For any and all readers in the Toronto area, I am thrilled to announce that I have organized my first event at the Munk School of Global Affairs: ‘Prospects of Justice, Avenues for Accountability – Investigating War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Syria’. The event will feature Bill Wiley and Nerma Jelacic of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability and Stephen Toope, Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs, discussing the prospects of accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria. The event will take place in the Vivian and David Campbell Conference Facility on 8 March from 6 – 7:30pm. Please make sure to RSVP by following the links here.

If you’re in the area, please do join us and make sure to say hi! If you can’t make it, fear not – I will be sure to write an analysis of the event in the coming days. 

Now entering its fifth year, the Syrian civil war has been characterized by the perpetration of mass atrocities and human rights violations committed by all parties to the conflict. Will justice ever be served for the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria? Can all sides — the Syrian regime, rebel militants, ISIS,— be held accountable for the rights violations they have wrought upon civilians in the region? How can and should evidence of such abuses be collected? Will such evidence ever be used in a courtroom? The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) has been on the front lines collecting and protecting evidence of mass atrocities committed during the Syria civil war. Join CIJA’s William Wiley and Nerma Jelacic in a conversation with Munk School Director Stephen Toope on international accountability, international criminal investigations, and the remarkable work being undertaken by CIJA investigators.

William Wiley is the Founder and Director of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). William formerly worked in the Office of the Prosecutor at both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia as well as the International Criminal Court, was an infantry officer in the Canadian military and worked on war crimes investigations in the Department of Justice.

Nerma Jelacic is the Director of External Relations and Communications at the Commission for International Justice and Accountability. Prior to joining CIJA, Nerma was the Head of Communications for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Director and co-founder of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), as well as an editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

Stephen Toope is the Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Stephen has previously been the president of the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of British Columbia as well as the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. He has also served as President of the Canadian Council on International Law and member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law.

The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) is an innovative, non-profit organisation committed to establishing the individual criminal responsibility of high-level perpetrators implicated in violations of International Criminal and Humanitarian Law (ICHL) in conflict and post-conflict areas where public bodies, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) or domestic prosecutorial authorities, are unable to intervene due to physical risk, insufficient expertise or in the absence of jurisdiction. Its intervention in Syria has already resulted with the completion of three internationally-acclaimed case files inculpating 23 of the highest ranking regime officials.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

6:00PM – 7:30PM

The Vivian and David Campbell Conference Facility, Munk School of Global Affairs 1 Devonshire Place

Please RSVP here.