ABOUT

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Yousuf Syed Khan serves as the Investigations Manager at a Geneva-based organisation with a global presence, overseeing international criminal investigations across multiple conflict-affected regions in support of strategic litigation. He has over 14 years’ legal experience dealing with complex conflict situations, with specific expertise on the contributions and practice of UN atrocity inquiries. Yousuf has served to four commissions / investigative accountability bodies established by the UN Human Rights Council (Syria; South Sudan; Belarus; and Ethiopia). In these capacities, he conceptualised and led the drafting of over a dozen public UN reports – including the first ever report by a UN-mandated mechanism on starvation as a method of warfare. Several of his most visible legal contributions have centred on the use of siege warfare, attacks against objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, and forced displacement as a warring strategy.

In addition to these roles, Yousuf co-led a team of international and local lawyers to implement a national investigative strategy on accountability for starvation as a method of warfare in Ukraine; worked in human rights with the UN in Afghanistan (both in Kabul and in a Taliban stronghold on the southeast border with Pakistan); led a team monitoring the post-ISIL administration of justice countrywide with the UN in Iraq; and served with the Trial Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Before joining the United Nations, he was a Legal Consultant to Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, analysing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya, a Legal Adviser on issues of belligerent occupation and de facto annexation in the Golan Heights, and an attorney practising at a prominent law firm in the United States.

Yousuf is also a recognised Prosecution Expert on crimes affecting cultural heritage and on the law of occupation, both of which he is rostered for with Justice Rapid Response (JRR). He has published various peer-reviewed articles and chapters in renowned international journals and edited volumes, and speaks and lectures frequently on international humanitarian law. Yousuf holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an Advanced LL.M. in Public International Law from Leiden University, where he wrote his thesis under the supervision of eminent jurist John Dugard. Having worked in 10 countries across four continents, he currently operates between Kyiv and Geneva.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Law of Armed Conflict · International Criminal Law · Armed Non-State Actors · Counter-terrorism · Customary International Law · International Human Rights Law · International Cultural Heritage Law · Public International Law · UN Investigative Mechanisms

COUNTRY-SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE

•  Afghanistan

•  Belarus

•  Ethiopia

•  former Yugoslavia

•  Iran

•  Iraq

•  Israel/Palestine (incl. Golan Heights)

•  Libya

•  Myanmar

•  Russia

•  South Sudan

•  Sudan

•  Syria

•  Ukraine