War crimes tribunal for Islamic State detainees lacks support

WASHINGTON — War crimes investigators collecting evidence of the Islamic State group’s elaborate operation to kidnap thousands of women as sex slaves say they have a case to try the group’s leaders with crimes against humanity but cannot get the global backing to bring current detainees before an international tribunal.

Current and former State Department officials say that an attempt in late 2014 to have a legal finding of genocide was blocked by the Defense Department, setting back efforts to prosecute Islamic State members suspected of committing war crimes.

The U.S. has no legal obligation to take on the genocide of the Yazidis, but President Obama has said that “preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States of America.”

Stephen Rapp, who stepped down as the administration’s ambassador at large for war crimes last year, says the administration should have moved early to help secure evidence of Islamic State atrocities and push for the creation of special Iraqi courts to try war crimes.