“Water Always Finds Its Way”
Beth Van Schaack
Table of Contents
Syria’s Challenge to the Promise of International Justice
A Short History of a Long Conflict: From Revolution to Atrocity
The Security Council and International Crimes in Syria: A Study in Dysfunction
Deconstructing the Would-Be Referral: The Politics of International Justice in the Security Council
Prospects for Justice before the International Criminal Court
A Menu of Models: Options for an Ad Hoc Tribunal for Syria
National Courts Step Up: Syrian Cases Proceeding in Domestic Courts
Civil Suits: The Utility of State Responsibility and the Law of Tort
Innovations in International Criminal Law Documentation Methodologies & Institutions
Transitional Justice without Transition: The International Community’s Efforts in Syria
About the Author
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Beth Van Schaack is U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in the U.S. State Department. Prior to returning to government service, she was the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School where she taught in the areas of international human rights, international criminal law, and human trafficking, among other subjects, and has been the Acting Director of the Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic. She is also a Faculty Fellow with Stanford’s Center for Human Rights & International Justice at Stanford University.
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Prior to returning to academia, she served as Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice under Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. In that capacity, she helped to advise the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights on the formulation of U.S. policy regarding the prevention of and accountability for mass atrocities, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
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Prior to her State Department appointment, Van Schaack was a Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, where she taught and wrote in the areas of human rights, transitional justice, international criminal law, public international law, international humanitarian law, and civil procedure. Van Schaack joined the Santa Clara faculty from private practice at Morrison & Foerster LLP where she practiced the areas of commercial law, intellectual property, international law, and human rights. Prior to entering private practice, Van Schaack was Acting Executive Director and Staff Attorney with The Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA), a non-profit human rights organization in San Francisco dedicated to the representation of victims of torture and other grave human rights abuses in U.S., international, and foreign tribunals. She was also a law clerk with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Van Schaack is a graduate of Stanford University (B.A.); Yale Law School (J.D.); and University of Leiden School of Law (PhD).
About the Book
"Imagining Justice for Syria" is discussed in an online symposium at the Lieber Institute at West Point.
The book is also comprehensively reviewed here by international criminal law expert Michael Karnavas.
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This book situates the war in Syria within the actual and imagined system of international criminal justice. It explores the legal impediments and diplomatic challenges that have led to the fatal trinity that has befallen Syria: the massive commission of international crimes that are subject to detailed investigations and documentation but whose perpetrators have enjoyed virtually complete impunity.
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Given this tragic state of affairs, the book tracks a number of accountability solutions being explored within multilateral initiatives and by civil society actors, including innovations of institutional design; the renewed utility of a range of domestic jurisdictional principles (including the revival of universal jurisdiction in Europe); the emergence of creative investigative and documentation techniques, technologies, and organizations; and the rejection of state consent as a precondition for the exercise of jurisdiction.
Engaging both law and policy around international justice, the text offers a set of justice blueprints, within and without the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. It also considers the utility, propriety, and practicality of pursuing a transitional justice program without a genuine political transition. All told, the book attempts to capture results of the creative energy radiating from members of the international community intent on advancing the accountability norm in Syria even in the face of geopolitical blockages within the U.N. Security Council. In so doing, it presents the range of juridical measures—both criminal and civil—that would be available to the international community to respond to the crisis, if only the political will existed.
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Critical Acclaim
It is rare for a book to be as eloquent as it is empirically rich, to pack in as much judicious research as it does normative punch. But Beth Van Schaack’s “Imagining Justice for Syria” does all of that—and more. This is a must-read for anyone interested in pursuing justice for atrocities in Syria and beyond.
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~ Mark Kersten, Wayamo Foundation and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy
This authoritative study, by a leading scholar and practitioner of war crimes law, explodes the conventional wisdom that Syrian human rights survivors can find no justice. Van Schaack devastatingly deconstructs the institutional failures that caused the Syrian justice meltdown. But in the end, she concludes optimistically—after exhaustively exploring the menu of available justice models—that in time, decentralized but coordinated justice will find a way, through myriad outlets and cracks in the walls of global injustice.
~ Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean, Yale Law School; Former Legal Adviser and Assistant Secretary of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State”
Prof. Van Schaack has written a cogent, eye-popping, compelling, probing, measured, provoking, informative, thoughtful, practical, instructive, timely, and brilliant gem. … Any serious student or practitioner of international affairs, international human rights, international humanitarian law, international criminal law, transitional justice, and, of course, anyone involved in working on any aspect of the Syrian civil war and attendant ongoing atrocities by the likes of ISIL should add “Imagining Justice for Syria” to their mandatory reading list – and to their library. It is not just a primer for the interested and uninformed about Syria, it is also an excellent source for the experienced and involved.
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~ Michael Karnavas, International Defense Counsel