 We would like to welcome everyone to this very special conversation on pursuing justice for the atrocities being committed in Ukraine with the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mr. Karim Khan, who is on his first official visit to Washington in this role, and with ambassador and distinguished legal scholar David Sheffer. My name is Lise Grunde, and I am the president of the United States Institute of Peace, which was established by Congress in 1984 as a public institution dedicated to preventing, mitigating, and resolving violent conflict abroad. Our conversation this evening focuses on the central issue of international accountability for atrocities. For those acts which represent the most extreme, brutal, and cruel forms of criminality, these include crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. This is an urgent and pressing international priority because of the atrocities being committed during Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine. Our discussions this afternoon are giants in international law and accountability. Karim Khan has served as the ICC prosecutor since June 2021. Mr. Khan has served as the assistant secretary general of the United Nations and as the first special advisor and head of the United Nations investigative team to promote accountability for crimes committed by ISIL in Iraq. Mr. Khan is a barrister and queen's counsel with more than 25 years of professional experience as an international criminal law and human rights lawyer. He has worked as a counsel and defense lawyer in domestic and international criminal tribunals, including the International Criminal Tribunal for Wawanda, International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He has also represented the victims of human rights violations in Africa and Asia. Ambassador David Scheffer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations with a focus on international law and international criminal justice. He is clinical professor emeritus and director emeritus of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago. He serves as the international thank-you professor at Leuven Catholic University in Belgium. He serves as the professor of practice at Arizona State University and he is the vice president of the American Society of International Law. Ambassador Scheffer is the UN secretary general special expert on UN assistance to the Khmer Rouge trials and helped to negotiate and establish five war crime tribunals including for the former Yugoslavia, Wawanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia. Ambassador Scheffer was the first ever US ambassador at large for war crime issues and he led the US delegation to the UN talks establishing the International Criminal Court. He signed the Rome Statute of the ICC on behalf of the United States on December 31st, 2000. Gentlemen, it is an enormous privilege to have you here with us today. For colleagues who are joining us online, we encourage you to join the conversation by using the hashtag ICCUSIP. Thank you for being here. Mr. Krosperhuter, Mr. Ambassador, with your permission we have several questions of a general nature we would like to start by asking. We then would hope to turn the conversation specifically to Ukraine and we have a long list of questions that have already been generated by colleagues online and by members of our audience. If we could start first, Prosecutor Kahn with a question about your role as the prosecutor for the ICC. Specifically, we're hoping that you can share with us your priorities as the prosecutor, what you hope to accomplish during your tenure, and if you can share with us frankly some of your concerns about the obstacles you may be facing in achieving the goals you have set. Well, thanks enormously. It's a great pleasure to be here sitting with you and also in this absolutely wonderful building. It's seldom that a building architecture and its lofty aims coincide with such a felicity as the present Institute of Peace. The priorities are really to get the office of the prosecutor working as effectively as possible in a way that is in full conformity with the obligations I have under the Rome Statute. It requires some reorganization in the office. It's an office that needs to work with some greater dispatch and to fulfill the hopes and aspirations of those that were in Rome when the Rome Statute was signed. This is the 20th anniversary of the Rome Statute coming into force and yet we see terrible crimes across the world, whether it's against the Rohingya or in many other situations. So we need to do better collectively. The office has a role to play but it's about building partnerships. And it's going back to some of the basics in terms of complementarity. This ICC is a court of last resort. We need to work with national authorities where possible with good cooperation, but also to make sure that the hope of international justice is rendered effective. We keep acting as if we don't have shame. We hear the mantra of never again after the Second World War and never again after Yugoslavia and never again after Rwanda. Nadja Murad wrote a book, The Last Girl, and unfortunately she's tragically not. So these kind of sexual and gender-based crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, is deep being committed. So we need to show that international justice isn't about simple normative values. It's an essential part for stability and security. And then in terms of the priorities, we have to investigate the most egregious crimes within our jurisdiction. And we also need to prioritize. And as I've said publicly, we have security council referrals. They should be prioritized. We have state referrals. We have Article 15, PREA-MOTO. And then use with as much intelligence and wisdom as we can muster the resources that we have and the limited resources we have as effectively to bring meaningful justice and many other things. But I think that's enough for a starter. Did you want to comment on some of the obstacles you think you will be facing? Well, linked to that are expectations. The world is full of contradictions. It always has been. The world is full of contradictions. It always will be. But that's not a license to do nothing. It's not a license or justification to be paralyzed by inaction or by wringing our hands to say, well, because of all these myriad reasons, let's not even try to go forward. The history of civilization is built upon the imperfections of humanity. But with all those imperfections, we've seen from Cyrus the Great and the cylinder of Cyrus all the way through the Renaissance and the Second World War and recent events that with all its limitations with incremental steps, sometimes going backwards, the march of humanity from barbarism to civilization is moving forward in a certain direction. But we're not perfect and we need to also be self-critical moving forward. So if we also pretend that the systemic inequalities in the world, whether it's 99% of the world's wealth being held by 1% of the population or whether it's contradictions in the application of international law, if all of these issues are put at the feet of any court of law, we're going to fail. If we realize everybody has a part to pay, politicians, civil society, institutions and the judiciary and prosecutors, I think we can make a difference together. But it's not easy, but it's worth every effort and straining every sinew. Ambassador Sheffer, you were there at the creation of the ICC. Over the 20 years, how have you seen it evolved and what would be your hope where the ICC will end up in the next 20 years? Well, thank you so much. And it's a great pleasure to be here again. I had a stint with the Institute back in 2001, 2002, which was extraordinary. And I'm always so pleased to come back, certainly in this huge new building that is a wonder. And it's so nice to be with Kareem Khan again. I first met the prosecutor when he was representing victims before the extraordinary chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and I was the UN special expert on assistance to that court. And I watched him in the courtroom represent victims. So for me, he will forever be the victim's counsel, although I know he's covered all the bases as a barrister. And he's extraordinary. You know, the court, International Criminal Justice is the long game. It has a very long arc. It's not intended to literally prevent conflicts. That's the work of diplomacy and of military institutions, of governments. It is there to provide accountability for what has happened. And our hope is always that it will provide some deterrence in the future because of the quality of its work, the precedence it establishes, and basically the signals that it sends out that if you seek to commit atrocity crimes, there is a court there ready to deal with you and you will not escape the arm of justice. It may take 20 years to get you, but you will not escape the arm of justice. So that's what we try to establish with the International Criminal Court. I think over a 20-year period, it actually has demonstrated a rather impressive record. We can always punch holes in it. The skeptics always are there, and I'm a skeptic half of the day. But I think at the end of the day, it has established a fairly significant record of investigative work, of prosecutions, of jurisprudence that demonstrates due process of rights for defendants, that demonstrates the reality of acquittals occasionally after serious scrutiny. And so it's established quite a record that we need to continue to learn from and that also I think is an excellent foundation for the future work of the court. I would say that what's so astonishing with Ukraine, and this is the man who triggered it, when you called out for states to refer Ukraine to the ICC, states parties, this was the phenomenal moment, frankly, for the court, because as a negotiator, as a drafter of the Rome Statute, the presumption was that most of this would be triggered by states parties referring it. And yet in the first 20 years, almost no states parties referred anything to the court. It was either proprio motu or security council referrals. This individual got 41 governments simultaneously to refer Ukraine to the court, as far as I concluded well, that trumps it then. I mean, you've done it. 41 states, I would have wished we had 41 separate referrals of separate situations over the world in the last 20 years, but now we have 41 on one, that's fine. Oh, I said now 43, I'm sorry, okay, I'm a little dated now, 43. And I think that's an incredibly important precedent for the future. It broke the mold of state party hesitancy to actually use the ICC with their own initiative, as opposed to waiting for something to emerge from proprio motu or from security council referrals, with a security council that is now essentially dysfunctional when it comes to ICC referrals. Prosecutor Kahn, if you could talk more to all of us about the steps that you are taking in the ICC to investigate the atrocities that are being committed in Ukraine, if you could describe that process. And if you could talk about the resources that you're using now to do that and the additional resources that you may need in the future as your work continues. We've mobilized a team, but we start off by a fundamental principle. We have jurisdiction in the Ukraine situation by virtue of decisions by Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 to make a declaration accepting the court's jurisdiction. They're not state parties. And it's very important to emphasize, I mean, I have no gender as a prosecutor. I'm an officer of the court. It's clear every party to a conflict has responsibilities. No commander, no civilian superior, no person in the battlefield can preinate that they're on this side or that side as a justification for engaging in conduct that may come within the court's jurisdiction. So this is something I've repeatedly emphasized in Ukraine and outside that we have jurisdiction in relation to all sides. But of course, the events of the 24th of February, as Ambassador Sheff had mentioned, compel certain action. What we're seeing was extremely grave and terrible though the information is we shouldn't think this is as bad as it gets. And so I think we have to try to create what I describe as this new common front of legality in addition to many other measures to make everybody aware that nobody can act with impunity in the phraseology of the Magna Carta. It was emphasized in terms of King John that the king is under no man but God and the law. And I think we need to re-emphasize these basic principles that probably have not been applied with as much vigor as they could to stop things escalating further. So the whole paradigm I think of the office, and I've said it before, I was elected during the election campaign, we need to redefine success. I think the idea that the ICC is at Apex Court and can do all of it alone is not accurate. The types of crimes by way of scale and gravity that constitute or may constitute evences of genocide and crimes against manager war crimes require partnerships. And we see in so many ways in Germany, in France, in relation to ISIS or in relation to other allegations this movement where there should be no safe haven for this type of criminality. So yesterday I signed an agreement for the first time in the history of the office of the prosecutor to join a joint investigative team with Ukraine and Lithuania and Poland. We will be part of that, we'll be a participant in that, at the same time we conduct our own independent investigations. But the other aspect of moving forward is what we're trying to do. It really doesn't matter a jot which flag is behind a prosecutor or which flag is behind a court. The principle and the foundation upon which the Roman statue was built was there should be no impunity. And so we need to work in partnerships if it's done in a national court, that's excellent. If it can be done in the region, that's excellent. And the ICC is a court of last resort and the Hague should be a city of last resort. So we're working both with the prosecution general's office, we're working with the JIT, we're working with international organizations like Eurojust and we're trying to also reach out with state parties and non-state parties. And here in the United States I'm briefing the Security Council in a couple of days on Libya but I think it's worth emphasising that the Rome statue principles are quintessential American values. Which country, which democracy, which people versed in the law or believe in the better angels of themselves would wish to condone a genocide or crimes against humanity or war crime. And I think very often we get lost in the theory, in the architecture of accountability. When we bring it down to people, children becoming orphans or women being raped or the types of destruction we see and the trauma, the massive trauma that is caused to hundreds of thousands or millions of people. Do we stand by passive or do we speak up? And do we try to subject these circumstances to independent investigations and forensic scrutiny? And I said this requires these multiple tiered partnerships. I've reached out and I will continue to do so to the Russian Federation. I've sent them now three communications and they've, as a matter of sovereign choice, they have every right, they have not responded. I'm in regular communication with the Ukrainians and they have. And so it's not that we have a particular agenda, it's about we have a job to do. And I do think in this moment when many viewers, many watching may think, well, what is the point of international law? All these Geneva conventions and Hague regulations and Rome statute and all these talk has not stopped suffering in so many theatres of the world. I think we do see this coming together. As Ambassador Sheffer mentioned of 43 countries and it can be the start of this new realisation that we can't view international laws and ala carte menu. We must stick with the law and these fundamental principles that bind not only states, but humanity itself together to prevent, you know, may seem alarmist, but to prevent our destruction. This is ultimately what the law is about. It's to protect, it's to preserve. It's to try to create, hue out a road that we can all walk on together. But also it is a realisation that unless we continue whatever the difficulties and whatever the hurdles upon the path of legality in the end we should not be complacent about where all of this could lead. Ambassador, the atrocities in Ukraine have shocked the collective conscience of the U.S. of the international community. And here in the U.S. what we're seeing is that the administration, many members of Congress are insisting calling for justice including through the ICC. And yet we know that there are legislative limitations on the kind of support that the U.S. is able to offer the court. What is your view on this and what kind of support might be possible and could some of these limitations possibly be overcome? Actually, Madam President, the opportunities for the United States to support the prosecutor's office and the work of the court are fairly significant. It should be, you know, remembered that when we were negotiating this back in the 1990s of course President Clinton's aim at that time, and I worked under his instruction was to literally build this court and be part of it. Unfortunately we didn't get to the final ratification step after we left office. But, and despite some legislative impediments, one called the American Service Members Protection Act, another one an Appropriations Act that sought to curtail the ability of the United States to work with the ICC. I think we've been able to demonstrate in the past under certain administrations and certainly in a technical legal manner now that there are many ways the United States can support the court. You might have seen a New York Times article a few weeks ago that revealed Department of Justice legal memo that actually parsed out what the United States could do for the ICC legally despite those constraints and they are significant areas of cooperation particularly on specific cases under the so-called DOT amendment which is the final provision thanks to the former Senator Christopher DOT of Connecticut that was tagged onto the law and sort of opened the gates again. And that's particularly important for Ukraine because Ukraine despite, you know, the Prosecutor General there has alerted us that there are at least 8,000 cases she is examining of actual war crimes and crimes against humanity on the ground in Ukraine. There's a lot of leadership culpability that needs to be examined with respect to Ukraine and I think in that capacity when we're talking about an investigation of the leadership of Russia of its military in waging this war of aggression with all of the supplemental atrocity crimes that come under that umbrella of the crime of aggression those individual cases can actually receive a significant amount of U.S. support not financially but in many other important ways intelligence information seconding Americans to help with those specific cases in other words American investigators and counsel. Those are opportunities that are tracking indicted fugitives providing rewards for their capture and we've done this in the past and so those opportunities are on the horizon for the United States with respect to what we can provide with respect to the Ukraine situation. I would hope too that Ukraine will have sent a very strong signal through the halls of Congress that it's time now to ratchet back some of the American Service Members of Protection Act. We've done this before by the end of the George W. Bush administration it was certainly revealed that the economic sanctions and military sanctions of that act were counterproductive against our interests. Congress repealed them. They don't exist anymore. There are other provisions of that act that can now be repealed and I think there are the time has arrived to consider that. The final point I would make is simply that there's actually legislation that Senator Durbin who's Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee alerted the world to a few weeks ago just before Easter break and that is a War Crimes Accountability Act which is fixing our law on war crimes fixing our law on crimes against humanity and some other provisions as well namely so that the United States will no longer be a sanctuary for alien war criminals and for anyone who commits crimes against humanity. We are currently a sanctuary. You know come on over visit Disneyland get some property in New Mexico live happily ever after we cannot prosecute you. That is absurd and Senator Durbin has since 2009 sought to change that so that the United States is no longer a sanctuary. If you land in the United States we take you down and we prosecute you. If you've committed war crimes or crimes against humanity overseas. If you're an alien and obviously if you're a U.S. national. So that legislation is about on deck. Senator Durbin alerted us to it on the floor of the Senate just before Easter and I look forward to that becoming law. If that becomes law in the United States we will have gone a very far distance supporting the important work of the ICC which encourages nations to have these types of laws so that they don't have to carry the burden of all investigations and prosecutions which they cannot but rather national courts can do so because they're capable within their criminal codes of doing so. Ambassador we have two more questions on Ukraine that in a sense are directed to your expertise. One of them is that we'd all be very interested in your reflections on how the investigation on going into Russian accountability for crimes being committed in Ukraine might change the U.S. approach to an attitude toward the ICC. Well first of all it already has. Senate resolution 546 which was the unanimously adopted sense of Senate resolution of I don't know five weeks ago or six weeks ago or so was specific to Ukraine and within that language of that resolution supported by a wide bipartisan range of senators and senators from the Republican Party all coming together rather rarely do they do so in this context and the provisions of that sense of Senate resolution were very respectful and supportive of the role of the ICC in investigating atrocity crimes in Ukraine. So that has never happened before that was a first and I think that sort of opens the door to a better sense of collaboration on Capitol Hill with respect to the ICC I think the worth of the ICC is being demonstrated and that finally we get past what I've always described I'm afraid ever since the beginning which is the United States need not be intimidated by the International Criminal Court it simply doesn't have to be intimidated anymore by this court rather the court is our ally it stands for the values that we stand for we should have the self-confidence to be part of it and so I would hope that it points towards that ultimate development. By the way I should add that nonetheless the United States by working I know that there are U.S. elements working with the prosecutor general in Ukraine to help with the investigations there on a national basis and all of that is very very supportive ultimately of the ICC's mandate because they have to look at a fairly narrow range of cases for a small group of people that's all that they can handle whereas Ukraine is going to be looking at probably hundreds if not thousands of ultimate defendants and it's like we experienced with Bosnia-Herzegovina where even today there's a special war crimes chamber that continues its work on a very national level regarding the Yugoslav War of the early 1990s long after the Yugoslav Tribunal has completed its work. Prosecutor Kahn one of the issues that you've both reflected on is the relationship between the ICC and national courts. It would be very interesting I think for all of us to understand better what kind of support the ICC can provide to the national courts that are prosecuting war crimes crimes against humanity and vice versa what kind of support the national actors and civil society can provide to the ICC. I think that's a pivotal question and if I may present before I deal with it I think it's important to re-applaud and recognise the outstanding leadership of Ambassador David Sheffer as the first ambassador at large for war crimes and also she's not in the room but in a way now we have an absolute outstanding and exceptionally able individual that the United States has appointed as Ambassador Beth Van Schaak as the ambassador for global criminal justice. So I think in terms of the emphasis on legality and the rules of law we're in a good place and this is even in these desperate times it is an opportunity to show the relevance of what we're doing. I think the model of the ICC has always been complementarity. What we can provide is and we have to also change some of our architecture which we're doing is to instead of being this top of the pyramid, this apex court we are a hub in which we're doing our own job. We're a court of last resort but we're also feeding into the spokes that are essential to keep the will of justice moving and they are national authorities and this is something that's not just talk about exactly what we try to do in my last mandate as the special advisor and head of UNITAD. There's massive data sets for these types of crimes. Some may be generated from the country, some may be from NGOs, some may be aware of our independent investigations, some by state parties, some by non-state parties and in any criminal investigation one gets what I always describe as orphan pieces of evidence. A rental car agreement which a national prosecutor or somebody in the military going through boxes seized from the battlefield will seize of very marginal significance. But if you make that piece of evidence with other evidence seized either by our own investigations or by other sources a completely different image may reveal itself that may be of great evidential significance. So, you know, national authorities in the Ukraine situation we have nine national authorities investigating. We have then a jit of three states and we have other action taken by other groups, NGOs and commissions of inquiry and all the rest of it. Every actor will have a snapshot but if we put that together you get a kaleidoscope of information that we, you know, harnessing technology with the experience we have can feed into national jurisdictions. Of course, there's a court of last resort for some cases it may be useful because of the international platform to expose certain ideologies or to bring things to the court in accordance with the statute. But very often justice is best done at home and we can provide it to national authorities in a way that is impactful. And in that regard I'm really delighted and I think it's wonderful to say so here in the United States one of your great companies, Microsoft are doing absolutely outstanding work. They were extremely pivotal in my last mandate in terms of helping us together with members of my team designing some architecture in a way that was integrated in the cloud using artificial intelligence, machine learning, facial recognition and all the rest of it in a way that would help deal with the massive data sets that are a signature of these types of cases. And Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft also has pledged to assist us now in the office of the prosecutor and hopefully we can then receive information and give it back. And that really answers the other part of the question. What do we need from states? We need support. Of course we, the resources are always an issue but I'm pleased that since the 7th of March when I sent a note for Ballout to all state parties we have about 20 countries that have pledged financial support and or secondments of personnel that we will not earmark for Ukraine, I can't accept that but we'll use across the situations to help international justice be more meaningful. And at the same time we need to try to receive information from others, whether it's state parties or non-state parties whether it's intelligence, satellite, information, radar, interception of communications or information from neighbouring states or access in neighbouring states all of this is necessary so suddenly we're working in partnership and I think ultimately that's important. The ICC to my mind was never conceived of and it's clear in black and white, it's not my impressionistic view it's not in competition with national authorities it is based upon complementarity so it's this realisation that our shared humanity should trump these petty fiefdoms and territorial considerations and we work together in relation to crimes that are much bigger than us and actually, you know, do a better job. President Cratt, can I just jump in with a memory of Microsoft? When then Ambassador Albright and I visited the Yugoslav Tribunal just after it had secured property in the Hague this was in November or December of 1993 and it was just President Kassesse there I think Judge McDonald was there and Graham Blewett was there as deputy prosecutor that was it, that was the staff and that got us going on seconding a lot of Americans but one of the questions we asked when we walked in was so has anyone really tried to help you and I think it was President Kassesse who said yeah, Microsoft sent us some computer terminals so they were there in the very beginning, you know Ambassador Shepard, within the jurisdiction for the ICC the issue of wars of aggression and how they can best be prosecuted and of course I know that within this discussion there is also a reflection on the possible complementarity of international tribunals and that you in your role have given thought to how this might work if you could share your reflections with us Well yes I can, you know I consult with a lot of my international law colleagues in academia of course on matters of this character and I also have my own experience particularly with the special court for Sierra Leone and the extraordinary chambers in Cambodia which really required a lot of innovative thinking about how do you create these types of tribunals under extraordinary circumstances and where the UN Security Council is not stepping forward to literally create a Chapter 7 tribunal as they had with Yugoslavia and Rwanda and one formula which really did work was the one that was applied for Sierra Leone and in a somewhat different context for Cambodia namely that there would be a treaty established between the United Nations and the government of Ukraine to deal with that narrow band of the crime of aggression which prosecutor Khan is very constrained at looking at just because of many factors in the Rome Statute and that treaty could establish a tribunal on the crime of aggression that would certainly have and it could be designated specifically as an international court just as the special court for Sierra Leone was so determined to be and described as and worked as and rendered judgments as an international court and in that way then you would have the UN General Assembly approving that treaty negotiated by UN lawyers and the Ukrainian government and then provide a treaty based court it could be done fairly rapidly in that way and you do not have to involve the Security Council whoever in that exercise now I'm very aware there are other models being discussed but I think at the end of the day for the credibility of the exercise and for its sort of synergy with what the ICC is doing on the other atrocity crimes genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes having the UN engaged this way with the financial support obviously of countries that would need to step up to the plate to fund such a court but again it would have a narrow mandate of the crime of aggression I think would be a very worthwhile exercise gentlemen with your permission we would like to open the floor for questions may we invite them from the floor sir thank you so much Will Malden with the Wall Street Journal I would like to that very interesting on the crime of aggression would like to hear the prosecutor cons reaction to that or if there are other ways to approach the crime of aggression given from his point of view and then also if I could ask you Mr. Prosecutor a little bit about your size of your operation in Ukraine whether you have the resources you need and you talked about complementarity but is there danger of all the organizations involved NGOs, different governments governments that don't even have close relations with the court like our own in the US is there a danger of people tripping over each other or getting in each other's way in terms of your operation there thank you that's a great question if I may deal with the second one first yes it's a danger when I made the announcement on the 25th of February that reminding all parties to the conflict of their obligations to comply with international humanitarian law I was in Cox's Bazaar further to our investigations regarding the Rohingya and it's been well documented there that there's been over-documentation different NGOs are funded by different states and then they report back to their funders and very often I've seen witnesses become in effect commodities rape victims under view 10, 15 times in a way that is unacceptable and obscene alas Cox's Bazaar is not the first and is not the last we have seen other initiatives in Iraq and in Syria named after now Nadja Murad the Murad Code that deals with the same phenomena of over-documentation and what we need to really be careful of and I think it behoves us not to keep having lessons learned it's about learning the lessons and applying them effectively if there is a stampede in an uncoordinated fashion for documentation the same thing will happen and I think there needs to be a greater realisation that documentation is not the only game in town very often in these situations to my mind we need psychologists we need psychosocial help people are traumatised, we need education humanitarian assistance so I think there needs to be greater partnerships I think the advantage is for example in this situation we have organised police forces in Europe we have international standards under the rubric or supervision of the European Court of Human Rights we have many war crimes officers we have very sophisticated entities like Europol and Eurogest and I think as long as we work as part of joint endeavours we can work more effectively and at the same time we don't want bystanders so I think it's about allocating what the priorities are in the same way we have OSHA for humanitarian assistance because of this phenomena of stampeding and lack of coordination I think there may be a role for others or for the Office of the Prosecutor when we have jurisdiction to try to play a part in trying to coordinate these efforts and we've got a wonderful relationship with the Prosecutor General of Ukraine with the President of Eurogest and I think we're working in that collegiate, effective manner to try to make sure that we work effectively I think whether one is a state party or an understate party the stakes for international justice should bind us together it goes back to my earlier point we all should be friends of those that seek to repress genocide or crimes against humanitarian war crimes and it really doesn't matter whether we sleep in our respective beds at night whether or not one is a state party or not it's an obligation to stand up, to do something to make this world a better place or to make it less cruel and less painful for so many of our brothers and sisters and children around the world and this requires engagement and I think this discussion here in the United States of America is essential because as I said earlier these are United States values these are the values of all humanity they're not of the global north they are Christian values and Muslim values and values of Asia and Latin America if we can actually focus on our basic essential quintessential humanity and that way suddenly we're not in the export business we're trying to be bound by what we collectively own it's not owned in the Hague and it wasn't born in Rome, a legal instrument was born in Rome but the values that underpin it go way back beyond Nuremberg into antiquity in terms to other structures look states are sovereign states can make decisions about what structures they have I could leave it there but the crime of aggression or aggression has happened in different periods of history there was quite some discussion in terms of Kampala regarding the definition of aggression and I think there's a natural reaction sometimes to create institutions and create mechanisms I think states are in a good position to decide what's necessary my job is to try to make the office work better within our jurisdiction we do have the Rome Statute at a great best the provision that deals with aggression has been activated and whilst at the moment it may not seem likely that it is it will be a crime within the jurisdiction of the court history shows things change and if things change it is also one of the offences within the court's jurisdiction so I tend to focus on making what's in my jurisdiction ensure its investigators as effectively as possible and states must make a decision but then when you create something there's an obligation to fund it and that's history of the ICC it was created with high hopes others are assessing whether or not we are fulfilling those hopes we need to improve, I need to improve the office needs to improve but also those that created the court and gave hope to so many have a responsibility to properly fund and support it otherwise it becomes a mirage it becomes a fig leaf of activity sooner rather than later in my view Carrie Kennedy with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Mr. Ambassador you talked about secunding prosecutors to the ICC what would that look like how many would you want what is the background you would need how quickly do you need them to be there how long should they stay how would you see that to happen and if you permit we'll take two or three questions as we wrap up Paul I have a question from Lara Jakes from the New York Times for Prosecutor Kahn what is the likelihood of swift or conclusive justice for Ukrainian victims of rape, sexual assault trafficking and other gender based war crimes given that the ICC is widely known as the last resort secondly what are you doing to ensure that perpetrators are being held accountable and do you envision that President Putin may be prosecuted for these gender based crimes being used as a weapon for war thank you and we'll take one final question sir thanks very much to the prosecutor could I ask the same question that was posed to Ambassador Schaeffer and that's the role of the United States the United States with its complicated relationship in recent years in what ways could it assist this investigation is everything that you're looking for here in the United States and to follow on my colleague Lara's question when asked about President Putin is there a risk of impunity purely by virtue of the power of Russia and I do have one final question ma'am thanks very much I'm Liz Evensson with the coalition for the International Criminal Court I just want to say Mr. Prosecutor it's such a pleasure to see you here we consider where the relationship between the U.S. and your office was not too much longer than a year ago and I know it's thanks to individuals like Ambassador Schaeffer civil society, academic other voices here in the United States that really stood up for the role of the court in the face of the Trump administration's attacks and insisted that there is a constituency here and globally for the work of your office I just wanted to come back to what you mentioned Ambassador Schaeffer and get both of your thoughts in terms of the 43 state party referral to the prosecutor on Ukraine that obviously demonstrates a great outpouring of support for the role of the court but are there also some challenges that that raises in terms of making sure that the court's impartial independent role is vindicated you've been so clear Mr. Prosecutor that resources should not be marked to the Ukraine situation but I wonder how we take this support for one particular situation and capitalize on that for all of the situations before the office thank you so much Ambassador Schaeffer well I'll start with the first question from Ms. Kennedy which is the convent to the ICC of course it's up to Prosecutor Kahn to really answer that question as to what he needs and how he wishes to receive that assistance I am simply pointing out that first of all we did this particularly with the Yugoslav Tribunal 30 years ago we put out a call within the federal government for those interested in being seconded to the Yugoslav Tribunal we got a tremendous response from the Department of Justice from the Defense Department and from U.S. Attorney's offices around the country etc with individuals who were interested in doing this as well as investigative individuals for example from the FBI who stepped forward and said yeah I'd like to be seconded for a year or two years that means that the U.S. government is paying their salary but that's also something that the Department of Justice's legal memo from 2010 said yes if it's a specific case not generally then we can do it we can second someone for a specific case being investigated and prosecuted by the court just because of the limitations of these constraining laws that we have in the United States that were passed after the Clinton administration but it is very very doable and I will say that if the call went out within the U.S. government because the U.S. government would be paying the salary so you want people already salaried by the U.S. government it's easier that way I think there would be an enormous reception to the call but I leave to Prosecutor Kahn what you really need and how you want to receive it or if you wish to comment at all on that well I think it's right to recall that the United States had a very proud and distinguished record in terms of international justice from your own Berg onwards and the Yugoslav tribunal as a junior prosecutor in end of 96 beginning of 1997 and there were so many secondees from the Justice Department from Department of Defense I remember one of the re-outstanding lawyers was Brenda Hollis in the early cases and then she subsequently became the prosecutor at the special court for Sierra Leone and is currently the co-prosecutor in Cambodia so I'm a witness firsthand as to the contribution that the subcommands had it's not just from the United States it was also the United Kingdom and many other countries but the reality is the ICTY wouldn't have got off the ground without the support of the United States and I think we should be very ready to accept that and it's something those in the room those that are American citizens should be very proud of and we don't think those are requires an approach and in terms of even ASPA I think it's always open to any for the United States to clarify further in terms of the issue of subcommands generally what we need in international justice in my view now are hardened, experienced investigators whether it's organized crime or whether it's forensic analysts or whether it's military analysts these are the skill sets that one needs across the board so that's my answer in relation to that I don't know if you want me to answer some of the others in terms of the first question I can't promise anything I'm a prosecutor all I can promise is ethics hard work integrity following the evidence and trying to use imaginative and creative ways to ensure that justice is not a phantom it is something that the victims who yearn for it the survivors who need it and the communities around the world see it in action now it requires investigations it requires cooperation it requires partnerships in the way that I've mentioned before the ICC is a last resort but for me that's the beauty of the thing I think we also can change the model I think the ICC over a period and the office maybe look at a fewer number of cases a fewer number of situations but to go deeper so instead of doing three or four in one situation you go far deeper and you maybe do scores instead these are things we have to look at in a way that is consistent with our mandate to make international justice more effective it's obvious if you do two or three cases and somebody passes away you know it's not really effective and it doesn't have the impact that criminal justice could have in terms of the individual you mentioned we're not no proper prosecutor should start with a target it would be as wrong in the ICC as it should be wrong in the United States of America you don't get Carter you don't get an individual you follow the evidence and see where it leads friends and standards independence, scrutiny and rigorous assessment and then as the adage goes let the dice fall where they may so that's my answer in relation to that certainly I think we can be far faster in terms of swiftness I think the whole model international justice cannot be as pedestrian as sometimes it's been it can't be kind of a historic endeavor after normalcy has been ensured it needs to be impactful but it requires partnerships as I've said sharing of intelligence, information, satellite an ability to enter the territory or at least neighbouring countries and to build the trust and this commonality of endeavor without which we're not going to do too much I mean the United States in relation to another one it's played a pivotal role it's not in fact just in relation to the the recent or more recent difficulties of the past even in the ICC not just the ICT whites important to emphasize that the arrest of Dominic Hongwen or Nataganda was affected with the assistance of the United States so it's worth emphasizing there are the seeds of cooperation and there are the evidence of support and we need to also focus on what can be done to move forward in a way that is ever more effective you know the the coalition of the international criminal court should be really proud of itself it played a critical part in Rome for those that don't know the coalition as a name implies is an umbrella of many different actors NGO civil society that really were joined by a dream and a quest and a stubborn desire to take an idea and see it translate into practice that justice and accountability preserved for the few but it should be a right that is intrinsic to our humanity wherever you know actions take place within the court but in terms of the question I think the 43 states is important I hope more you know join but sometimes to do better we need to do things differently we shouldn't think that the playbook of the last 20 years is the best it can be we see in sport we see in other endeavors if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and you're not winning the championships perhaps that manager you know could do better by embracing new ideas and we've been very clear in my letter on the 7th of March regarding the note verbals in my communications throughout in the press and also in statements we're not accepting earmarked support there is a need across situations and I will deploy those resources where they're most needed and I've said publicly what I think the priorities are to do better so I think there may be in some quarters a degree of circumspection about a new approach but my own view is the new approach should be embraced with two arms with two hands so that we can actually not just talk about justice but start seeing it in motion start seeing it in practice and it requires these new these new types of partnerships and I have as a lawyer, as an officer of the court and also as an elected official I've taken an oath regarding my professional responsibilities independence is something that every lawyer should have independence is something every prosecutor is required of and every judge for that matter so partnerships don't dilute independence otherwise the collaboration in Europe on extradition or on jits would be falling foul partnerships in the United States between federal and state would be oh that's not independent how is the federal FBI working or liaising with national or state prosecution or police authorities independence is a state of mind it's a fidelity to the law and an insistence that extraneous considerations should not affect the determinations of a prosecutor and this is known by the adage of without fear or favor and I think for me speaking to state parties to speaking to non-state parties having dialogue listening doesn't compel me to act in any particular way but hubris is the end of many Shakespearean tragedy so we should always be cautious of thinking we know it all using that as a justification not to speak to others who may give different perspectives and help us work more effectively but of course always independently can I just add Madam President that what prosecutor Khan has just stated has so many grains of truth in it I want to just come back if I can to kind of the original point that we made at the beginning of the audience questioning is when you want to look for opportunities of how the United States can support the ICC and its work sometimes you have to work you have to put your mind on a sort of a parallel track that obviously can be supportive of the ICC but is not technically part of the ICC structure at that particular moment one thing that could be considered and I have to imagine that my friends from the office of global criminal justice my old office in the State Department who are in the audience today might already be on this because we always had a checklist every day in the old office of war crimes issues of 10 outstanding atrocity situations that we were focusing on that day and I do think that the United States might be able to play a role in this coordination effort of the interviewing of victims and witnesses in Ukraine it's an enormous task you do not want to abuse the witness with repetitive interviews by different organizations you must have a master coordinator of that we learned that lesson I think early on during the Kosovo conflict in 1999 and we tried to have protocols to protect the individual victims as they were being interviewed by civil society and then by ultimately the Yugoslav Tribunal itself but the other thing I wanted to just point out is that we mustn't lose sight that these sort of openings for US cooperation in terms of even seconded personnel should be looked at on an equitable basis which prosecutor Khan has been emphasizing it's not just Ukraine there are many other situations before the ICC whereby seconded personnel for very specific cases in those situations with very specific targeted individuals as potential defendants before the court could benefit from US coordination and help with respect to those specific cases far beyond Ukraine gentlemen we're at the end of our time together this conversation has reminded all of us that one of the greatest achievements of the past 75 years has been the international commitment to accountability for atrocities and the establishment of institutions that have pursued that because of your exceptional leadership ambassador over many decades Mr. Prosecutor today in the work that you do in the ICC you have reminded all of us why this achievement is worth defending and why it's our responsibility to reaffirm our commitment to help ensure that it spreads in every way possible I hope everyone joins me in thanking the prosecutor and ambassador