it's repeated and i'm going to use of chemical weapons now i understand that that may sound as impartial in washington maybe even in geneva but in moscow or in damascus is that a misunderstanding or perhaps a misrepresentation of the mandate maybe i shall explain what it means to earth in the mechanism in part being impartial and independent i would start with independence independence means that you're not going to take instruction from any of the states and we know that in the situation of syria state of agenda so not taking instruction not acting according to agenda. what does it mean it means that you are doing your work professionally you are looking seeking to receive information from a very key of source not just certain sources what does it mean being impartial it means that you are showing. generally but also showing no bias in favor or against any of that i understand what you're saying you're talking about your methods of

work but there are also other considerations that come into that and one of that is funding you are funded so far on the voluntary basis when the one of your main sponsors cames comes out and they did the purpose for this mechanism in very stark geopolitical terms i wonder why would you expect for example the syrian state to cooperate with you in good faith i cannot speak for the states the states are taking their responsibility when they speak against say is that whether a state is currently under voluntary contributions funding or mechanism or not this will not lead to any change of attitude on our side as to how we conduct our work what i would like the syrian arab republic representative to understand and that's what i've tried to convey to them and any of the victims from whichever side they may. they need be is that the mandate that was given to us

is brought it's not targeting one particular side to this conflict it is broad it is focusing on identifying investigating first building fires are concerned with the more serious crimes and your title refers to the most serious crimes and you know seriousness is like beauty it's in the eye of the beholder why words this particular formulation chosen as opposed to let's say crimes against humanity or war crimes which covered the. well defined legal standard. if mike recollection is correct the same terminology if you wish was used in previous. accountability mechanism now i'm thinking more of tribunals which we are not but really there is no ambiguity as to what crimes we're talking about we're talking about the most serious president or international criminal law which. are indeed as you stated war crimes crimes against humanity genocide but even under that category in fact when

you look at the very. scale of atrocities you must be extremely modest as to the capacity to investigate all of that selecting and showing in your selection that you are actually doing what you say you do which is to look across the board and not focusing or targeting only one side is extremely important well let me follow up on that because the countries indoors the creation of this mechanism includes some countries which support it insurgency often for an insurgency in syria by covert and overt means. without officially declaring war on syria and oftentimes in contradiction with their own domestic legislation theoretically speaking does this fall under the triple i am definition of serious crimes is that something that you intend to look into i will look at it maybe slightly differently in me maybe explain to you the methodology because i think

that that explains it or we could have decided to collect. information or evidence on the basis of what easier to collect or we could as we have chose a methodology that was going to be. at a given us a capacity to answer the very question that one has to answer when looking at crimes against humanity war crimes or genocide so what we decided to do is to actually undertake what i was will call here for your audience a structural investigation and let me explain what it means you start identifying over our question that you have to put yourself in terms of patterns of crimes in terms of contextual element that you will need to be able to establish those facts . you look at you you try to answer questions such as can identify recurrent crimes and they identify

a truck so there are certain my go to my question. are you going to apply that structural analysis to the nature of the syrian the war we're going to replace the structure to the entirety of the situation to try to identify indeed those entities structure of power involved iraq the structures of power only in syria or beyond that we're going to look at what could be relevant to establishing liability so when you look at the label it to you look indeed that too broad i don't want to use particularly legal term but two broad categories. command structures on the one hand that would be relevant for command responsibility you also look at actions which may qualify as assisting fueling. facilitating the commission of crime and the legal expert in this difficult for me to. draw

a conclusion from what you just said but i do understand that the response to my question would actually be yes that you will not only be looking in syria but beyond syria asked to who have contributed to that war we can look at what indeed can be. a means which would entail a billet a criminal responsibility for the crap and that's not the physical perpetrator of the crime that goes beyond that including those who aid the commission of a crime you know i was preparing for this interview i devoted some time to studying the materials of the nuremberg trials which dealt a lot with the issue of the world aggression which the chief u.s. prosecutor at the time robert jackson defined in his opening address as the provision of support to the armbands formed in the territory of another state and which according to him and many. of his colleagues at the nuremberg trials was the biggest crime a wall because it allowed all the other crimes that happened on their territory to

happen do you think this kind of logic this kind of rationale should be applied to the syrian war what do you think is the we should concentrate on the conduct that can quite. war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide and indeed look generally and broadly enough to the various conduct that can attach responsibility for. the when you talk about the crime of aggression the supporting terrorism or supporting armed groups on the territory of another state i'm actually not looking at the crimes that i described at the moment that's really the focus of our war. our focus but that includes condo that could. facilitate the commission of crimes you've referred to financing certain groups that are involved in the collection of crime weapons something in some countries are these kind of come here and there probably were kind of hundreds for part of what structure investigation and and

a criminal investigation looks at it yes part of your mandate is also to as you said the evidence and the strength of the evidence to contextualize this evidence and are assumed that in order to do that you will have to define the war in syria first whether it was a war of aggression a war of defense a civil war how do you can textural lives your evidence what's the framework and i think the question is really relevant to for instance war crimes because that's one of the one of the crimes for crimes against humanity you don't need to qualify the conflict in fact legally but for war crimes. identifying whether there was a conflict or clear and where you see just what i am saying that even if you waited because if you just defined. nobody because this is a very relevant question because an air raid on the civilian neighborhood may be considered as a crime against humanity but if you put it within the framework of war and when you

know that for example that neighborhood was a target because there are terrorists there who have been attacking other neighborhoods and we've been using it as a base if that changes the marine word you asking me whether it could be manipulated that love the way he. way seed is those categories of elements of material elements of crime there are well defined by law by jurisprudence so i think we are rigidly safe areas there then of course the act of analyzing whether the evidence that you collect is sufficient to conclude on each of these elements of crime that's that's but are you going to consider those new answers but we're going to consider to apply across all law methodology to first of all assess whether the evidence we collect is credible and relevant and see but also credible so when you ask whether for many pollution can arise many predation then of course arise in the context of of producing evidence or fake evidence or manipulated

evidence or it's a classic. recurrent and very familiar technique of being very cautious with what is presented to you as a piece of evidence and you have techniques to deal with that defend it depends on the nature of the evidence in question. very careful in strapless scrutiny of the testing when you for instance if the way but if you're dealing with evidence in the form of videos for instance or you look at different different aspect when you look at documents you need to look for it and see if he and the techniques to do that matter marcie really i have to stop you for a second we need to take a very short break but we will be back in just a few moments stay tuned. knows

it. could. do it a little he was. a little forced once only about the looking. forward to one of the. boys. cut.

you lose. seventy four design suppressions. seven thousand pilings. to join judges. hundred sixty nonstop days of. the russian w.b. a champion of it. and a russian. show you how. long the crimean bridge was built. witnessed the construction moving you need to transport. that will help the cause of crimea the. most all those while google more familiar with it a bit but it's clear. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy. let it be

an arms race. dramatic development only. to sit down and talk. to. yanks this is what happens to pensions in britain. welcome back to worlds apart that with katrina mark you had the authorized mechanism for the investigation and assessment of evidence of crimes committed in

syria since march two thousand build up and madam markey the mechanism was created by the un general assembly in the file days of the barack obama's a. and it was allows the month before the inauguration of donald trump has this change of power in the united states a fact that the development of this body in any way i don't think so the general assembly. gave us this mandate the secretary general. shortly thereafter appointed. requested assistance from the high commissioner for human rights to appoint a star to. the secretary general define very quickly the terms of reference and then we started operating shortly after my my nomination so i don't think politics in the us or elsewhere have really affected the development of the budget

as far as i know as of late may this year the trumpet ministration was still holding out at the funding. for the mechanism and according to the washington post they may be wrong but this is what i was using as a source that hold on funding may be indefinite how critical is the american contributions to the functioning of this entity. not more critical than any other state as you know we are we addressed it earlier the fact that we are currently in a situation of a voluntary contribution that is itself honestly i don't see an issue of. potential affecting potentially affecting our independence because as i explained when i'm not listing the ability you need to supply any military you're totally right. we are vulnerable if we can't sustain our war funding and that's why it's so important that the general assembly last it was last december two thousand and seventeen

called upon the thinkers or general to include the funding needs of the of tripoli within. next budget for that the budget for two thousand and twenty that's important for us because you will understand. you know you realize the importance of the task that it is upon earth we need to be able to concentrate all of our efforts on doing our job if i'm not wrong the operational cost for the mechanisms to first year was estimated to me that there are around thirteen billion dollars per year which includes salaries and un mandated privileges for roughly fifty staff members is that how much this entity is expected to cost in the coming years or are you expecting some fluctuation in two thousand eight hundred thirteen million was the estimation that was made before even my appointment there worse. aspect of the funding that were identified in the report of the secretary general

so it's not that those issues were not taken into account but it was just simply not possible at the time to have an estimate of how much it would cost so those costs were not included in the in those thirty million and give you one very notable example the cost of securing the evidence. of dealing with in the particular context of syria an unprecedented amount of video material but if you want to do this work properly you really need to store safely securely very large amount of evidence you can't just decide to go for a little part because i mean that would question your impartiality as well we now know that the cost of only that. is approximately it's a little more than two million per year the exact amount of money that we need for two thousand and eighteen is fourteen million and i expect the budget that we will

seek to attain to be to be or that i interviewed the u.n. secretary general just a few weeks ago and he was very open about. a lot of cost cutting and cost optimization that he and his colleagues have to do at this point in time especially due to the decrease in the american contributions do you have any concerns that this matter a mechanism is going to be downsized even before it had a chance to develop for well i'm an optimistic person so i don't want to consider that what i will say seriously is that there are certain areas where you can't compromise so sag safety security. to collect it would be in this mechanism as really the potential of becoming a conference of central represent free of the evidence so for for this year and situation we need to do that very seriously and broadly enough to be able to do on our joy. if we were to incur costs that would have

a an impact i would say on the capacity to run similar tenuously a certain number of cases have as they hope i have explained to you we really want to be able to run cases at the same time and not to decide ok let's focus now on the government or on their hair or on other groups let's or on the four or on there is of those groups we want you to be able to do our job at a pace which demonstrate this willingness of being impartial and independent not being able to proceed at a decent pace is not good for many reasons first of all the trust that you are trying to build will be very difficult to build including from the communities in syria and by communities in syria communities of victims i'm extremely conscious that we're talking about very different group of people they don't they don't live the same situation they are having different expectation or maybe different level

of trust because of you to be honest with you having spent some time there i don't think anyone is expecting just as there especially from the international community but that is just a side note let me ask you specifically about the assessment of evidence because during your recent press conference you said that you're not going to take for granted any previous conclusions you're going to go back to the drawing board identify the gaps and use your investigative mandate to fill those gaps by applying a criminal law standard why is that necessary and why wouldn't you trust all the previous conclusions well it's not so much a question is trust me i would say let me explain to you and maybe it's an opportunity to explain for instance the different of. mandates and functioning of the commission inquiry and our mechanism a fact finding body be it a human rights a failing body or another fact finding body. apply

a legal stand up when they reach conclusions which is not a criminal law it's not a fault of them it's. just to make it clear for our audience a criminal law standard is a much more stringent more stringent yes you may be able to reach a conclusion that a system. of crime existed or that certain violations existed without using the quite stringent standards that criminal courts. look for to situations apply and the level of standard that we have to apply even though we're not a court of one that will work to be relevant to a court is that stand out it's meant to deliver over talking earlier about how do you decide was a piece of evidence is actually credible and reliable it's corporation not being vulnerable in building a case by relaying a. piece of evidence to establish

a very important fact you want to be make sure that you have enough evidence to meet those standards of course it's for the courts to decide what hat is becoming increasingly more common in international practice is the blurring of lines between prosecutorial and. court functions and i know that your mandate includes for example the investigation of the chemical or biological chemical weapons attacks something that supposedly falls under the mandate of the organization for or for prosecute. of chemical weapons and i'm sure you know they have recently been given . functions of determining who is actually responsible for the crime don't you find that trouble troubling as far as your work is concerned because you are obviously committed to the creation of or the prosecution of there's evidence in a normal court of law don't you. think that the work of the obviously w.

would. essentially make that kind of tribunal unnecessary well honestly really not at all explain you why i think we are talking a fact if you take the fact finding mission of the a p c w they are looking at evidence to determine according to their standard which again is lower than it is there but this is not a legal standard this is a scientific standard they are trying to use here and typically don't all power to them but courts sometimes use scientific evidence to determine certain facts so let's try to unfold this particular example what they do is they did daisy termine based on evidence including scientific expertise to determine whether chemicals were used chemical weapons or chemical used as weapons. what the previous body john body between obesity un un joint investigative mechanism that no longer exists was doing until november last year it was doing that

a second layer looking at whether these attacks that the fact finding mission to turn in to a known to use of control could be attributed to an entity or not absolutely i'm there for russia for example voted against the mechanism pacifically because of star but it was manipulated for political reasons what. what w. is now being given late june in a deal it was a decision is to send my recollection is correct the secretariat is to make arrangements to a law that's exactly my and my question why do you think those functions yet must be given to body has objectivity is sometimes doubted by its own members rather than let's say an organisation an entity like yours which insists on its impartiality and reach its proficiency professional in applying a legal to let me explain you why because we serve two totally different purposes

one is to make reports public reports as to on one hand existence of instances of the like and on the other and attributions they don't use the same standard they make public record if they make an observation before you take a case to court do you seriously believe that this is not going to prejudge the outcome but we have played different littered with cloakroom lumen would have different kinds of education mechanisms what for why would the public have to spend its money i'm not i'm not making. my team is not making its conclusion public we're not even although we were before yours are there as they are supposed to prepare you for accords exactly and that's why i started by telling your you were quoting me my reporting say you are not going to endorse conclusion yes it's true well. it's a matter of trust will play different methodology so what's very important for us is to get access to the underlying material so so that we don't have to reinvent

the world in collecting things that already eased there we will assess this material applying the legal the criminal law stand up we wish he were there are gaps india they don't have to actually reach a complete i would do that already after a certain international body came out in their twenty's as an aside but it doesn't matter well it does matter if you wanted to ensure the cooperation on the syrian side for example but madam are clearly we have to leave it there i really appreciate your being with us today and i encourage our viewers to keep this conversation going in our social media pages and i hope to see you again same place same time here on a world apart. seventy

four design submissions. seven thousand pilings. to china judges. eight hundred sixty nonstop days of. the russian w.b. a champion of it. and a russian stuff. show you how. long the crimea bridge was built. witnessed the construction moving you need to transpose doughtery that will help the of crimea to stop most of those you know while google more familiar with it a bit but it's clear.

right we're all set to start in five guys at the studio has a signal. he's not going to talk about that. just when you right after the arse explores work you put it there to. record. to say last week i'll. hang. out the last room welcome to sophie and tell him says the sheriff not said today we've got lots to talk about in our program and our gas to. little rock that. you know world a big part of movies

a lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bats and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. and. the media outlets. see.

the headlines here on our t.v. a year after islamic state is driven out of mosul the iraqi city still lies in ruins unable to recover from the devastation of the u.s. backed liberation operators. are still down there and there are food needs bodies in that house behind us still inside the stench coming from them is very strong children are getting sick because of this. a shaky cease fire is restored between hamas and israel after violence on the gaza border raises fears of a full blown conflict. and students at manchester university in england paint over a mural of a famous poem by a british writer rudyard kipling saying he was a racist who dehumanised people of color. is a man of his time.