Iraq is not a member state of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as such, the ICC holds no jurisdiction over crimes committed within Iraq (including The KRI territory). The Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) was established in 2005, after the fall of the Ba’ath Regime, but it was limited to temporal and personal jurisdiction. The IHT did not create a sustainable mechanism for international criminal justice in Iraq and the KRI. The emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) denoted the untold suffering of Iraqis and in particular the Yazidi community. The criminalities ranged from genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. At present, there is no apparatus which can hold individuals to account for these heinous crimes. In 2021, the KRI, despite its evident flaws, took innovative steps towards holding perpetuates to account in the formation of the Special Court for ISIS Crimes, but the initiation was rejected by the Iraqi Government.
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2017 in response of Iraq adopted Resolution 2379, and created the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh (UNITAD), to support domestic efforts to hold ISIS accountable by collecting evidences in Iraq of acts to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by ISIS. UNITAD operated for seven years (2017 – 2024), Resolution 2379 mandated UNITAD to collect, preserve, and archive evidence and use it for ISIS accountability core international crimes. Iraqi and the KRI courts prosecuted tens of thousands of the ISIS fighter without using any UNITAD evidences, the prosecutions were based on the both Anti-Terrorism laws in Iraq, and the KRI, There have been some reports that during the trial process, even the minimum human rights standards have been violated. UNITAD did not share any evidence with Iraq and KRI courts which lead to trials due to capital punishment in both Iraqi and KRI judicial.