First, I couldn't agree more with your observation that human rights change is most effective when it comes from within a country. That applies anywhere in the world, and it certainly applies within China. That's one of the reasons for one of the issues I briefly drew attention to in my opening remarks.
There is a very promising fledgling but terribly beleaguered human rights community within China that in recent years has been really trying to do good work in the courts, in public venues, in demonstrations, and in all sorts of things. Lawyers are imprisoned, though, for trying to raise human rights issues in court, for instance. That's one of the reasons why that should be a particular focus of Canada's engagement with China around human rights issues. We should be doing everything we can to provide support to those within China who are trying to advance that sort of work, and make it very clear to the Chinese government that persecution of those individuals is absolutely unacceptable.
I also firmly agree with your observation that what we obviously want is to advance real reforms to the architecture in the institutions and the laws that stand behind human rights and ensure that human rights won't just be empty words but truly will be protected. We need to ensure that there are mechanisms to ensure that's the case, and that there are mechanisms to ensure that those who violate human rights actually are held accountable and that there are consequences.
Once again, with the tragedy of the killings at the Tibet-Nepal border, we're seeing this isn't the case. The Chinese government simply retreated to an assertion that it was self-defence, end of story, and nothing further seems to be happening right now.
Amnesty, Tibetan organizations, and many governments have been pressing the Chinese government to launch an independent investigation into what has happened. By pressing around a particular tragedy and by demanding that there be an appropriate response in keeping with international standards, perhaps this could be a good example of an area where that not only addresses the terrible things that have happened in that case, but one that could start to be one small stepping stone in terms of bringing a different approach, a different culture into the Chinese justice system. It's going to take a lot of concerted pressure from other governments to make sure China moves forward with something like that, but certainly we can't allow the response that we've had so far.