Sir, there were two parts to your question that struck me. One is the question of the human rights reports. I'd like to note that ISAF consists of 37 nations, 30,000 personnel, and the ISAF policy is to hand over to the Afghan society. So clearly there are challenges in the human rights reports. There are challenges in operational security environments. And these are not new challenges that the militaries of the world face when they deploy to some parts of the world.
The question of whether the degree and the extent is a problem in Afghanistan, and clearly it's identified in the reports, is a matter that will be before the courts in litigation. So I certainly don't want to go much farther with respect to that.
I think the hub of the question is a follow-on from Ms. McDonough's question. It's not so much the question of the issue of torture, but it's the question of transfer. There has been much in the media this week, and there have been no allegations that CF personnel have tortured. There has been, over the course of the last couple of months, an allegation with respect to the fact that some detainees may have been abused. The department has reacted to that, including the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service and Military Police Complaints Commission's Board of Inquiry. There's a process set up to deal with these issues.
One of the things I've learned--I've been a lawyer now for 26 years and I've been a military lawyer for 25 years--is not to rush to judgment. I really like to have facts before I reach a conclusion with respect to whether laws have been breached, particularly when we're talking about the breach of potentially criminal laws and laws that are this serious. Certainly I would give advice to the government at such time that this occurred. Certainly there's an announcement that investigations are under way.
Perhaps to make another important point, because there's been the reference to war crimes and clearly the question is a breach of the Geneva conventions. We have the Rome Statute. We have war crimes that would apply not only in international armed conflict, but war crimes that would apply in conflicts not of an international character. I can get a number of academics to categorize how they see the conflict in Afghanistan, but I think there's a general consensus that, at a minimum, common article 3 would apply to a conflict not of a national character, which includes a prohibition against torture, and that of course is an offence under the Rome Statute.
But there's also an issue of complementarity with respect to that statute, at which the national government would take a look at, investigate, and react on sufficient facts, in which to find whether action should be taken or not. When I hear people in the media talk about the Rome Statute and war crimes, it's very important that it's put in context and that it's put in context of what the law says. That also is important for our soldiers who are operating overseas.
