Thank you.
I used the example of the court challenges program in large part because I believe that it's one of the rare examples--but in a sense should be a classic one--of a real form of empowerment, not a paternalistic one. Women very much took the lead, and, as you know, many other groups--some minority groups, essentially equality-seekers--were given the means to advance their own interests by themselves. Whether through a similar program--and I wouldn't suggest exporting that particular program, because in the many countries we're talking about there are not even any functioning courts to go to--or something that uses exactly that concept, a non-paternalistic policy that is serious about talking about empowerment of equality-seekers, or in the case we're talking about, victims seeking not only redress for themselves but a profound change in policies and cultural assumptions....
To a large extent I think that has been the genius of the Canadian charter and of government assistance to equality-seekers and others with constitutional claims in coming to court. In doing so, they were not only seeking redress for themselves and advancing their own interests, but in a sense they were advancing the interests of a larger group who could intervene, or not, but in any case whose rights were advanced. We could try to design, as I said, country-specific policies, whether it's for the DRC, for the Sudan, or Haiti, that utilize that imaginative concept and adapt it, not necessarily to empower women, as I said, to take their cases to non-existent courts, but so that they'd be given the means to seek redress for themselves. In that way, they could advance the interests of others, not by purely providing services but by giving them the tools.
Again, I made the remark--and I didn't want to be flippant when I said it--about doing it not just through microcredit, but with real money. I don't want to be disparaging about these microcredit initiatives, which are very important, particularly, and maybe more specifically, in peace-building and the reconstruction of societies to give women a space in the economic playing field, but in the case of conflict, power needs real money. I think we can look at trying to develop initiatives that will mirror the court challenges program. They don't have to be exactly that, but things that are inspired by the same sentiment: that women are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and their children if they're given proper tools, meaning not cosmetic tools, not artificial tools, not paternalistic assistance, but real means to advance their own interests.
As I understood your question, the idea might have been to look at creating a dedicated court that would look at sexual violence or rape as weapons of war. It would look at it in the context of armed conflict. Down the road, one might imagine, for instance, a dedicated chamber in the International Criminal Court. I would be very wary of dissipating the little energy that there is in the international system in supporting the existing vehicles. As you know, the International Criminal Court has suffered some setbacks, including a recent resolution by the African Union at its last meeting calling for the deferral of indictments against President Bashir of Sudan and for the deferral by the Security Council of the case that the prosecutor brought against some persons in Kenya. I think the system is still looking for the establishment of its credibility and legitimacy as an overall international criminal court. I would be wary about launching parallel initiatives.
Having said that, at the same time I've never been a very big fan of mainstreaming these issues. They tend to disappear. Maybe we need to encourage the prosecutor of the ICC, for instance, to have a dedicated capacity in his office to ensure that sexual violence is constantly investigated and given the proper importance. As I said, possibly down the road, when the ICC is a fully operational judicial institution, it might have a specialized, dedicated chamber, which I think would give a lot more visibility to these issues than when they are buried in an indictment that may contain multiple counts, including some dealing with these issues.
Thank you.