UNITAD Closes Its Doors: Six Years of Work, Unfinished Business, and an Uncertain Future for Accountability
SEPTEMBER 17, 2024 · HUSSEIN MONITOR UNITAD Closes Its Doors: Six Years of Work, Unfinished Business, and an Uncertain Future for Accountability Today, September 17, 2024, the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh (UNITAD) officially ends its mandate in Iraq. After six years of investigations, excavations, and evidence collection, the team is closing — its work unfinished, its cases incomplete, and the communities it served left with profound uncertainty about what comes next. What Was UNITAD? Established in September 2017 by UN Security Council Resolution 2379 at Iraq's request, UNITAD was given a mandate unlike any previous UN investigative body: to collect, preserve, and store evidence of crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq that could constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide — and to support Iraqi and third-country prosecutions. For six years, the team operated across Iraq's most c...