an increasingly more dangerous but i wonder if it could have been different really because what would be an alternative to committing war crimes in a war zone the only alternative i can think of would be not having this war at all so i would like to ask you could you cite any specific example maybe from the recent history of a war conducted in a good way in accordance with the laws of war i think the whole point of what we call him a terran law is to have some rules of conduct that benefit everyone including the fighters and of course particular civilian so principles and rules such as we must distinguish between military objects military personnel and civilians and so we shouldn't shoot civilian personnel and objects while of course the conduct between the military continues that principle of. principle against discriminate attacks or . indiscriminate attacks that happen which a complaint against

a castigated by us that's a very important principle another one is the prohibition on various weapons use of various weapons very recently of course the issue of chemical weapons but other other weapons such as cluster bombs for example in the situation that we've covered barrel bombs that are dropped from helicopters or whatever and affect very much civilians in terms of this indiscriminate attack on civilians i think you just laid out some of your major criticisms against the syrian government and that would be launching indiscriminate attacks against civilians something that you mention in this report and in many of the previous reports but you also. make a point in this report that rebel forces themselves often operate from within civilian neighborhoods therefore putting civilians at risk and while i would i think we all would agree with your recommendation that the syrian government should do and my bet. job distinguishing between civilians and combatants i wonder if the

commission can offer a specific advice on how to do that at a time with civil war the coverage that we offer encompasses all groups both government and non-government and the humanitarian message that is relayed is one that's relate to all sides so that see nondiscriminatory aspect of our work in terms of covering all actors inside syria as well as a message for those backing them and the current report which is eleventh report. is a litany sadly it's a knee of violations by government groups government forces and it also covers the acts the misdeeds of non-government groups and i give you one example the issue of child soldiers for example we raise very prominently and openly in regard to the conduct of non-government groups in terms of usage of children as soldiers minister likewise in any other war many more crimes committed by the rebels that you list

but let me press you a little bit on that because i think this is a crucial point the syrian government as well as the syrian rebels have been criticized for that atrocities but again i come back to my original point is whether you can really add differently in a situation of a civil war and more specifically since most of the deaths come from shallowing i wonder if indeed the syrian government could have chosen a different way different option of conducting that war and what that option would be from a humanitarian point of view well one angle is prevention and prevention demands a certain order a certain policy from governments and non gun groups to abide by the law so the order from the top must be very clear to prevent violations another angle is protection of particular civilians and that means a respect for their rights and accountability. and all that is very very much

linked also not only with our work but the u.n. system as a whole in terms of enabling a certain system of accountability to take place now you mentioned earlier the prevention aspect that the best i guess what i took from your answer the best way would be to focus on conflict prevention rather than resolution but what strikes me in the report that you just issued was that you criticize again the assad government for they have a use of military force including missiles fighter jets and artillery against rebel held areas to quote prevent every turn to normality in armed group control and wonder what would be the example of normality under armed group control is it actually saying that once. you know a rebel group takes control of a certain territory the the government should just lay down their arms and live them administer that neighborhood in whatever way they please well we have basic

principles on this particular emerging from the geneva conventions concerning. warfare conflicts and particular article three which pertains to. conflicts or civil war even in times of civil war there are certain premises that certain principles that trip be followed for example if someone is detained here or she should be taken to a regularly constituted court tribunals and should not be summarily executed yeah absolutely i don't believe it's going to last me i agree with you on that point but my question was a bit different my question was about. what you call the reality under armed group control and we had just a couple of months ago the example of the city of iraq a watch which was administered by al qaeda associated groups of its sharia trials and people being publicly executed on the streets and you had to criticizing the syrian government for shelling those neighborhoods and it's. efforts you get them

read of the rebels but i wonder. if your criticism is really valid is the cd administered by al-qaeda the example of normality that you allude to in your report the elements if we want to use the word normality i would link that very much with. applying implementing humanitarian rules humanitarian law even in times of on conflict in all territories occupied by whomever for example as i said earlier whoever is detained in any territory in armed conflict should have access to a regularly constituted court intrade not be executed summarily another issue as you mentioned access to food war to education medical supplies very important to enable that to take place even time of war in whatever territories whether it's government controlled or in opposition controlled areas if those rights that you just mentioned i deny by rebel groups does the government not only the syrian government

but any other government have the right to use force to eliminate those rebel groups from the area principle is this if there's a crime committed one crime does not justify another crime secondly whoever is responsible for misdeeds should fall under the general international law human rights military and law and the basic principles that i've already listed for example if if you catch someone for a certain misdeed even in time of war that person should not be executed summarily be taken to a regularly constitute quote another principle is that everyone should have access to many many men ten assistants a particular medical assistance and that medical personnel in any territory should be protected together with the medical facilities and access to medical care so all these pertain very much to syria today as well as any other situation conflict we talked a little. a bit about the violations committed by the syrian government i think

what makes this report is a little bit different from the previous ones is that you know of an upsurge in atrocities committed by the rebels and more specifically you mentioned that there is an increasing influx of foreign fighters into syria and the syrian government of course has been claiming that for more than two years they've been even providing documented evidence of that but a significant part of the international community was dismissing those evidence as essentially the syrian regime propaganda to justify its crimes against humanity now it looks that the commission that you represent. also find some truth in the claims of the syrian regime that this is not just war not not just a civil war but also a war against terrorism the internationalization and certainly opposition is that this is an international conflict a civil war in the local terms and it falls under what we call him and particularly

law concerning the war geneva conventions don forty nine together with protocols of ninety seven the issue of labeling acts or labeling misdeeds we do have many terms that are being used and you cited some of them now one very important principle in time of war is that acts of terror acts spreading terror among the civilian population prohibits it so those acts such as bombing intentionally civilian population to create terror those would be classifiable as war crimes and we do cover these situations acts spreading terror among the civilian population ok we have to take a short break now but when we come back as the wall once again fails on conflict resolution should the international community focus more on conflict prevention that's coming up in a few moments on wall to par. put

it on your. face i think i'm. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm. on their way to antarctica the crew of the i can to make sure that a face many challenges. here you have to look out for yourself crashing on to rocks trapped in pack ice in extreme conditions anything can happen and always comes up

with surprises you have to keep your eyes open because if there's always something going wrong the ship carries huge reserves of water food fuel as well as helicopters and people able to survive extreme conditions they're ready for anything even an apocalypse she's really an incredible ship calling all antarctica stations this is academic a field of radio check please respond. live

live. live . big bucks for. everybody to do the job the premise is the only industry specifically mention of the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy but albums. will. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of

our government and our proximity we've been hijacked right handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built by john mark and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the next rational debate real discussion critical issues things that are there but are you ready to join the movement then welcome to the. welcome back to world the part of your discussing the latest report on atrocities in syria with me to the born member of the independent commission that led that inquiry before we went to break we were talking about accountability and the standards of war the laws of war about are that should ideally speaking apply to

everybody and in your latest report the commission accuses the government of using torture against the detainees including what it calls previously on documented torture maddux for example its sides these so-called simulated drowning reach to me sounds very similar to a practice american practice of waterboarding and i think we we all would agree the u.s. united nations certainly agreed that the treatment of detainees in iraq constituted torture the treatment of detainees in guantanamo a concept. torture there are also a numerous reports of torture in the lead be in prisons. i guess the question i'm asking is do you get a sense that torture is essentially becoming trivialized in war zones these days because we can talk about accountability of the assad government for the crimes against humanity that they committed but all these admittedly the assad

government's record on human rights has never been particularly strong where certain countries like the united states for example that is considered a champion of democracy and human rights has committed torture on record and yet has never been brought to account for that well as you know on mandate the commission inquiry covers what happens in syria so i'm not in a position to make comparisons with situations elsewhere and in that perspective of course. torture is a universal crime it's an international crime and in the context of what we're dealing with torture is also a war crime and a crime against humanity if it's particularly practiced systematically or in a widespread man against the civilian population so all these possibilities in terms of responsibility in terms of criminal responsibility and account accountability what is interesting with the situation concerning syria is that.

syria is not a member not a party to the statute of the international criminal court so united states that by the way. well i'm not talking about any other countries i'm talking about the remit demanded that i'm covering with due respect to the various comments about syria and syria is not a party to the international criminal courts statute so in that a. position so to speak nationals from syria cannot be crossed referred to the international criminal court through lack of that ratification however we do have a means of referring whether it's syrians or anybody else who commit major violations to the international criminal court and that is through the. the auspices of the security council so one of the measures that could be taken up

is through the security council to cross refer cases to the international criminal court as we speak about the use of torture or other crimes against humanity committed in syria and. i'm sure you are aware that from the very beginning of this conflict. it has been marred by and precedented efforts to manipulate public opinion both within syria and outside syria by the government as well as by rebel groups and i think the counts of atrocities not only in this conflict but also in previous conflicts the libyan conflict would be one example of that have been used to put pressure on the international community to prompt some sort of action even though for example in the libyan case many of those claims of atrocities were never substantiated my question to you is how cognizant you are that anything that you say anything that you put in your report can influence the how this war is

going to develop in the future any given party may use that report to justify its own course of action with totally. conscious of the responsibility to be fair and impartial and you may or may not know that the commission is a pro bono. we're doing this free to help the international community and of course particularly the syrian people and is an honor and pleasure to do so so that's the spirit with which we come in terms of objectivity impartiality and total i mean looking but i think the matter and the methods that you are using are not cannot be described as very reliable as far as i understand you rely primarily on interviews phone interviews chi and skype interviews personal interviews and as a war correspondent myself i know that at the time of war in any war zone you know the stories of atrocities take on life of their own and it's only natural for people to seek to justify the side that they support and demonize the side that they oppose and i think again the libyan example shows that many of the claims of

atrocities that people are so sure about during the war turn out to be unsubstantiated later on what we do is we have investigators who interview witnesses and victims directly over two thousand people have been interviewed already very substantial documentation as to who did what to suffer when things took place and through that evidence we cross check what we call corroboration and after that we synthesize a finding so as to ultimately have a list of those close to the circumstances or the list of perpetrators so i think that's a very very balanced approach bearing in mind that we also welcome the possibility of entering syria we've asked for entry but we're still waiting for a response in terms of entry and if we are able to enter with investigators that will help us much more in terms of direct access to the evidence at the local level

but even today we have some access through skype to those in syria but the methodology that i highlighted earlier is one that assesses and listens to the evidence the witnesses who might be outside syria but they are direct with disses who checked christian. and corroborates and. borne i think there vince some examples in the past when the international community including your own commission was absolutely sure about who conducted any given atrocity for example the houla massacre back in may two thousand and twelve reported by your commission put the blame squarely on the assad government later on it emerged that for example i believe it was the un human rights council that published a report saying that the with evidence available it wasn't possible to conclude who actually did that massacre and you know there are still a lot of questions unanswered questions about who may have may have been behind that massacre i guess my question is whether there are not in all your

investigations in your experience you have ever come up either against evidence or at least a suspicion that some of those massacres may be perpetrated by people who tried to put the blame on the other side of the situation plays a while ago and so i would invite you to particular look at the updates and the more recent reports other situations the current report the live report actually lists eight massacres eight massacres perpetrated by government forces and one massacre perpetrated by non-government forces so that's the current report i'm sorry for going for that question once again but i think the houla massacre is a very interesting and a very interesting example because back then i remember how the entire international community was some exceptions notable exceptions of course but was rallying behind that massacre and really trying to push that as

a. reason to authorize internet international intervention in syria now of course the world's attention is turned to damascus where chemical weapons were supposedly used on you know some part of the international. communities once again absolutely positive about who did that attack but again the suspicions remain well i think the first message ship particularly because you link that situation to many other elements the first message that we've consistently highlighted is is that there is no military solution there is no military solution it has to be a political solution the peaceful solution secondly we are in the road of fact finding. another was looking at the facts and circumstances including her. but since then have been many other situations and the current report looks at because it which was a request put to us just a few months ago as well as many other massacres and unlawful killing zone so this is the progression of the analysis with

a view to accountability and thirdly i think it's very important that we really the message that the actors the perpetrators may have some backus what we call constituencies behind them and so our message also is to invite and influence the constituencies behind the various groups and troops and so on to abide by human rights in metairie and law as well as to ensure that the people they give money to comply with human rights and humanitarian law while ensuring compliance what you just said is a crucial piece of the puzzle here of course and i would like i mean the continuing support for the for various parties in this conflict and making sure that proxy parties proxy powers also comply or with their accommodation that you suggest but coming back to what you just said and i think it's included in the reported that

there is no military solution to this conflict all basically you. in the context of your report it is more or less related to the syrian government and the fact that it has to rein in its military offensive but if there is no military solution in principle shouldn't we also recognize there that there should be a normal a true solution as applied to the rebels because it was the rebel forces who actually saw the military solution as a way of advancing their political goals they preferred the military solution from the very beginning they continue on the path of their resistance as a way of advancing that probably most legitimate goals and moreover. the united states one of the proxy parties to this conflict was talking about the military intervention just last week so if there is no military solution for the there should be no military solution for the assad government should that also apply to the rebels and to the outside forces. you to some words that i wouldn't

use the words that i would use would be no military solution and that we would go towards a political settlement political solution action bearing in mind that it's. yes that's that's a message for everyone and we welcome very much media in support of this mr xi in terms of the need for a political solution and having said that again i think a couple of words might be useful to you from the speech that the chair delivered today in the human rights council in geneva we use that what influential states influential states should also help us on this in terms of relaying the message of human rights and humanitarian law as well as to help ensure compliance with the principles concerned such as the need to distinguish between military targets and non military targets so protection of civilians as key and non use of certain weapons and weapons that we classify as illegals as well as conduct of us to teach

in compliance with the military and mr mood of war and if i could i would add only one option to that place that you just mentioned and that is thinking twice before encouraging military rebellion or uprising for whatever democratic cause there may be but unfortunately we are out of time they have to leave it there i really appreciate you talking to us and i would like to leave our viewers with a quote from robert jackson the chief u.s. prosecutor at bin your own back child who is sad that the war itself was a major precursor for future atrocities and resorting to it was the biggest crime of all but this is all we have time for so please join us again same place same time here in a while the part. unexplored

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form is probably the most complex and difficult human activity. that. all of us are still locked up. in the phenomenon of friendly fire probably extends back to the invention of gunpowder. to kill a bunch of people you know don't know someone for their friends they're already us people. reading. this some of them shoots my brother in the leg not intentionally because of it because it was night times four in the morning even the best even the belch shoulders. are going to make mistakes is this whole idea of brotherhood an author. and camaraderie in this sense it was in this context that has absolutely no place.

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local. t.v. . no u.n. resolution on syria's chemical disarmament should allow the use of force according to russia's foreign minister who tells his french colleague he wants more pressure on the syrian opposition to join peace talks. a mass shooting in the u.s. leaves thirteen known gunman targeting a heavily guarded naval facility the motives behind the attack. on r.t. speaks exclusively to the lawyer of whistleblower edward snowden as we pieced together the details of the fugitive every day life months after his revelations lifted the veil on the n.s.a.'s sweeping snooping activities.