Impact case study database

The underpinning research has directly enabled the Sinjar Foundation for Human Development to successfully advocate for the recognition of genocide against the Yazidis by national and international bodies and has influenced public discourse with respect to Yazidi suffering.

Enabling the UK Parliament to recognise genocide against Yazidis

In official meetings with members of the UK Parliament, namely Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, the chairperson of the Sinjar Foundation for Human Development, the Honourable Vian Dakhil, used the framework developed in the underpinning research to advocate for a change in policy by the UK Parliament with respect to the recognition of genocide against the Yazidis. Dakhil’s advocacy was specifically and explicitly acknowledged as a primary reason for which members of the House of Lords supported the recognition of the crime of genocide against the Yazidis in their parliamentary debates and voting. This directly contributed to the recognition of the crime of genocide by the UK Parliament. According to Dakhil, the underpinning research “enabled me to evidence my claims that ISIL fighters had the extreme mens rea necessary for the crime of genocide. I also made use of [the] research to evidence my claim regarding the applicable legal regimes. I would not have been able to evidence these claims and articulate the legal arguments so persuasively without this research.” [1]

On 21 March 2016, the UK House of Lords held a debate on a Bill, relating to a proposal to insert a new clause on ‘conditions for grant of asylum: cases of genocide.’ [2] Speaking in support of this amendment, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws explicitly referred to her meetings and discussions with Dakhil to support her intervention and vote in favour of the amendment. In her speech, Baroness Kennedy stated:

“The testimonies we have been hearing are absolutely barbaric. A week yesterday, I met for the second time the Yazidi Member of Parliament Vian Dakhil. She has been trying to draw the world’s attention to the plight of her people. […] So we are talking about genocide. We are talking about the destruction of a people and their ability to procreate. […]. Mrs Vian describes the mass graves that she has visited, the beheadings of children and the crucifixions that we have heard referred to by other noble Lords, and she cannot understand why western Governments are not being more vociferous about these horrors and naming them as genocidal atrocities. […] If noble Lords were to listen to the account given by this Yazidi Member of the Iraqi Parliament — the only one — no one in this House could feel anything other than a sense of shame, horror and moral repugnance. We have to say, ‘It’s not good enough—we have to act now’.” [2]

The debate in the House of Lords galvanised support for the recognition of genocide by the UK Parliament. A Motion that expressly recognised the crime of genocide committed by ISIL against the Yazidis (and other religious minorities) in Iraq and Syria was subsequently unanimously adopted by the House of Commons on 20 April 2016. The Members of Parliament speaking in support of this Motion mentioned, on several occasions, the preceding debate in the House of Lords. In her intervention, the then shadow Foreign Office Minister, the Honourable Diana Johnson, specifically referenced Baroness Kennedy’s House of Lords speech, noted above. [3] This recognition of genocide by the UK Parliament is very significant because it brings legal obligations to prevent and punish perpetrators. It is estimated that ISIL actions have resulted in about 500,000 Yazidis refugees, 5,000 men killed and about 7,000 women kidnapped and tortured. In her advocacy meetings with members of the UK Parliament, Dakhil would not have been able to make her legal case, particularly as regards genocidal intent, which eventually led to the recognition of genocide by this institution, without the framework to evidence genocidal intent developed by the underpinning research. Following the passage of this Motion, in 2017 the UK Government led international efforts to establish the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by ISIL (UNITAD) and has committed £23.5 million to support the Yazidis and other victims of ISIL to return home safely.

Enabling the United Nations Human Rights Council to recognise genocide against the Yazidis

On 21 June 2016, Dakhil was invited, as a key expert, to provide evidence before the United Nations Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in Iraq and Syria. In her expert testimony, she stated: “The international community has to support us, to call upon the UN Security Council to recognize what is happening to us as genocide, and to refer our case to the International Criminal Court.” [5]

Dakhil used the framework developed by the underpinning research to ground her testimony on genocidal intent. In her testimonial letter, Dakhil stated that she relied on the legal analysis of the underpinning research on the specific intent necessary for genocide in her “address to the United Nations Human Rights Council on 21 June 2016.” [1] As a key expert witness in this area, the United Nations Human Rights Council used her evidence to support the adoption of a resolution on the human rights situation in Syria in June 2016 [4]. The resolution expresses, inter alia, its deepest concern about the crimes committed against persons belonging to the Yazidi community by ISIL. For the Yazidis, the recognition of their cause by a United Nations body is very significant, as it represents official acknowledgment by the international community of the harms suffered by this religious minority.

Shaping public discourse with respect to the crimes suffered by the Yazidis

Dakhil has further used the research findings to ground her arguments for recognition of genocide in her meetings with the Oslo Freedom Forum (May 2017) and the United States Institute of Peace (August 2017). She also had interviews with the Egyptian channel Extra News (June 2017) and the American outlets National Review (July 2017), Voice of America (August 2017) which has a global audience of over 275 million, and BBC World News (February 2020).

Moreover, in 2019, the Sinjar Foundation for Human Development commissioned the translation of this research into Arabic and Kurdish in order to make it more easily and readily accessible to NGOs and students in the region. The translations were made available in all Al-Mada libraries in Iraq and Lebanon, and in other libraries, including those of the Al-Bayan University and Cihan University-Erbil. This enabled law students to access the research and to further develop the framework of the underpinning research.

Other Yazidi representatives have also benefitted from the research. The 2019 Laureate of Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity and Founder & Head of the Air Bridge Iraq NGO, Mirza Ali, adopted the research’s framework to evidence genocidal intent in his own study of the atrocities committed against the Yazidis. [6] The framework has also been cited by NGOs studies examining modern slavery. [7]

The research has been used in art exhibitions on the Yazidis, such as “Nobody’s Listening,” to inform and impact public discourse on the legal challenges facing the Yazidis. [8] Finally, it has also influenced specialised scientific studies on the subject of the ISIL crimes against the Yazidis. [9]

Research by Kariyawasam has changed the understanding of key copyright and end-user stakeholders in China; at a global level it has produced a recommendation for a new definition of internet major suppliers for the WTO to address the international digital divide between main and third-party operators.

Influence on Intellectual Property stakeholders in China

Kariyawasam held a legal drafting workshop in Beijing in April 2017 with 30 key copyright and end-user stakeholders in China which included: the then chief judge of the IP Tribunal, Peoples Supreme Court, Chinese National Copyright Bureau, The Intellectual Property Research Center of Xi'an Jiaotong University, IP Publishing House, Shenzen Library, and Xi'an Film & Television Arbitration Center. These significant stakeholders were invited to comment on the 14 legal recommendations on copyright reform in the digital economy, social media and digital divide issues, produced by Kariyawasam and the research team on amendments to the Third Revision of China’s Copyright Law. These were later included in Output A to the Chinese State Council. The event effected a change in awareness of these stakeholders on how copyright can enable the further promotion of innovation and creativity, while also allowing copyright owners to gain returns on their work (evidenced by their testimonials below).

A preliminary report in October 2016 by China's National Copyright Bureau (NCB) illustrating the downstream impact of this research stated: "Derivative works created by various users pose challenges to copyright owners, administrative supervision, dispute resolution and judicial trial. In order to cope with such a change, the seminar on fair use in the digital domain co-sponsored by Anglia Ruskin University, Peking University Law School, and the School of Law Xi'an Jiaotong University was held in Beijing. Scholars from both China and Britain carried out in-depth discussions on the rights of works on the network and digital conditions as well as the fair use under the Copyright law." [1]

The Managing Editor of the Intellectual Property Publishing House (IPPH) in China said: “The recommendations changed my thinking on copyright law and as an end-user of copyright, I felt it is important that the recommendations were adopted into Chinese law (…) Also, I agreed with the Fair Use Project's suggestion that the range of fair use examples should be expanded. This was an extremely important suggested amendment as it suggested introducing the idea of 'transformative works' (as seen in US copyright law) into Chinese copyright law, where such an example of a work does not currently exist “ [2].

Senior judicial opinion has also changed. For example, the then chief judge of China’s Supreme People’s Court IP Tribunal (China's highest court) said: “The fair use project has had very meaningful impact in changing my judicial opinion on Chinese copyright law.” [3] The judge of the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court said: "Professor Kariyawasam's fair use project has been extremely useful in demonstrating how judges can view fair use cases in the digital domain. Prior to being introduced to the fair use project, I had not previously appreciated the scope and extent of the use of fair use in China...The recommendations for legislative copyright change suggested by the fair use project are extremely helpful." [3]

The AHRC project impacted the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Xi'an Jiaotong University. The Director of the Institute stated that before Professor Kariyawasam’s work, they had not investigated the fair use terms for copyright. They became aware of the need for such provisions, including for a virtual copyright notice, reverse engineering of software interfaces, and for regulation of user-generated content on social media. Also, the project impacted on the academic training of the Institute’s 20 Masters and 5 PhD students, as it provided guidance on how to design and conduct research questionnaires, not available elsewhere in the highly specialised digital economy area, and to complete field research on digital IP. The Director said the AHRC project produced: "...the largest survey of its kind of fair use of copyright in the digital domain in China at the time." [4].

A key stakeholder of the research has been the Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC) in China, a coalition of 200 corporate members, among which 186 are well-known foreign multinationals (e.g., Apple, Samsung, Intel, IBM, L’Oréal) in China. The QBPC recommended Kariyawasam's work to its membership in China and requested its corporate members to complete the fair use survey. The organisation stated that the survey has created awareness on the need for copyright and social media reform among its members [5]. The Vice-Director of the Xi'an Film & Television Arbitration Center stated that “…participation in the research questionnaire made him aware that the copyright law in China needed change to cover areas like cloud technology usage and the introduction of a definition for “new media” [2]. Both the QBPC and the Xi'an Film & Television Centre play significant roles in shaping IP policy in China. Kariyawasam's influence in shaping their thinking on the Third Revision has led to both organisations' increased awareness of the need for expanding fair use provisions in China's copyright law as evidenced by testimonials [2, 5].

Influence on the Third Revision of China’s Copyright Law

As co-investigator in the project, the Director of the Intellectual Property Research Institute at Xi’an Jiaotong University was invited by the Shaanxi Provincial People’s Congress (the federal legislative body in the province) to submit the results of the research. The Shaanxi Congress wrote very approvingly of the research submitted and sent the report directly to the Chinese National People's Congress, for approval at national level [6].

In a project report in April 2018, Kariyawasam's AHRC Newton research on fair use of copyright in the digital domain was presented to and considered by China's National People's Congress Legislative Affairs Working Committee, the highest legislative arm of the Chinese Government. Kariyawasam and co-investigators have asked for amendments to the section on fair use exceptions (draft Articles 44-50). The proposals were welcomed by the Working Committee and at the time of submission in April 2018 were to be considered by the Legislative Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress. If the suggested amendments are approved (the final Copyright Act is not expected to be published by the State Council until June 2021), they will result in changes to national law, directly impacting circa 840 million internet users in China, as well as circa $2.3 billion of e-commerce trade. Even if the recommendations do not influence the Act, the State Council may still incorporate them in secondary regulations following once the Act is published, as is customary in Chinese law-making.

Proposal of a new definition of internet major suppliers for the WTO

Building on AHRC digital economy research in China and for the World Economic Forum E-15 Digital Economy Expert Group, Kariyawasam produced two ‘think-pieces’, which set out required reforms by the WTO to the regulation of digital services ( Outputs B and C). The recommendations proposed a new definition of a dominant telecommunications provider (a major supplier).

The findings were presented at three World Economic Forum E-15 conferences on the Digital Economy in New York (2015, 2016) and Geneva (2017). Evidence shows that these changed the thinking of decision-makers at the WTO Secretariat (such as Director of the WTO IP and Competition Divisions) about how dominant operators on the internet should be regulated [7, 8]. The Director of Intellectual Property and Competition Divisions at the WTO said: "...I have made use of Professor Kariyawasam’s research and his reports for the WEF/ICTSD to inform my own research on digital divide issues, in particular in a current program on 'trade in knowledge' which is retooling and rebasing our approach to trade policy questions for the benefit of developing countries in the light of the changing landscape for trade resulting from the dissemination of digital technology.... This is why we invited him to contribute a chapter to a forthcoming volume, to be published by Cambridge University Press in [2021], entitled Competition policy and intellectual property in today's global economy. We invited him to provide a paper as we felt it essential to have an authoritative account of the significance of a balanced approach to intellectual property law and competition policy to address the digital divide..”[ 7]. The then Managing Director of the Geneva-based International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development said: “Kariyawasam's research proposed a fundamental step change in how large internet operators who have monopoly power should be regulated and the advantages to developing countries of embracing the digital economy. As an NGO, we felt that Kariyawasam's ideas for regulatory change could have significant impact on policy on the regulation of dominant internet undertakings and should be widely disseminated.” [8]