Daesh Crimes: Accountability (JCHR Report)

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I was devastated to see the injuries that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has suffered—he sent me a photograph. I send him my very best for a swift recovery. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for stepping in and introducing this debate.

If I am a Daesh fighter who engaged in the massacre of the Yazidis between 2014 and 2017, if I am successful in making my way to Europe, I will not go to Germany or Holland, where I might be prosecuted for genocide—I will take a small boat to Dover and seek safety in the United Kingdom, where, under the International Criminal Court Act 2001, only UK nationals and residents can be prosecuted for genocide or a crime against humanity and war crimes outside of this jurisdiction.

When the then Bill was before Parliament in 2001, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, argued:

“The primary responsibility for the investigation of crimes committed outside the United Kingdom lies with the state where the crime occurred, or whose nationals were responsible. If that state is not able or willing to investigate, the ICC will … step in”.


There are 125 signatories to the Rome statute, which set up the International Criminal Court. They do not include Israel, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey or Lebanon. Rather forlornly, from that area, they include just the state of Palestine and neighbouring Jordan. In other words, in almost all areas of the Middle East, the writ of the International Criminal Court simply does not run.

At that time, the noble and learned Baroness also said:

“The British criminal justice system is based on a territorial link to the United Kingdom … we have to be practical and ensure that we can deliver what we undertake. It is our policy to assume universal jurisdiction only where an international agreement expressly requires it. The Rome statute does not. Rather than taking jurisdiction that will be difficult to enforce, we believe that those countries in which the offences took place should be encouraged to prosecute”.—[Official Report, 15/1/01; col. 929.]


That is, Syria should be encouraged to prosecute. This Labour Government today pursue precisely the same line. Their response to this excellent report, on which I congratulate the committee, said:

“The most serious international crimes not covered by our universal jurisdiction policy are generally already subject to the jurisdiction of international courts or tribunals which are better placed to prosecute such offences where they are not being dealt with by the relevant domestic authorities”.


They claimed to be a strong supporter of the ICC.

Put aside for a moment these foreign nationals. As the committee heard, more than 900 UK nationals and residents went to support Daesh in the conflicts in the Middle East, and somewhere between 450 and 600 returned. There is no question that, as the United Nations declared, the attack on the Yazidi population, which involved the murder of the men and the rape and enslavement of the women and children, amounted to genocide. Not one of the returnees has been prosecuted for genocide; nor has anyone arriving at our borders, whether legally or in small boats. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, pointed out a moment ago, there is no justice or accountability for the crimes against the Yazidis anywhere in the world.

Successive Directors of Public Prosecutions have shied away from bringing proceedings under the 2001 Act. The only case of a person convicted of a war crime on a prosecution brought under the Act was brought by the Director of Service Prosecutions. That person was Corporal Payne, in the Baha Mousa case in Basra, where an Iraqi civilian was beaten and kicked to death in British custody. I was present when he pleaded guilty to a war crime—inhumane treatment of prisoners —which he did only because it was an alternative to murder. He was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment. Payne was in charge of a detention facility, as noble Lords will remember, and invited passing British soldiers in to take a kick at the detainees. I defended in the same case a superior officer who was acquitted of neglect of duty.

At Second Reading of the then Bill in 2001, Lord Lester of Herne Hill argued that our courts

“should be ready to shoulder that responsibility should a suspected perpetrator of genocide or war crimes come within our territorial jurisdiction in circumstances where the ICC is unable to take over”.—[Official Report, 15/1/01; col. 939.]

That is precisely the case I am making.

In Committee, on 12 February of that year, there were amendments to make genocide and war crimes subject to universal jurisdiction. They were moved by Lord Archer of Sandwell, who served as the Solicitor-General for five years under Wilson and Callaghan; he was supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, who was later the Attorney-General for six years under Blair. For the Liberal Democrats, Lord Avebury—the heroic Eric Lubbock—argued strongly in favour of the amendments. My colleague and friend Lord Goodhart, who is much missed, put it succinctly when he said:

“Surely it is right that we should not apply a principle of territoriality to this, but if we find on our territory those who are alleged to have committed these terribly serious crimes and if, for one reason or another, there is no possibility of the ICC exercising its own jurisdiction, we should exercise our jurisdiction in this country whatever the location of such crimes and whatever the nationality of the person alleged to have committed them”.—[Official Report, 12/2/01; col. 82.]


The amendments were withdrawn on a concession that jurisdiction would extend to residents of the UK and not just nationals, as was originally drafted.

This report gives the current Attorney-General, in the light of the failure to bring anyone to account for the Yazidi genocide, a chance to reverse the stance taken by some of his predecessors in 2001. I hope that he will support amendments to that effect in the coming Crime and Policing Bill.