Yousuf Syed Khan is also an independent Senior Consultant and Strategic Adviser with over 12 years' legal experience dealing with conflict situations across a range of countries and contexts, including: Ukraine; Syria; Afghanistan; Iraq; Libya; Gaza; the Golan Heights; Ethiopia; South Sudan; Belarus; and the former Yugoslavia. He is widely considered an expert on starvation as a method of warfare. In the context of urban siege warfare and starvation crimes, he has led public legal findings on the sieges of Aleppo, eastern Ghouta, and Madaya (Syria) and Mariupol (Ukraine), among several others.
Yousuf is adept at drafting incisive legal analyses and working with the vast volumes of evidence that are typical of core international crimes. His legal analysis has been cited by Member States in their written comments before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in expert commentary to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and elsewhere. He has also been quoted extensively by the media for his legal analysis, including BBC World, The Washington Post, CNN, The Guardian, Reuters, Al Jazeera, France24, Deutsche Welle, The Independent, and The Telegraph.
For nearly a decade, Yousuf served with the United Nations where he led the public findings on several major conflicts, including the sieges of Aleppo and eastern Ghouta. He was responsible for leading the first major international legal finding that the humanitarian evacuation of eastern Aleppo amounted to the war crime of forced displacement, and for the original finding that the camps for internally displaced persons in northeast Syria amount to de facto detention (internment) sites.
Yousuf has also regularly provided strategic guidance to several high-level UN officials; trained various State officials including the judiciary law enforcement, and senior ministry in Iraq and Afghanistan on international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and international human rights law; and led local community engagement, including through cultivating relationships with tribal chiefs and elders in the Middle East, East Africa, and Central Asia. Moreover, he is highly experienced in conducting in-country investigations in hostile conditions during active armed conflicts, and can be relied on to produce work of the highest standard under the most difficult circumstances.
Yousuf regularly provides specialist advice and tailored services, including:
He has been entrusted with strictly confidential empirical data and commissioned to produce in-depth studies and public reports on myriad violations and crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and two potential situations of genocide. He has become well-known for the complexity of his legal and conflict analyses which regularly call on his creativity.
Yousuf's most recent clients include a prominent intergovernmental organisation, for which he was contracted as an Expert to work on atrocity crimes determinations; a widely known NGO, for which he was commissioned to carry out interviews and produce a public report concerning UN atrocity inquiries; and [redacted], for which he provided considered legal analysis to support a national government pursuing war crimes prosecutions during an active and on-going armed conflict (including assessments of starvation as a method of warfare and associated starvation crimes).
Due to the sensitive nature of much of his work, a more detailed description of recent consultancy projects may be discussed only by contacting Yousuf directly. If you would like to collaborate, please use the contact form on this site.
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