CONSULTANCY
Yousuf Syed Khan is also an independent Senior Consultant and Strategic Adviser with over 14 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; Sudan; South Sudan; Myanmar; 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, Madaya (Syria), Tigray (Ethiopia), Mariupol (Ukraine), and Gaza, 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 on siege warfare and the use of starvation as a method of warfare has been cited in written submissions by Member States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in expert commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), by UN Special Rapporteurs, scholars, influential think tanks, and other recognised sources. 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, and has further appeared on BBC World, CNN, and other live television networks.
For nearly a decade, Yousuf served with the United Nations where he led the public findings on several major conflicts. He was responsible for conceiving and leading the first major international legal finding that the humanitarian evacuation of eastern Aleppo amounted to the war crime of forced displacement, and for conceiving and leading the original finding that the camps for internally displaced persons in northeast Syria function as de facto detention (internment) sites, both of which have since been widely recognised and accepted by the international community.
Yousuf also regularly provided strategic guidance to several high-level UN officials; trained various State officials including the judiciary, law enforcement, and senior ministry in Ukraine, 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 environments during active armed conflicts, and can be relied on to produce work of the highest standard under the most difficult circumstances. He brings significant field experience in conflict, post-conflict, and transitional situations.
Yousuf is regularly entrusted with strictly confidential empirical data and has been 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.
SERVICES
Yousuf is well-known for providing specialist advice and tailored services, including:
- Expertise in starvation as a method of warfare, famine, and food insecurity in emergencies
- Expertise in crimes affecting cultural heritage and on the law of occupation (rostered for both with JRR)
- Drafting complex legal opinions
- Drafting comprehensive public human rights reports, and peer review of unpublished reports
- Conducting survivor-centred, trauma-informed field investigations, including interviews with survivors, witnesses, and defectors
- Designing and delivering bespoke training programmes on international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and international human rights law
- Managing eDiscovery platforms and facilitating the use and preservation of evidence for cooperation between NGOs and national authorities
- Providing legal assessments of open-source intelligence (OSINT), including social media intelligence (SOCMINT), digital forensic data, geospatial analysis, and satellite imagery analysis, and
- Conducting conflict analysis, including actor mapping, charting techniques, and hypothesis development
RECENT CLIENTS
Yousuf’s most recent clients* include:
On starvation as a method of warfare:
- a prominent organisation based in Geneva, where he played a key role in advancing groundbreaking strategic litigation on behalf of victims and survivors of core international crimes (including by leading analysis and findings on starvation as a method of warfare), before national jurisdictions including in Europe and Africa
- [redacted], for which he provided considered legal analysis to 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)
- the United Nations, for which he was contracted as an Expert to work on atrocity crimes determinations (including assessments of starvation as a method of warfare and associated starvation crimes), and
Other:
- a leading NGO, for which he was commissioned as the Senior Legal Adviser to conduct confidential interviews and produce a report concerning the efficacy of the evidence preservation efforts and archiving by UN atrocity inquiries
- [redacted], by whom he was invited to design and deliver a high-level, confidential briefing to a substantial assembly of twenty-four UN Human Rights Council Member States, addressing critical accountability strategies for core atrocity crimes by a specific perpetrator operating in multiple jurisdictions
- a major nonpartisan think tank, for which he was contracted to research and author a comprehensive investigative report on Iran’s military involvement, roles, and violations perpetrated by its armed forces and allied militias in the Syrian conflict
*The names of some organisations are withheld either to preserve confidentiality, or where disclosure could compromise vital work.
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.