largely non-binding, an ongoing effort to ban the use of CW can be discerned since at least the 17th Century. It is only starting from the late 19th Century onwards that formal agreements were made between states. The Hague Declaration of 1899 banned the use of asphyxiating or deleterious gasses such as nitrogen or noble gases. Then, in 1907, the Hague Convention on Land Warfare banned the use of poisonous weapons. The Geneva Protocol signed of 1925 further prohibited the use of poisonous gases and bacterial methods of warfare. In so doing, these Hague conventions laid out the rule of war and the prohibition of CW in war; while the Geneva conventions sought to protect the victims of war. This was followed by the Convention on Prohibition or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons in 1980 which prohibited conventional weapons that were deemed to be inhumane. Nonetheless, despite such efforts, chemical weapons (CW) were still used during conflicts.

Between the two World Wars, the use of CW was reported in many conflicts: Spain used chemical weapons in Morocco during the Rif War between 1923 to 1926 war. Italy, in turn, deployed chemical weapons to Libya in 1930 and again to Ethiopia in 1935, all resulting in heavy casualties. Since 1945, millions of casualties were caused by such means. After the Second World War, despite acquiring nuclear weapons, the US and the former Soviet Union continued the development of CW. The US used anti-plant agents in the Vietnam War of 1961-73, while Egypt used chemical weapons during the Yemen war of 1963-67. Iraq similarly aimed its CW capabilities towards the Kurds during the Iran-Iraq War of 1988.

Extensive use of CW in various conflicts despite the earlier agreements signed as part of the Hague and Geneva Conventions necessitated the formation of a comprehensive treaty that can cap the production, use, and stockpiling of such toxic weaponry. Therefore, negotiations for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) began in early 1968. While initially developing at a protracted pace, these talks eventually gathered momentum after the Iran-Iraq war of 1988. This war, however ironically, also generated interest among Middle Eastern countries for the acquisition of CW. This sentiment ultimately expedited the negotiations, leading to the conclusion of CWC in 1992. The CWC formally entered into force in 1997, with its implementation monitored by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).


The CWC aims to ban chemical weapons in terms of their development, production, stockpiling, and use. It is the most comprehensive disarmament treaty to date having 193 member states. Since its formation, the most important cases of use of CW were reported in Syria. In 2012 and 2013, the Assad Regime used these weapons against opposition forces, killing around 1,400 civilians. The use of chlorine gas in attacks has also been documented during attacks in 2017 and 2018. Already in 2014, the OPCW sent its Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) to the country to investigate whether CW were used in Syria and if so, to determine the type of weapons used.


Since then, the OPCW’s FFM has investigated over eighty suspected attacks and collected evidence in sixteen of those attacks. Still, it is important to note that the FFM does not carry the mandate to investigate which party holds the responsibility. To determine which party is to be held accountable the OPCW-UN Joint Investigation Mechanism (JIM) was established in 2015. This mechanism concluded that the Syrian government was responsible for four CW attacks, while the Islamic State (IS) was responsible for two. Despite such useful insights, however, the JIM findings were unfortunately challenged by Russia; and after its veto in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) regarding its extension, the JIM ceased to exist.


In March 2019, another Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) was finalised after repeated attempts by the U.S and other states to carry out investigations based on shreds of evidence and to determine responsibility for CW use by the Syrian Arab Republic. The IIT initiated its investigation in June 2019 and focused on the events for which FFM had ascertained the use or likely use of CW by the Syrian government but had not yet reached a final conclusion. The IIT published its first report: ‘Addressing the Threat from Chemical Weapons Use’ on 8 April 2020, acknowledging that the Syrian government has used CW against its people.


The three key events specified in the report occurred after the Syrian accession to the CWC. Before, in 2016, the OPCW confirmed the destruction of all CW declared by Syria. The incident of 24 March 2017 was the first such event that established the use of sarin gas in Syria after it had acceded to the CWC. On the Syrian city of Ltamenah, three different attacks were carried out, on 24 and 30 March, a fighter jet of the Syrian Arab Air Force dropped M-4000 aerial bombs containing sarin and on 25 March a Syrian military helicopter flying from Hama airbase dropped cylinders containing chlorine gas.


Sarin is a nerve agent, whereas chlorine is a legal industrial gas; yet both their usage as CW is a war crime. The IIT based its conclusions from the information gathered through interviews, analyses of samples obtained from attacked sites, remnants of ammunition, and other relevant material. The team also expressed its concern that the Syrian government did not cooperate in its investigation and denied access to several sites. As such, the IIT concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the Syrian government had used CW on its citizens in the attacks carried out in March 2017.


Following the findings of this report, the Executive Council of OPCW, which consists of forty-one members from five regional groups, decided the use of CW in Syria through voting on 9 July 2020. The Council condemned the use of CW by the Syrian government in 2017 and as per paragraph 36 of Article VIII of the CWC, the Syrian government is required to declare all the relevant details of the used CW mentioned in the report and all other CW that it possesses with details of production facilities, as well as resolve all of the remaining issues regarding the previous declaration within ninety days. If it fails to comply, the Council will take appropriate action against the Syrian government as per paragraph 2 of Article X11 of the Convention.


Considering its activities towards destroying chemical weapons and as the overseeing body for the CWC, which is considered the most successful disarmament treaty to date; the OPCW is playing a significant role as a watchdog. In recognition of its efforts; it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013. The role of the OPCW is becoming more pertinent with the growing chemical industry and its use in both civil and military applications and, therefore, can play an active role in assisting the state parties for the legislation and effective enforcement in its implementation. Decisions in respect of CWC implementation for long-term governance are also needed. However, technological developments and political interests are increasingly pressuring the treaty. Timely measures and special efforts are presently required to counter these challenges and to prevent the future use of chemical weapons anywhere in the world taking lessons from the use of CW in the past and, most recently, in Syria.

Etfa Khurshid Mirza is a Research Fellow at Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies (CASS), Pakistan. Her area of specialisation is Nuclear and Strategic Affairs. She can be found on Twitter @sky_limiter.