SYRIA – “THE WAR WITH MULTIPLE PROXIES”. VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract

The civil war in Syria, triggered by the pro-democracy demonstrations of the "Arab Spring", was a complicated combination of religious, cultural and ethnic-identity contradictions. The non-international conflict was turned into a "battlefield" for foreign powers, which led to the transformation of a civil war into a "war with multiple proxies". The United Nations' efforts to mediate the conflict, based on a six-point plan, remained in the draft phase. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the al-Assad regime, which has widely used non-discriminatory weapons banned in violation of the Geneva Conventions, 1949. The Bashār al-Assad regime is accused by the international community of being guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but attempts to incriminate it have failed.