Today, we launch a new type of publication, an Expert Opinion, a short piece of analysis filed by someone from a particular academic discipline or with relevant experience who wants to respond to an AAN report. Our first expert, Vincent Ploton, here responds to a report by Ehsan Qaane on the new Independent Investigative Mechanism on Afghanistan (IIM-A), which has a mandate to investigate, preserve and analyse evidence of war crimes and other grave violations of international law and will create case-ready files that prosecutors can use in multiple jurisdictions. Ploton spent two years working on an earlier mechanism that investigated crimes perpetrated in Syria and here, asks what the IIM-A, which will become operational this year, can learn from the Syrian experience.
A view of the Vienna International Centre, the UN seat in Vienna, which will house the new International Accountability mechanism for Afghanistan. Photo: UN
The news went largely unnoticed – even within human rights circles – overshadowed by the ongoing devastation in Gaza: in October 2025, the UN created a new accountability mechanism for Afghanistan. The Independent Investigative Mechanism on Afghanistan (IIM-A), as it is expected to be known, will gradually become operational this year. The Afghanistan Analysts Network was not only the first public platform to publicise the new institution, it also offered a detailed description of the new mechanism in Ehsan Qaane’s A New Accountability Mechanism for Afghanistan: What the IIM-A can (and cannot) do. Following the 2016 establishment of the Syria Mechanism (the first of its kind, so known as the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism or IIIM), and the Myanmar Mechanism (IIM-M), the IIM-A becomes the third such active independent body mandated to collect evidence and support the prosecution of international crimes. Like its predecessors, it is expected to operate as a stand‑alone entity, separate from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) – unlike Commissions of Inquiry and Fact‑Finding Missions, whose secretariats OHCHR hosts.
The IIM-A is the result of years of sustained advocacy by Afghan civil society and their allies. Yet it emerges at a moment of profound institutional fragility for the United Nations. How did such a mechanism come to life in this context? What lessons can be drawn from the Syria and Myanmar Mechanisms, and what impact can the IIM-A realistically have? This post offers a brief analysis.
Afghan civil society groups and their international partners have long called for a dedicated accountability mechanism, from as early as 2021 (as detailed in Ehsan Qaane’s report). However, in early 2025, the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), South Africa and others attempted to establish a new investigative mechanism on Gaza ahead of the Human Rights Council’s 58th session (February-April 2025). When those efforts failed, attention shifted to the UN General Assembly, which had successfully created the Syria Mechanism in 2016. Meanwhile, parallel discussions were also unfolding in New York over compensation for Gaza (as mentioned notably in this post by the UN’s Palestinian Rights Committee). Although the United States had already withdrawn from the Human Rights Council, growing cross‑regional support for a Gaza mechanism – including from traditional US allies – led to the US, presumably at the request of or with Israel’s support, putting pressure on Palestinian and other counterparts to back down, ultimately derailing the initiative.
Against this backdrop, the proposal for a mechanism on Afghanistan at Human Rights Council 60 (September-October 2025) appeared destined for the same fate. Given the Trump administration’s hostility toward international scrutiny of US actions in Afghanistan (as seen in the sanctions imposed on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials in 2020 and again in 2025) or Israel’s actions in Gaza (notably, sanctions on Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese), few expected Washington to tolerate a mechanism with a mandate covering violations by all parties, including the US and its NATO allies.
Yet the perseverance of influential actors who had been working behind the scenes to build momentum for a new mechanism, including civil society and UN allies, such as Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett, managed to convince powerful political actors to support the process. According to diplomats familiar with the topic, the failure on getting a Gaza mechanism may actually have contributed to building momentum for the Afghanistan mechanism. South Africa, which had gained prominence by taking the genocide case on Gaza to the International Court of Justice and had supported the campaign for a Gaza mechanism, took a leading role, together with others, and joined the efforts of civil society and the Special Rapporteur. The European Union ultimately took the lead in drafting the resolution.
It was remarkable that the US did not attempt to block the establishment of this new mechanism. Its absence in the negotiations at the Human Rights Council paved the way for a relatively smooth outcome and the adoption of the resolution by consensus (Human Rights Watch). However, getting the IIM-A mandate was just the start of the action, and now comes the challenge of decisions required to help the mechanism to yield maximum results.
The challenge of prioritisation
One of the most significant challenges facing the IIM-A, unlike its predecessors, is that its temporal scope is unlimited. The mandates for the Syria and Myanmar mechanisms only go back to 2011. The IIM-A may investigate violations committed at any point in Afghanistan’s history, and the violations go back at least as far as 1978 with the Saur Revolution and subsequent Soviet invasion (see Afghanistan Justice Project for more, up to 2003).
This open‑ended scope – which was a key demand of Afghan civil society – reflects decades of abuses by a wide range of domestic and foreign actors. The open scope also received political backing from influential Human Rights Council members such as South Africa and Iceland.
However, this broad mandate will confront harsh practical constraints, particularly in a context of shrinking UN resources. The experience of the Syria Mechanism is instructive here. Facing budget cuts, the IIIM reported that it had to close one of its three lines of inquiry and decline requests from national jurisdictions, including for witness interviews. Despite growing demands from 17 jurisdictions and more than 500 requests for assistance, by late 2025, the IIIM had been forced to narrow its work – even as the fall of the Assad regime in December 2025 opened new investigative opportunities.
With only ten staff posts approved for the Afghan mechanism from the UN regular budget for 2026, out of the fourteen requested (UN doc A/80/7/Add.24; § 53.b), the IIM-A will face similar pressures. Prioritisation will be unavoidable, especially given its open temporal mandate. Civil society organisations have already begun reflecting on possible approaches – for example, a ‘representative coverage’ model selecting at least one feasible, high‑profile case from different periods and actors to ensure equity among victim communities (see Qaane’s report).
The bulk of the Syrian investigations relate to either Assad regime cases, or ISIS (Daesh), as evidenced in the IIIM’s reports to the UN General Assembly, although the mandate of the Mechanism encompasses the crimes committed by all actors in Syria since 2011, including ongoing violations.
The Myanmar mechanism can also offer guidance on the issue of prioritisation, as it has developed an internal policy that guides the selection of which incidents to investigate. The policy “looks at the nature, gravity and scale of each crime, how it was committed and its impact on victims. It also looks at the strength of the available evidence, the prospect of an investigation meeting international criminal standards, the likelihood of a court or tribunal taking jurisdiction over the crime, and the possibility of building a case against the alleged perpetrator. Incidents that include sexual and gender-based crimes and crimes against and affecting children are prioritized.”
Prospects for Universal Jurisdiction for Afghan perpetrators
One of the most visionary – and perhaps unexpected – outcomes of the IIIM’s creation has been its central role in supporting universal jurisdiction. The Syria Mechanism has become a key facilitator of such cases worldwide, supporting prosecutions primarily against ISIS and the Assad regime. Its success can offer hope for Afghan victims.
The contrast with the Myanmar mechanism is stark. Unlike the IIIM, which is cooperating with multiple jurisdictions and has received hundreds of requests for assistance, the IIM-M has reported publicly about universal jurisdiction cases only in Argentina, with requests for assistance from just one other country, the UK. In other words, the core of the IIM-M’s model is a focus on cases at the ICC and International Court of Justice (ICJ), while the core of the IIIM model is support for universal jurisdiction cases in other countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Belgium and the US, although it has also contributed to the Syria case at the ICJ. This divergence stems largely from:
- The presence of large Syrian communities in Europe, where many perpetrators and witnesses reside.
- The return of thousands of European foreign fighters from Syria to Europe, making ISIS investigations also a top security priority.
- The absence of notorious perpetrators of crimes committed in Myanmar outside its borders (or in neighbouring countries such as China or Thailand).
As for universal jurisdiction cases involving Afghans, a handful have been investigated in Europe and elsewhere to date, notably in the Netherlands, Australia and the UK (see AAN reporting, with follow-up, and the Universal Jurisdiction Annual Review, 2024 and 2025). As with Syrians, there is a large Afghan diaspora in Europe, with potential war criminals living among them. Other perpetrators may also reside in jurisdictions willing to request IIM-A assistance. In terms of requests for support to try individuals connected with Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), in contrast to ISIS, far fewer individuals travelled from Europe to Afghanistan than to Syria. This means that, while the IIM-A is unlikely to face the same volume of requests as the IIIM, it can expect a steady stream of requests for cooperation – especially as many European states wish to expel rejected asylum seekers, including individuals convicted of crimes (AFP, Guardian).
Opportunities with the ICC and the ICJ
Like its predecessors, the IIM-A is expected to support ongoing investigations at both the ICC and the ICJ. The ICC’s two-decades-long involvement in Afghanistan, which most recently included arrest warrants for the Islamic Emirate’s Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and Chief Justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani in January 2025, has been widely analysed (EJIL Talk!; AAN). The IIM-M’s cooperation with the ICC shows how these mechanisms can significantly enhance the ICC Office of the Prosecutor’s ability to gather and analyse evidence. Given the constraints imposed on the ICC by US sanctions, the IIM-A may serve as a discreet facilitator.
The steps taken by Canada, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands before the ICJ for breaches by Taliban-controlled Afghanistan of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has also been much commented upon (for example, on EJIL Talk!, here and here). The IIIM’s contribution to a Convention Against Torture case against Syria – including its publication of a redacted report on torture in Assad‑era detention – illustrates how such mechanisms can meaningfully support ICJ proceedings. The IIM-M’s contributions to the Gambia v Myanmar genocide case also offer further guidance.
A major opportunity to prosecute the crime of gender persecution
The potential for the IIM-A to contribute to the legal interpretation of gender persecution, in both international criminal law and international human rights law, notably through universal jurisdiction cases, is significant. Of course, gender persecution was the main driving force for the establishment of the IIM-A, the details of which are well-documented (eg by AAN here and here).
Here again, the experience of the IIIM can provide inspiration. Although gender persecution did not drive the establishment of the IIIM as it did the IIM-A, the IIIM established processes to ensure gender inclusion in all areas of its work, including in criminal investigations and analysis, and that could provide inspiration. The IIIM gender strategy and implementation plan is regarded as good practice by Syrian victims and survivors. More broadly, the efforts undertaken by the IIIM from the start to integrate victims and survivors into the core of its work have set a high precedent. The IIM-A could also pioneer the implementation of the Murad code, a global initiative which aims to improve the investigation and documentation of systematic and conflict-related sexual violence. Afghan civil society have made it clear that they have commensurate expectations from the IIM-A.
Author
Vincent Ploton is an international human rights specialist and an occasional guest lecturer in International Human Rights Law, most recently with the St Thomas University of Miami. He recently completed a two-year assignment with the UN International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism on Syria (IIIM). Prior to that, he worked for over fifteen years with victims and civil society organisations from all world regions to support their advocacy and litigation with UN human rights mechanisms. His original background is in the humanitarian field.
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 7 May 2026
