{"id":11393,"date":"2016-12-11T17:17:44","date_gmt":"2016-12-11T17:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/airwars.org\/?p=11393"},"modified":"2016-12-15T18:05:43","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T18:05:43","slug":"airwars-transparency-audit-reveals-coalitions-limited-accountability-for-civilian-casualties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airwars.org\/airwars-transparency-audit-reveals-coalitions-limited-accountability-for-civilian-casualties\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Airwars audit of anti-ISIL Coalition reveals limited accountability for civilian casualties"},"content":{"rendered":"
Greater accountability and transparency is required in the US-led Coalition’s handling of civilian casualties, according to a major report published by Airwars on December 12th.<\/p>\n
Limited Accountability: a transparency audit of the Coalition air war against so-called Islamic State<\/a><\/span>, commissioned by the Remote Control Project, finds systematic failings among all Coalition militaries to properly count the civilian toll of the air campaign.<\/p>\n Airwars’ analysis of the monitoring, assessing and investigation of civilian casualty allegations across Coalition partners shows that processes have been opaque and ad hoc, lacking the common rules and procedures required for baseline public reporting.<\/p>\n Through a detailed assessment of transparency and accountability by each Coalition partner, Airwars has revealed wide variations in transparency standards across Coalition partners.<\/p>\n Canada, the UK, the United States and France have consistently been the more transparent. In contrast, six other nations – Australia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Belgium, along with Jordan and the Netherlands – have issued extremely limited information on their military actions.<\/p>\n These findings were also borne out by a transparency case study of a sample month of the anti-ISIL campaign. For July 2016, Airwars initially examined all published records of active Coalition partners to see which may have been involved in any particular casualty event. It then reached out to individual ministries of defence for further information to gain more clarity on each nation’s actions in Iraq and Syria during the month. In some instances, this meant that certain countries could be discounted as having been involved in civilian casualty allegations.<\/p>\n Strong engagement from the United States and the United Kingdom led to the opening of seven new investigations. Belgium, Australia and Denmark, however, would not engage on specific civilian casualty allegations; as a result their role in certain civilian casualty events remained unresolved – even if they were in fact not involved.<\/p>\n Improved transparency would not only bring these nations considerable strategic and tactical benefits, but also safeguard their reputation, distinguishing them from other belligerents, such as Russia, and reinforcing their claim that they place a premium on the preservation of civilian lives. However, no Coalition member besides the US has admitted to killing a single civilian in over two years of war.<\/p>\nThe benefits of transparency: a breakdown by nation<\/h3>\n