Dataharvest 2025 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

For the past decade, EU countries have been falling over themselves to prosecute suspected Syrian war criminals hiding in Europe, relying on ‘Universal Jurisdiction’ laws. Among the most prevalent are Germany, France and Spain.

Globally, there are dozens of organisations that claim to hunt down former regime agents, ISIS fighters, and military officials accused of committing serious war crimes before slipping into Europe. These organisations raise millions in government funding and garner significant praise from the world's media.

Behind the scenes, however, we find a nontransparent, shadowy alliance between police, prosecutors, and intelligence, with some NGOs blurring the lines between activism and policing. The result is an enthusiastic but deeply flawed application of universal jurisdiction, with a growing trail of ill-fated prosecutions built on flimsy evidence and unreliable witnesses. These have been collected by inexperienced investigators with questionable procedures — and much of this activity is hidden from public view.

There are currently around 120 universal jurisdiction cases across Europe. The fall of the Syrian regime in December 2024 will only increase the need to understand the intricacies of war crimes cases and how to report on prosecutions in Europe.

This session proposes to provide journalists with the tools and prompts to examine cases in their own countries critically. We will tell the journalists exactly how to do this, how to find information and sources, and how to avoid traps, not be drawn in by PR, but to see and assess evidence for what it is.