The Netherlands and Canada have submitted a case against Syria to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over allegations of torture.
Their application accuses the Syrian government of committing "countless violations of international law" since the country's civil war began in 2011.
"Syrian citizens have been tortured, murdered, disappeared, attacked with poison gas, or forced to flee for their lives and leave behind everything they had," Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said in a statement.
More than half a million people have been killed in the conflict that erupted after President Bashar al-Assad cracked down violently on peaceful pro-democracy protests.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) monitoring group, they include at least 14,449 civilians who have died due to torture in government prisons.
Former detainees have alleged that government forces have routinely employed torture methods including severe beatings, electric shocks, burning body parts, pulling out nails and teeth, rape and other sexual violence, as well as the systematic deprivation of food, water and medicine.
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