Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, let me pick up exactly where Clara left off. In the first 14 cases of UN sanctions of position from the nineties to the mid-2000s, we found that 11 of those cases resulted in some kind of negotiation between the UN or various actors and the targets. This notion of sanctions that punish exclusively or so arm-twist and inflict pain as to make a target capitulate are all a myth.

Foreign Affairs committee  My experience is that U.S. government people rely very heavily on the information provided by expert panels. They also engage experts in their own bureaucracy to try to double-check or extend that analysis. Often, the policies of the U.S. of late have been that when new perpetrators or sanctions violators have been found by expert panels, we lobby heavily within the Security Council to get those people listed and sanctioned.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, particularly if we find ways to enlighten FATF that the kind of success they've had in these other areas has to be transferred to the human rights area—absolutely.

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, I think you rely heavily on the NGO and the international community that talks about the level of abuse and the level of corruption connected with the abuse. It's terrible to say that there's a difference between dealing at a foreign policy level with a government whose ideology or current practice with a strong-arm ruler has gone awry in our democratic principles, versus dealing with a kleptocracy.

Foreign Affairs committee  You follow closely the panel of experts reports from the UN. You follow closely the NGO and research community that's on the ground monitoring what's happening everywhere from South Sudan to other countries where these are playing out on the ground.

Foreign Affairs committee  You should be looking for the naming and shaming of the violators, and the extent to which other countries, in their foreign policy, are unwilling to condemn actors in their own political domestic environment who have been enablers.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think there are a couple of things. One is to further underscore what Dr. Portela said about the corruption mechanisms, etc. We continue to go after high-level foreign policy officials in trying to control their human rights behaviour and improve it. What we have to do is realize that the greatest perpetrators, both in conditions of war and of regular human rights abuses without war, tend to be kleptocracies and organized criminal networks that are benefiting substantially from the perpetration of these violent areas.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think those are supported by travel bans and the special designation of individuals to make sure that their passports are frozen and those kinds of things. When we get to the enabler level that I had talked about at the end of my presentation, I think you look at a wider range of goods and services that indirectly facilitate sustained atrocities.

Foreign Affairs committee  You're absolutely correct. Thank you.

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, I think one of the interesting things about the legislation and the whole dialogue we've had this afternoon is that there are many more financial dimensions that drive wars, including crime and corruption, than there have ever been. While we could say that we have 25 years of history of UN and EU and other sanctions, and boy, the evidence is really good, I would urge you on this, and I would say that this is the last time—or the worst time—that you would want to say “let's scrap these tactics because they're ineffective”.

Foreign Affairs committee  One way, for example, is to think about your participation in the Financial Action Task Force, which has given us very good and effective ways of following the money in the nuclear non-proliferation area or in the counterterrorism area. We now need to have powerful democratic states like Canada say to FATF that we now need the same kind of approach that has been effective multilaterally to look at mass atrocities.

Foreign Affairs committee  Please do.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, that's fine. Our earlier connection was fine, but I'm getting a lot of static as well. I'll wait.

Foreign Affairs committee  All right.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. Do you want me to start at the beginning?