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Foreign Affairs committee Thank you very much. Good afternoon to everyone. As indicated, I will provide some comments based on my experience as Ombudsperson for the Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee for five years. I note that while that was an international role, I believe it had a lot of im
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee Yes, those are very good questions, because that is the dilemma. We do want to be able to take action, especially in dealing with the corruption issue. It's is a major challenge for a great many countries, and very paralyzing, so certainly we do want to assist and be able to retu
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee Yes. The other thing is, of course, that you can use the sanctions in a very political way. I'm talking now about the sanctions regime versus trying to freeze the assets of someone who's taken them through criminal activity. You can say, as I think has been done in some instances
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee That has been a growing question in the international sphere. Traditionally the council has generally used its powers—except in the case of apartheid in South Africa, where it was very directed at those policies—in cases of conflict and in response to conflict and in trying to
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee Some automatically come to mind just because of the jargon that you often see in the gross violations of humanitarian rights standards, violations of the protocol. I would suggest you take a look at some of the resolutions that exist that have dealt with these issues, both at the
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee On that point, I separate two things. One is that if you want to go after individuals by attacking their assets, that's where I think you have a lot of existing tools to go after them, in a way. On the other hand, it's perfectly appropriate to use sanctions. That's one of the mai
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee I think there are two issues, and let me be very clear. Canada has very good mutual assistance legislation and very good legislation dealing with proceeds of crime and freezing of assets. It's getting better, but it's never going to be foolproof. It's never going to be able to de
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee Absolutely. For me, that's the biggest, and on two levels. One is what the threat is in the particular situation—be it Burma, Ukraine, or whatever—and specifically defining why it's put under the threat to international peace and security. Then, very importantly, when are you goi
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee I don't disagree at all, because the mandate of the UN Security Council is precisely described in relation to threats to international peace and security. I think you should keep the flexibility as broad.... I think it might be helpful to give examples of what can be a threat to
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee Precisely.
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee It was huge, and it was very important. It was the first renewal, and the reason it was so important was that if I could only make an observation, then it was up to the committee, and one committee member could simply say, “I don't agree with delisting this person”, and that woul
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee I had many problems when I arrived—actually, the whole time I was there, but that's part of the job. One of the two particular problems I had was that the Security Council had not been specific about what kind of review it expected from the ombudsperson, so the choice was either
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee Okay. The second issue, which is the one I find a bit puzzling in the legislation, is if you're going to objectively review listings, you need to know by what standard you are going to look at this person's conduct. That was where the council had given me no indication, other t
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee One big challenge was that there was often, in these cases, confidential information that was justifying a listing, even sometimes presently. I did two things. One was that because I had worked for the Canadian government for many years, Canada very nicely gave me high-level se
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost
Foreign Affairs committee I'm a very strong believer in the system now. At the beginning I had doubts, but now I think it's a really practical way to deal with the problems that arise in sanctions, particularly with confidential information, and it's very beneficial to the individual because it's swift an
November 23rd, 2016Committee meeting
Kimberly Prost