Prosecute; don’t perpetrate has made two submissions to a parliamentary review into legislation allowing the Australian government to revoke the citizenship of foreign fighters. The review is being undertaken by the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security of Australia’s federal parliament.

Our first submission addressed the reviews questions on the operation, effectiveness and implications of the legislation allowing the revocation of citizenship. Although prosecute; don’t perpetrate is primarily concerned with the implications of the legislation on the prosecution of crimes of sexual violence, our submission also addressed matters of operation and effectiveness. In short, revoking the citizenship of perpetrators of these crimes creates an additional barrier to prosecution.

We were invited to make a second submission to the committee after a parallel inquiry on security legislation published its report. Our second submission provided an update to the threat environment since the original legislation was passed, but also since the report had been published. This was important considering the US withdrawal from northern Syria in early October will likely catalyse a much quicker return of ISIS than otherwise was otherwise probable. We also provided substantial detail on how the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide needed to be facilitated by changes to inter-agency cooperation within government.