The presumption of the Rome Statute is that the activities of the court are funded through the regular budget. We've tried for a number of years. I tried and failed last Christmas and the Christmas before. I really failed as an advocate, because we didn't get the resources we wanted. In fact, I didn't get one euro of new money at the Assembly of States Parties. I got up to inflation but no new money. In fact, the new money being requested was all for field presence in Ukraine. I was then compelled, even before that, in March, to utilize a provision that had not been used, article 117, which allows the court to receive voluntary contributions.
Canada has been very generous. The Government of Canada has given 1.3 million euros. Thank you for that. It's being used at my discretion. It's not earmarked. Particularly, more than half the money is being used to transform the evidence management system that I alluded to earlier. We have seven secondees who have been provided by all of you, by the Canadian government, who have been, on a number of situations, in Asia, in Africa and also in Ukraine so that we can do better.
The simple truth of the matter is that the court is under-resourced. I would go back to when Judge Abella, your great Supreme Court judge, gave the inaugural Elie Wiesel lecture in 2020, conjuring up her own losses at the Holocaust, the memory of Raoul Wallenberg's heroism, and Elie Wiesel's, and the obscenity that has befallen mankind almost every decade since. The budget that I inherited was 49.5 million euros, and we had 16 situations. To put that in context, the budget I had in my last mandate as the special adviser and head of the UN team investigating Daesh, ISIS, in only Iraq was 30 million euros, so we are woefully underfunded.
I think there are two parts. If all of you, parliamentary legislators and budgetary committees and treasuries, think that the value of international justice is simply in the sound bite, and that these lofty principles we aspire to are like distant rainbows that we're trying to find gold at the end of, we'll never vindicate those people whose emaciated bodies we saw in the gas chambers or we saw in Yugoslavia and elsewhere. We need to be properly resourced. It's an issue of peace and security. It's an issue of moral leadership. I actually think it's something we can do much better on.
I hope Canada will be right at the front this year as well in ensuring that the court is properly budgeted. Certainly, it's much cheaper than the 20-trillion or 30-trillion euro bill every year to military armaments. I think a very compelling case can be made that it's money well spent, particularly as the leadership of the court is trying to make sure the impact is felt by those who need it the most.