Brussels, June 15 – During the seventh edition of the EU’s Brussels Conference on the future of Syria, Catherine Marchi-Uhel, the Head of the IIIM, called for Member States to reinforce their support for the IIIM’s work.
In her remarks at the Ministerial Day of the conference, Ms. Marchi-Uhel highlighted the welcome rise in jurisdictions prosecuting core international crimes, with the IIIM providing support for 143 separate investigations across 15 such competent jurisdictions. She expressed gratitude to Member States for enabling this work through their voluntary contributions, but also indicated a critical trend: with requests for assistance to the IIIM tripling annually since 2018, the organization’s capability to continue to respond to the incoming number of requests, while also engaging in proactive substantive work to anticipate the needs of competent jurisdictions, is at risk without a proportional increase in funding.
“If we are to maintain the pace, volume, and quality of our support to jurisdictions and our two-way engagement with our many civil society partners, victims and survivors, additional voluntary contributions are necessary,” said Ms. Marchi-Uhel
She specifically called for “predictable, multi-year funding commitments” to ensure the sustainability of the IIIM’s successful justice facilitation approach, and that its expertise and mission is not compromised.
You can read Ms. Marchi-Uhel’s full remarks as delivered here.
