You are on page 1of 6

Brief History of Aleppo

Aleppo, or "Halab" in Arabic, is one of world's oldest continually inhabited cities,


being mentioned in Egyptian texts from the 20th Century BC. Remains of a temple from the
end of the third millennium BC have been found at the site of Aleppo's famous mediaeval
citadel, which still dominates the area and provided a defensive stronghold for centuries.
Aleppo flourished politically and economically during the 18th Century BC as the capital of
the kingdom of Yamkhad, until it fell to the Hittites.

Later, it became an important city of the Hellenistic period and a key trading post for
merchants passing between the Mediterranean and lands to the east. It was eventually
absorbed into the Roman Empire and then prospered as a hub for caravan traffic under
Byzantine rule. In 636 AD, Aleppo was conquered by Arab Muslim troops. About 80 years
later, during the rule of the Umayyad Caliph Sulaiman, its Great Mosque was built. In the
10th Century, Aleppo became the capital of the northern Syrian Hamdanid dynasty, but it
then suffered a period of war and disorder, as the Byzantine Empire, Crusaders, Fatamids and
Seljuks fought to gain control of it and the surrounding region. Aleppo did not recover until
the middle of the 12th Century. Then, under Ayyubid rule in the 13th Century, the city
enjoyed a period of great prosperity and expansion. But this came to an abrupt end in 1260,
when Aleppo was conquered by the Mongols. The city then suffered an outbreak of plague in
1348 and a devastating attack by Timur in 1400.

In 1516, Aleppo became part of the Ottoman Empire. It was soon made the capital of
its own province and emerged as a nexus of trade between the Orient and Europe. Aleppo's
role as a transit centre for trade declined in the late 18th Century and was hindered further by
France and Great Britain's demarcation of the borders of modern Syria - which cut the city off
from southern Turkey and northern Iraq - and the loss of the Mediterranean port of
Alexandretta to Turkey in 1939. Following Syrian independence, the city developed into a
major industrial centre, rivalling the capital Damascus, and its population expanded
massively from 300,000 to about 2.3 million by 2005. Today, Aleppo's population is made up
mainly of Sunni Muslims, most of whom are Arabs but some of whom are Kurds and
Turkomans. The city also has the largest population of Christians in Syria, including many
Armenians, as well as Shia and Alawite communities.1

1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18957096 (Date of Access: October 4, 2016)
The Conflict in Aleppo

Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 in the southern city of Deraa after the
arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall.
After security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets.
The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation. The
government's use of force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. By
July 2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets across the country. Opposition
supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel
security forces from their local areas.

Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades were
formed to battle government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. Fighting
reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo in 2012. The conflict is now more
than just a battle between those for or against Mr Assad. It has acquired sectarian overtones,
pitching the country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect and drawn in
regional and world powers. The rise of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) has added a
further dimension.2

United Nations Intervention in Aleppo Conflict

International political divisions over Syria have had deadly consequences. The
Security Council has not only failed to fulfill its basic function the maintenance of
international peace and security it has also dismally failed to uphold its Responsibility to
Protect (R2P) the Syrian people.

At the UN World Summit in 2005 all governments committed to upholding their


responsibility to protect by preventing the crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing
and crimes against humanity. More than 150 heads of state and government adopted the
World Summit Outcome Document, paragraph 139 of which enshrined the primacy of the
Security Council in situations where a state was clearly unwilling or unable to uphold its
sovereign responsibilities.

As the Syrian conflict worsened over the summer of 2011 and debate over the
ongoing military intervention in Libya intensified, cynicism arose amongst some Security

2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26116868 (Date of Access: October 4, 2016)
Council members to suggestions that the Council needed to impose an arms embargo and
targeted sanctions upon the Syrian government.

Nevertheless, it was under Indias Security Council Presidency during August that the
body was able to produce its first formal statement on the conflict. Requiring consensus for
adoption, the Presidential Statement condemned widespread violations of human rights and
the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities. Calling for an immediate end to
all violence, the statement urged all sides to refrain from reprisals, including attacks
against state institutions. Acknowledging the announced commitments by the Syrian
authorities to reform, the statement reaffirmed the Security Councils commitment to the
sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Syria.

In a situation where atrocities were already being perpetrated, the Security Council
was divided between a majority who wanted a vigorous response in keeping with R2P and a
veto-wielding minority who did not, while the influential IBSA member states appeared to be
abstaining, both literally and figuratively, from the process of finding a solution.3

With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other, the international
community long ago concluded that only a political solution could end the conflict in Syria.
The UN Security Council has called for the implementation of the 2012 Geneva
Communique, which envisages a transitional governing body with full executive powers
"formed on the basis of mutual consent".4

As of September 2016, 112 countries, including a majority of UN Security Council


members, had endorsed the Accountability Coherence and Transparency (ACT) Code of
Conduct, pledging not to vote against a credible draft resolution aimed at preventing or
ending serious crimes under international law, as well as supporting timely Security Council
action to address such grave abuses. Further highlighting global momentum in favor of
restraint in using a Security Council veto, 99 countries support a French and Mexican
initiative calling for permanent Security Council members to voluntarily pledge not to use the
veto in situations of mass atrocities.

Council members should support any resolution that would condemn in the strongest
terms the unlawful attacks in Aleppo and demand an immediate halt to such attacks by all

3
Adams, Simon, (2015), Failure to Protect Syria and the United Nations Council. Global Centre for the
Responsibility to Protect Occasional Paper Series No. 5, March 2015
4
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26116868 (Date of Access: October 4, 2016)
parties and allow UN and other aid agencies immediate, safe, and sustained access to
civilians in need, Human Rights Watch said. Such a resolution should remind all parties of
the duty to permit civilians to safely leave an urban area under siege, deriving from the
absolute ban on starvation under the laws of war, as a method of warfare. A resolution should
also underline the importance of accountability for serious crimes committed by all parties
involved in the conflict in Syria.5

International Criminal Court and Its Jurisdiction over Aleppo case

Russia and China have vetoed a draft UN resolution calling for the crisis in Syria to
be referred to the international criminal court ignoring support for the measure by 65 other
countries and all other members of the Security Council.

France first circulated a proposal after briefing the Security Council on the evidence,
provided by Caesar of the mass killings of detainees. It called for the ICC to be given a
mandate over crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Syria. Sixty-five
countries had appealed to all 193 UN member states to co-sponsor the resolution, under
which the ICC would be authorized to investigate allegations of heinous crimes by the Syrian
government, pro-government militias, and armed opposition groups. The 65 countries
condemned "widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law
committed in a pervasive climate of impunity by the Syrian authorities and pro-government
militias as well as by non-state armed groups". The draft resolution deliberately did not target
one side.6

As of now, Syria is not a member state of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established
the ICC. Unless the Syrian government ratifies the treaty or accepts the jurisdiction of the
court through a declaration, the ICC could only obtain jurisdiction if the United Nations
Security Council refers the situation there to the court. The Security Council, with what is
called an ICC referral, could give the court jurisdiction stretching back to the day the Rome
Statute entered into force, on July 1, 2002.

The ICC is by no means a panacea for the situation in Syria, and nobody claims that
the courts involvement will stop the killing overnight. Others will have vital parallel roles in

5
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/10/03/un-demand-end-unlawful-aleppo-attacks (Date of Access: October
4, 2016)
6
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/22/russia-china-veto-un-draft-resolution-refer-syria-
international-criminal-court (Date of Access: October 4, 2016)
resolving the crisis there, including through diplomatic and humanitarian activities. But a
Security Council decision to support a role for the ICC in Syria would signal that the body
and its individual members are serious about ending the current state of impunity.7

The Charges under Command Responsibility

Command or superior responsibility is often misunderstood. First, it is not a form of


objective liability whereby a superior could be held criminally responsible for crimes
committed by subordinates of the accused regardless of his conduct and regardless of what
his knowledge of these crimes. Nor is it a form of complicity whereby the superior is held
criminally responsible for some sort of assistance that he has given to the principal
perpetrators. Instead, superior responsibility is a form of responsibility for omission to act: a
superior may be held criminally responsible under that doctrine where, despite his awareness
of the crimes of subordinates, he culpably fails to fulfill his duties to prevent and punish these
crimes.8 Generally, the liability for both individual criminal responsibility and command
responsibility possible, The finding of responsibility under Article 6(1) of the Statute does
not prevent the Chamber from finding responsibility additionally, or in the alternative, under
Article 6(3). The two forms of responsibility are not mutually exclusive. The Chamber must,
therefore, consider both forms of responsibility charged in order to fully reflect the
culpability of the accused in light of the facts.9

7
https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/17/qa-syria-and-international-criminal-court#1 (Date of Access:
October 4, 2016)
8
http://www.peaceandjusticeinitiative.org/implementation-resources/command-responsibility (Date of
Access: October 4, 2016)
9
https://www.hrw.org/reports/2004/ij/ictr/7.htm (Date of Access: October 4, 2016
The Conflict in Aleppo, Syria:
A Research Paper

June Paolo C. Saguran


Human Rights Law
October 5, 2016
Atty. Elaine Bathan

You might also like