Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what judicial mechanisms they are putting in place with international parties to bring to justice those responsible for the use of chemical weapons, summary executions, hostage-taking, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, other acts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Syria.

The UK strongly supports efforts to pursue accountability for war crimes in Syria. In May 2014, the UK co-sponsored a UN Security Council resolution to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Russia and China vetoed this resolution. Through our Conflict Stability and Security Fund, we are supporting work which collects and documents evidence of war crimes; and builds capacity to investigate sexual and gender based violence cases in Syria. This includes support to the UN International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) whose role it is to conduct investigations and collect evidence to support future prosecutions of perpetrators of the most serious crimes under international law. Future prosecutions could be through a referral to the International Criminal Court or by hybrid, specialised or national courts.