For instance, aid and advocacy groups like the Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians were critical in preparing a report documenting ISIS atrocities committed against ethnic and religious minorities, which led then Secretary of State John Kerry to declare ISIS actions a genocide.
Also, they said, "the Special Adviser should have a firm background in international law to ensure the right categories are being used for the atrocities committed."
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Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., called the resolution "a landmark" and "a major first step towards addressing the death, suffering, and injury of the victims of crimes committed by ISIS in Iraq – crimes that include genocide."
"These victims have been Yazidis, Christians, Shia and Sunni Muslims, and many, many more," she said.
ADF International pointed out that the Security Council "for the first time" did not discount the possibility of using the term "genocide" to describe the atrocities committed by ISIS. Human rights advocates have argued that ISIS crimes constitute a genocide according to the U.N.'s definition.
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According to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the intent to commit genocide means the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Genocide can be committed through killing, torture, forced sterilization, moving the children of one group elsewhere, or "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."
In 2014, ISIS militants conquered large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq in an attempt to establish a caliphate based upon an extremist interpretation of Islam.
As they took over cities and towns in Syria and in Northern Iraq, ISIS killed and displaced many religious and ethnic minorities in the region, including Christians, Yezidis, Shia and Sunni Muslims, Turkmen, and Shabak. There were countless reports of murders, torture, the kidnapping and enslavement of Yezidi and Christian women and girls, evidence of mass graves, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands.