Obviously genocide is a big word, and it catches attention and brings light to bear on what's happening. I think Professor Robinson could be of assistance here. Where you're talking about wilful killing, for example, wilful killing of prisoners of war or killing of civilians, the indiscriminate bombardment of cities and villages, that sort of thing that relates to the law of armed conflict, it's all codified in the Rome Statute, particularly in article 8. If we're dealing with an international armed conflict, you'd look at paragraphs (a) and (b) of article 8. I won't try to list all of the things, because as I mentioned in response to an earlier question, the list is a long one.
For example, when you hear allegations that Russian troops looted houses and dwellings and that sort of thing, that could potentially be the war crime of pillaging. Then the issue becomes whether this is just soldiers who are doing this, not being controlled by their officers, because there is an obligation under international law of armed conflict for officers to stop that sort of thing, to punish it and to prevent it. Is it not happening because they've lost control, or because that's what they want to happen because it's going to terrify the population and all the rest of it?
What I'm trying to underscore to you is that you could look at these different categories of potential crimes and then realize that when you break down the elements of these crimes, they're very complex. The intention issue can be very difficult to establish. It's so easy, I suppose, for a military commander to say we were trying to hit a military objective and the rocket went off course. If you have a pattern, however, of smashing down buildings indiscriminately, that argument becomes much more difficult to establish.
These are issues that really need to be developed through a careful layering of evidence, and you can't do that quickly. You simply can't do that quickly. It doesn't mean that you can't, as parliamentarians, be looking at these various categories.
When it comes to holding people accountable, I think it's very important to recognize that the International Criminal Court doesn't have a police force. We have investigators in the office of the prosecutor, so once you bring charges, once you obtain warrants of arrest from a pretrial chamber, then it really is up to states parties to execute that warrant. We have no power to do that ourselves. You have to rely on states or states parties. It doesn't have to be a state party. The United States was instrumental in the arrest of two of our suspects who were then tried and convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, so that's just an example.
The mechanism to hold accountable becomes very challenging. I mentioned Milošević before I mentioned al-Bashir. You can see the difficulty that any court like ours faces in trying to hold certainly the top-rank perpetrators to account. However, there, again, it becomes the duty, if you will, of the states parties that are part of the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice to bring that about.
I think strengthening that system is something that parliamentarians in Canada can certainly look at. I hope that helps with your question.