Certainly. I think the idea of holding gross human rights violators to account is important. It's important that Canada and other countries that are strongly committed to the support of human rights globally have the capacity to act in this way.
I also agree very much with Professor Lilly about the importance of acting multilaterally, because acting unilaterally, especially with a relatively smaller country, is not likely to be effective. I think the reason it's important at this point in time is that, somewhat depressingly, we've seen a weakening of international norms in the past five years and maybe closer to a decade. With regard to that, and not just because I study the UN, I think in all instances this action should be taken first and foremost within the UN system, because sanctions under those contexts are going to be not only accepted broadly as legal, but also as more legitimate than other actions that are being taken.
At the same time, and we have to be honest about it, the UN is currently blocked on these issues. This is the first year since we've seen annual updates on our work on UN sanctions that there have been no new sanctions in place. Russia has blocked virtually every sanctions proposal at the council in the past year.
It means that in certain cases, and Syria is a perfect example, countries would want the capacity to take on some kind of multilateral action, even though it's a second best option. The first best option would be to do another under UN auspices. If that doesn't work, then I think it's important to have a forum for expressing concerns about what's happening in Syria.