Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We don't do advocacy, as I said, but of course we're happy to push positions occasionally privately with partners. We've been encouraging domestic prosecutors to accept as much assistance as we can give them to undertake some of their Daesh prosecutions, pursuant to, if you will, normal criminal law as opposed to terrorism law.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It was my pleasure. Thank you for your ongoing work in this area. It means a lot to those of us in the field, especially the Syrians and the Iraqis. Thank you.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  It doesn't make any difference to us. From a criminal investigative point of view, we already operate in that area with the support of the Kurdistan regional forces. It's pretty safe in there compared with Syria or further south, in Mosul. It's like Parliament Hill.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Indeed.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Generally in Iraq we don't have too many problems, because we operate forward to the confrontation line, but ultimately always north and west of that line. In Syria it's a very different matter. There are three principal risks to the investigators on the ground at the present time.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The Syrian regime names database was set up, or we started the process of setting that up, about two years ago. It's always been funded by Germany, and it's run outside of our headquarters. It was initially run in Sofia, Bulgaria. For security reasons I won't say where it is now, but it remains in continental Europe.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  To be honest, it's not going to be easy. I worked as a legal adviser quite a few years ago in Baghdad during the trial of Saddam and the other senior Baathist officials. To put it in layman's terms, from a due process point of view the whole thing was a God-awful mess, and for myriad reasons.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The short answer is yes. This is what we're trying to do in northern Iraq at the present time. I would also add that at the present time we don't support Iraqi prosecutorial authorities. There are two reasons for that. One is that prosecutions in Iraq at the present time, whether under the authority of the central government or the Kurdistan regional government, are pursued through deeply flawed terrorism legislation, which in our opinion doesn't offer sufficient due process guarantees to the accused.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Absolutely. One of our better partners.... Is it Global Affairs Canada now? I've lived abroad for many years, and I apologize, I'm not always up to date on the latest name changes. Global Affairs Canada is one of our better partners, in fact as good as any, on a par with the United Kingdom and the European Union in particular, insofar as they assist us on the political and diplomatic level, in places like Baghdad, bringing us together with other interested states to raise money and so on and so forth.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Realistically the scale of perpetration in Syria and Iraq is such that a minute fraction of perpetrators are ever going to be brought before a criminal court or tribunal. Ultimately alternative justice mechanisms of the sort to which you're referring are going to have to be put into place, such as truth commissions, or truth-seeking and truth-telling processes.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In fact, in the current fiscal year plus an additional six months, so over an 18-month period, Canada's given us $3.3 million. It's divided between Syria and Iraq. It comes through different funding streams although we tend to see it as effectively one war. That's just the way things are organized at Global Affairs.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Certainly I would reiterate, ma'am, that what makes the CIJA unique is that it's the first time a private body, albeit non-profit, has undertaken international criminal investigations. I'm a career international criminal investigator. I've been doing this for 20 years now. I started the foundation with the belief that international criminal investigations have no real future unless the system is shaken up to a certain degree.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The human rights advocacy community obviously has done a tremendous service in bringing the suffering of the Yazidis in particular to the attention of a wider world. That includes decision-makers like you, of course, on the subcommittee. Not to compare the suffering, but it's important to keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of victims of the Islamic State are Sunni Arabs, victimized in both Iraq and most especially Syria, where Islamic State rarely gets its hands on minorities—Shia, Christians, and so forth; there's no Yazidi to speak of in Syria.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  As I suggested in the opening brief, that's 90% of the work in building the case file, insofar as we are focused on high- and highest-level perpetrators. With the Syrian regime's military, political, and security intelligence structures, establishing the linkages between the highest levels of the regime and the physical authors, if you will, of the underlying acts is relatively straightforward.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, that's right, sir. To clarify, the “self-supporting” in Syria simply means that we don't, obviously, have a link to the government, and have to arrange for our own logistical and security measures. The CIJA budget in the current calendar year is approximately 7 million euros.