Prosecuting IS for War Crimes Will Be Hard

A report released last month by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that actions by ISIS “may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide.” It is well-documented that ISIS has committed sickening human rights violations, including the slaughter of civilians, the taking of sex slaves, and the abuse and torture of children. The group is deliberately targeting specific ethnic and religious groups, including Christians, Yazidis, and Shiites. ISIS’s actions against the Yazidis, in particular, would certainly seem to fit the international legal definition of genocide. The question is, beyond efforts already underway to destroy ISIS, what should the international community do with this knowledge?