To talk about what as long as elements are going to be part of it. Also to strengthen the perception that justice will be here in the hope that we can deter some of the conduct, encourage people to desert, discourage people in the opposition for taking an eye for an eye. Sure. In this respect, what would be your reaction, your advice, if in the fullness of time were faced with the following proposition. President Bashar Al Assad and 200 of his closest enablers are willing to leave syria forth with and bring an end to at least one phase of this conflict. In return for imunite from prosecution. Is that doable under Current Conditions . Is it unthinkable . First of all if we were actually presented with a proposition like this . Well, first of all, ive not seen any evidence that this guy, or the people around them, are ready to go. A hypothetical question. At any point. Thats often whats presented here. Well, if you gave the guy a bull tow or a place to go we could get them out. Usually thats not the case. We have a situation like sierra leone where they agreed to amnesty. Charles taylor helped amnesty with rebels chopping off hands and raping women by thousands and committing such horrible crimes. They got a full amnesty. They agreed to disarm, they didnt disarm. They were out again. Thats the problem. The signal is sent you can get away with it. Next time you want to gain or hold political power, you do the same thing confident youre able to walk again. Thats now how we enforce the law in the country. Thats not how we build the rule of law anywhere in the world. Fundamentally from an International Point of view, its one thing to say you can go. At the time they go, there may not be a court with jurisdiction created. You say its better to go and stop your crimes. Its another thing to then turn around and say, oh, now you have a get out of jail free card for the rest of your life. As a matter of International Law, talk about Different Countries may have different policies and different approaches to this, but as a matter of International Law, thats not possible. It would not be binding. It would not prevent a prosecutor like myself going after Charles Taylor or somebody else prosecuting in the future. These crimes are too serious for that. Since youve allowed me the opening of a hypothetical question in the state department we dont answer hypothetical questio questions. Perhaps you could give this one a try. If you were were Bashar Al Assads attorney, and if he was taking your counsel about his personal potential liabilities in all this, what would you be telling him in terms of his liability and what would you be advised him in terms of a future course of action to minimize whatever liability you might have. Hard to talk hypothetically knowing what we know about the conduct, having seen the documents, of course. At the end of the day as his attorney the accusations are out there. My advise advice always to someone committing the crimes. One, its not too late to stop. What we say to any hostage holder, dont make it worse for yourself, stop now. Without saying well forgive you for killing the 15 people you killed, take the hostages. We dont say that we dont make that kind of promise. Secondly, consistent with the law of responsibility to the extent the individual begins some kind of process to hold people to account, who committed these crimes, they send a signal perhaps they werent completely in the know. Certainly took action to prevent or punish conduct. One of the easier roots to convict at the International Level is barred. Depends on how quick the guy acted. I dont want to say its completely barred. Look, this kind of conduct is not something i support. These individuals who ran prisons should be charge, not in a scapegoat test but a fair one. Thats why when people are in negotiations elsewhere, we dont want to talk about this. No, no, no. Get in there and say, look, if you want to be in good shape, you should be talking about accountability measures. What are you going to do about these horrible crimes committed . What are you going to do about out of control soldiers or political zell ots or people motivated by religions hatred. What are you going to do about that . To the extent you had plans in that area, that would increase the chance you wouldnt be a target for prosecution. Keeping in mind International Prosecutor is vested with discretion about what case is appropriate and what isnt. Tendency to go to the person and who is responsible. Those that show that not only did they stop the crimes, they also encouraged the crimes, et cetera. Obviously challenging given the stage in syria. Never too late to get right on that issue. That would help far better than continuing. Obviously his hope is that he can kill every last opponent, do what his father did in houma in 1982. We are way beyond that. This spread beyond that, millions displaced, inflamed. This is not something you can have a military victory like conventional war. This is something that will remain a tense and conflicted situation. So the idea he can kill his way out of this thing, that doesnt work either. You mentioned earlier the work of the commission of inquiry connected to Human Rights Council and the reports its rendered. The fact war crimes and crimes against humanity in syria are not exclusively the province of the assad regime, that there have been other bad actors as well. Is there in terms of International Law, in terms of judicial proceedings ultimately, is there a decision to be drawn between state actors and nonstate actors. In other words, if one could get ones hands on him, would he be subject potentially to the same kind of procedures a president of the republic might be, or is there a distinction between public and private here . Well, in the law book that we file when these international tribunals, basically theres no distinction. Keep independent mind the International Court for sierra leone, people were prosecuted are leaders are ruf, crf and ruc we prosecuted for crimes they committed when they werent in state power. And they were found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and violations of International Humanitarian law. International human rights law works a little differently when it comes to these things. But when you talk about atrocity crimes, both sides are both sides equally subject to those laws. So the leader of isis could be held responsible in terms of the kind of evidence that this organization put out on youtube and other places of cold blooded killing of individuals. In public view, boasting about those killing. At high level clearly aware of them and condoning them. Youve got an awfully good case right now, one you could take to a judge tomorrow, if you have a court constituted. In that regard, if you think about future prosecutions, is the state of the existing documentation right now, in your view, sufficient to move forward in various avenues. Could you say a little about who is actually involved in documentation of war crimes, crimes against syria . How many cooks are there in the kitchen hour. Is there somewhere a coordination mechanism in all of this so that someone at least knows whats coming in. Is it all assembled in one place. There are efforts to coordinate these things. Its complicated when you dont have a court specifically given jurisdiction over the crime. We want to collect everything available and work closely with syrians. My first engagement with this issue was going out to istanbul and training syrian lawyers and had come just out of the conflict. Someone moving back and forth across borders proofing command for responsibility, responsibility for political leaders and for others. Also in clearly communicating to them the importance of abiding by International Law for armed opposition. Clearly important they respect civilians. Because a member of their community killed in cold blad they dont take action against a person of a community received to be supported by assad. Thats been something weve encouraged. Now in april of 2012, secretary clinton announced we would support accountability of justice and accountability center. Thats been established, funded by United States, 40 other countries. Its serving as a clearing house. Its providing guidelines and expertise to various other groups doing the collection. Its not actually doing the collection itself. It established this sort of network of contacts. One of the groups, the Syrian Commission on justice and accountability headed by canadian bill wiley but with substantially syrian staff, has been very active, supported by accountability center, now has a subject of 6 million a year. Specifically focusing on linkage evidence. If you look at International Trials and look at some of those where sometimes the bad guy got away, it was because of the absence not of the evidence someone was raped and murder or thousands of victims but connecting the dots between the retail killer and the person at the wholesale level thats really responsible. Youve got to have that kind of linkage. This group focused on linkage and hundreds of thousands from buildings and Political Services and security committees as those have fallen to the opposition and been able to get those documents out of the country. Its analyzed them and built cases. A quarter of its dossiers in opposition, isis and others. The trove the council in geneva on the 17th, its collected 300,000 statements of victims and survivors of these crimes, et cetera. And with production of sources, that kind of material can be made available at least for purposes for future prosecution. Given the fact what weve done at International Level is talk about representative crimes, cant prosecute everything, you prosecute strongest cases you have of rape, strongest cases you have of enslavement, mutilation, child soldiers, whatever. Frankly the trove is already rich enough. I wish the crime would stop today. There would be plenty to go on. Its important to continue to collect this information, certainly sending the signal to anyone out there perhaps tempted by action on the other side to commit these crimes to realize there would be consequences for them, too. The tactical situation on the ground in syria these days seems to be not very favorable to the opposition. Some people are coming to the conclusion the assad regime has essentially won, that questions of accountability are really not terribly relevant. Im wondering in your own discussions with Syrian Opposition people, does this question come up about the relevance of accountability data. Given the sheer quantity of evidence thats been collected, does this in any way inhibit the ability of the United States in the future to work with the assad regime, if the assad regime becomes a more or less permanent feature. There are people out there saying quite frankly we should go back to Bashar Al Assad and strike some kind of deal. What kind of inhibition is created by sheer volume of evidence. Inhibition created by the truth that happened there and the fact that truth is undeniable. But fundamentally we have to recognize what we have with this regime and its key actors is that its legitimacy, its ability to serve the public of syria is gone, if ever it were there. Frankly in my discussions at a time when peace negotiations arent moving forward, wed like them to move forward, people are stronger on the accountability issue, you see it going to the Security Council in may, because it is so important to clearly get this information out there and have it understood this kind of conduct capital be the conduct that enables someone to maintain power. The matter of whole global system, protection of rights of victims, the matter of protecting the right of civilians, everything that we work for, everything we struggle to build is put in danger if this kind of conduct is rewarded. All the more reason to emphasize accountability, all the more reason to say people that commit conduct like this have to go and they will face consequences even if they dont go. There will be consequences as we move into the future. Good. Thank you. Id like to offer the audience the opportunity to pose some questions here. What i would ask is as i designate to you pose a question, please pose a question, be as brief as you can, and please state your name and affiliation. First one in the back there. Hi, im with the foundation. I have two very specific questions. First of all i want to just have a reminder, when referring to isis, please refer them as a third party to the conflict and not as part of the Rebel Alliance because their entire strategy so far really clearly indicates they are not interested in the revolution and early goals of the revolution. I think its fair to see them as a third party on a very complicated scene. The questions i actually have is the intervention in bosnia was justified by using the term acts of genocide. Now, can what happened in syria, especially perpetrated by militias and considering evidence of whats happening in detention camps and ethnic cleansing that took part in different parts of the country, can this be classified as genocide. Can this classification give the crimes of our happening more urgency, legal immediacy that puts them above categorization and crimes of mass slaughter. Second question, at one point early in the revolution, bashar assad issued a president ial decree. I dont remember the exact number but i can send you the information if you want it. In that decree he actually said all crimes perpetrated by members of the security establishment, soldiers, members of militia allowed to perform at the time, all of the crimes would be granted amnesty. Within the conduct of their jobs if a soldier kills, tortures, steals, rapes, all these crimes, according to the decree, would not be decree, would be am nest city. Would that make assad responsible for every crime perpetrated by each and every member of the security establishment since the beginning of the revolution to date . Doesnt this membership in the prosecution to have that decree and refer to it. In a sense, you dont even need a chain of command anymore. You have this decree in which the president or country is telling members of security establishment, do what you want, forgiven. If i can respond to that, it was a long question, i know i can respond to several at the same time. Certainly, first of all, i dont want to indicate isis is part of the Rebel Alliance fighting for democratic transition in country. Obviously we want to see the moderate opposition, including islam part of a future syria. Isis, the way it conducted itself and the exclusion area way conducted every bit of its operations the way it kills anybody that it runs into from any of the other groups group i think is beyond the pale. Make it absolutely clear. In terms of your question on the genocide issue. Not to get directly into the history of bosnia, as far as the situation in bosnia, the only crime recognized at the International Court is genocide is the murder of the 8,000 men and boys, happened in july 95, relatively late in that conflict. Before this time, horrendous war crimes, horrendous crimes against humanity. Even though i prosecuted genocide in the rwanda context where people were killed based on ethnicity, in other cigs in cambodia where 2 million were killed, it may not have been a genocide. I dont think we should place crimes on hierarchy. The kind of crimes committed in syria are every bit as serious as those that have been committed elsewhere in situations in which there was a recognized genocide. To have a genocide, youd have to show a desire to kill all of the sunnis, sunnis in significant part. Youd have to cross that particular line. To sort of focus on that issue, killing of mass civilians on that kind of basis. I think to get caught up in legalisms. Fundamentally horrible atrocities requires international response, requires under responsibility to protect. It talks about genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity in the same paragraph. In terms of the responsibility of assad on the basis of the amnesty, obviously amnesty is evidence of a desire not to punish these crimes its also a signal you dont want them prevented. Obviously if people go out tomorrow, youre saying youre going to give them amnesty the next day. That is very, very good evidence. For command responsibility you have to show he was in effective control of these units. Its not automotive but extremely valuable evidence when it comes to holding a leader responsible as a commander. You know, in late in that conduct in late 2011, i guess it was president assad sat for an interview with Barbara Walters. The essential argument, if i recall it correctly from those days, was, look, bad things are happening. But im the president of the republic. I cant be responsible for things happening at the working level. How does that stand up as a defense in a general manner . Well, its what you generally hear in a number of these situations, what Charles Taylor said, milosevic, his case had not yet come to verdict when he died, strong evidence presented. Commentators believe he would have been found guilty. But you show through the linkage evidence that you have commands from a high level. You have witnesses who describe situations in which the leader was made aware of certain crimes and certain activities, then youve got evidence like we just indicated that despite these horrors that are out there, that people are receiving amnesty and they are receiving it if they committed a crime. So all of those things would tend to make the statement in front of Barbara Walters or the statement in the court eventually not carry much weight. Does the evidence exist in your view . Yes. This is a hierarchical regime, baath Party Structure with the same person on top of it. This is a situation which clearly there is a high command and responsiveness through those change of command. A situation documents have come out of the command center at the highest level. The evide