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Members of the public law team at Duncan Lewis recently attended the reading of a verdict of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) on Turkey and the Kurds. Delivered on 24 May in the European Parliament, the PPT found Erdogan and the Turkish state guilty of war crimes, and crimes against humanity against the Kurdish people. According to the tribunal, these crimes “derive from the Turkish state’s refusal to recognise the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination.”

The verdict followed a two-day hearing in Paris, in March this year, also attended by lawyers from Duncan Lewis. A Duncan Lewis report of the hearing can be found here.

This is a summary taken from judgment text handed out at the European Parliament. An online version of the full verdict can be found here.

Judgment Summary

1. The Turkish state is responsible for denying the right to self-determination of the Kurdish people;


2. The armed confrontation between Turkey and the Kurds amounted to a non-international armed conflict… [and the tribunal] rejected the Turkish state’s characterisation of the conflict as a matter of terrorism;


3. The Turkish state, Erdogan and the commander of the military operations against the Kurdish cities between 1 January 2015 and 1 January 2017, General Adem Huduti, are guilty of committing war crimes during that period;


4. The Turkish state [is] guilty of state crimes – including targeted assassinations, extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances – committed by different branches of the state’s security forces and secret services, in Turkey and abroad, particularly in France.

Recommendations

The tribunal then made recommendations for the Turkish state to:

1. End all military operations carried out by its army in Syria and […] withdraw its troops to within its national borders;


2. Investigate and punish the responsible persons for war crimes;


3. Restore the rule of law, release still-detained magistrates and journalists… [and] end the state of emergency;


4. Resume negotiations [with the Kurdish people] in good faith for a peaceful solution to the conflict;


5. Issue an amnesty for the crimes committed by all parties during the conflict and all still-detained political prisoners must be released.

Post-Judgment Discussion

Once the judgment had been delivered, a group of politicians, lawyers and activists spoke about its implications.

Julie Ward, a UK Labour Party MEP, emphasised the “extraordinary” importance of the PPT’s ruling. She commended the tribunal for combining individual human stories with a “rigorous process”, the findings of which the judges could then present to institutions such as the European Parliament.

Next to speak was Barbara Spinelli, an Italian lawyer. She had personally witnessed the atrocities in the Kurdish town of Cizre:

“I witnessed the banality of evil. It was humanity that was burned in Cizre.”

“This judgment is important because it fills a vacuum,” Spinelli added, “it puts these issues in front of the world.”

Spinelli also observed that Turkey represents “an alarm” about how “the European region can slip back to arbitrariness and abuses of power - evidence of a failure of a legal rights framework to protect the dignity and the lives of civilians.”

Practical Implications

While there was a sense of optimism, a number of the speakers also sounded a note of warning. Namely, if the verdict is to have anything other than symbolic value, it needs to be advertised and that politicians must be compelled to act upon it.

Kariane Westrheim of the University of Bergen in Norway remembered hearing Mehmet Tunç – a Kurdish opposition politician who made a call directly to a European Union conference room from a basement during the bombardment of Cizre. Tunç begged the EU officials to prevent the Turkish state from murdering him and those hiding with him.

As Kurdish human rights lawyer Mahmut Sakar later told those gathered:

“They did nothing, and then he was burned alive. His screams echo in these very walls.”

Ian Lawrence, the general secretary of trade union Napo, also underlined the importance of action:

“They are calling this is a landmark. That is fine, but a landmark is just a moment in time. This must be catalyst to bring an end to this carnage; to see in its place peace and justice.”

A more detailed account of the various post-verdict observations can be found here.

Duncan Lewis Public Law Solicitors

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