On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of 18 European countries pledged to confront impunity for the Islamic State and the Syrian regime, against the background of their accusations of committing chemical weapons attacks, kidnappings and disappearances.
"Our countries are committed to ensuring that war criminals and perpetrators of torture do not go unpunished," the ministers said in a joint statement posted on the website of the French Foreign Ministry.
The ministers added that in the past ten years nearly 400,000 people have been killed and more than 6 million have been forced to flee the country to escape "countless violations of human rights."
And President Bashar al-Assad - backed by Russia - faced accusations of using chemical weapons in violation of international law as he regained control of the country, and the ministers said, "We must shed full light on this decade of atrocities."
"We continue our call to allow the International Criminal Court to investigate suspected crimes in Syria and prosecute the perpetrators," they added.
Cases have already been filed in several European countries on the basis of the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows the perpetrators of the most serious crimes to be tried, regardless of their nationality and where the crimes occurred.
In February, a German court convicted a former member of the Syrian intelligence service for "complicity in crimes against humanity," as part of the world's first trial of violations attributed to the Syrian regime.
The statement comes a day after international donors pledged to provide $ 6.4 billion in aid to the Syrian people and refugees in neighboring countries, a clear reversal from the previous version of their conference and away from the goal set by the United Nations at $ 10 billion.
European countries insist that they will not spend the money on massive reconstruction in Syria until Assad commits to a real political process to resolve the conflict.