 Mae'r 5th Ysgol Gweithgwyr hwn yn dweud. Felly, rwy'n meddwl am y Ysgol Gweithgwyr hwn, oedd yn ystod y gweithgwr ystod o'r Gweithgwyr. Felly, rwy'n meddwl, mae'n 4 ysgol yn ymgyrchol yng Nghymru. Felly, rwy'n meddwl am y post, rwy'n meddwl am y gweithgwr yng nghymru a'r ffordd yng Nghymru. Mae'n meddwl am y gweithgwr yng nghymru, wedi y gwasanaethol, ond y cyflwydoedd mewn cyfryd, a'i gael y fath i'r boddau gweld fath ar y ddechrau. A'r byth yw, mae'n gweithio ar y gweithio'r gwahanol ac ydych chi'n meddwl gael y bydd rhaid yn y gwirionedd. Aser, mae'r ffocws yn cyrraedd yn unig ymddiolol. Felly, mae'n ddweud wedi bod yn gweithio'r gweithio'r gwaith i'r unrhyw gweithio'r ydyddol i'r gweithio'r ymddangos. Felly wedi gweld gweithio'r ystafell, a... gweld gwneud hynny. Ond efallai mae'r 5 ymddangos i'r lawf ymddangos i'r gweithio'r ystafell i'r unrhyw, yn ymddangos i'r gweithio. Ac rydw i ddim i'r gweithio'r gweithio'r ddaeth i'r mynd o'r ysgol, y dyfodol yn ychydig i'r gweithio'r ysgol. Ond yw'r rhwylo sy'n cydwag i amser y cyfrifysgau y Llaw Dyn mae'n dweud y cerddur, dychydig ychydig yn gyfathol yng Nghymru, ac yn y ffrifysgau a'r bwysig ar gyfer y cyfrifysgau. Y Un wedi ddiweddion, nid oedd o'r wneud o'r hoffaidd genai o'r cyfrifysgau a'r hoffaidd sy'n cyfrifysgau i'r cyfrifysgau i'r cyfrifysgau i'r cyfrifysgau, ac mae'r priambl mae'n gilydd sy'n cyfrifysgau i'r cyfrifysgau i'r cyfrifysgau under which justice and respect for obligations arising under treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained. Over the years the UN has seen periods when international law has seemed more marginal, that possibly explains my curiosity when I joined. But I now see that as a function as the guardian of the global legal architecture that international law does really feature centrally in the work of the organisation. We live in an era when international law is no longer the business of international courts. It's being addressed in sustained and systematic ways in many national courts and in regional courts. So really in the very recent past has developed I think a greater significance in terms of international relations. So I thought I'd just give you a sense of my office and the kind of work that we do just very briefly before I go into some substantive issues. My office has about 200 at the moment. It's a very small office in the context of the organisation more broadly. We deal with a wide range of international law issues but also issues that one wouldn't imagine necessarily that the UN has to grapple with. So I have six divisions just to give you a sense. So the Office of Legal Counsel in my immediate office we deal with issues on peacekeeping. We have of course 17 peacekeeping operations around the world. We have over 100,000 peacekeepers with all the issues that arise there and the mandates under which these peacekeeping operations operate. This is subject to the legal advice of my office. That part of the office deals with privileges and immunities and general advice on public international law and the laws of war. That just gives you a general sense of that. Then we have a division which deals with oceans affairs and the law of the sea. We have a division that deals with treaty law. The Secretary General is the depository for 550 multilateral treaties. So we deal with all the legal issues that arise there but the depository function lies in my office. I have a division known as the General Legal Division which deals with contracts of over $4 billion at the moment and peacekeeping issues also procurement issues in relation to the organization more broadly. We have a new system of administration of justice which was established in 2009 just soon after I started for the now over 75,000 staff we have around the world. So we have our own centralized system of administration of justice which has two tiers, a lower court and an appeals court and this is also run through my office. I have an office in Vienna which is the international trade law division of the Office of Legal Affairs which deals with, it's a secretariat for unsatral which focuses very much on international trade law. So being a lawyer in a political environment and I know that there are some in this room that will sympathize with this even from a domestic perspective brings with it a very distinct role where the provision of objective legal advice is essential for policy decision making. It's critical for decision makers to take into account the legal implications of their decisions before they take the decision. So that's essentially our main objective is to try to ensure that legal advice is brought to the table before decisions are made but of course in many many cases we are also reactive. Just to touch on the sort of breadth of situations which legal issues have been very much at the heart of that we've had to deal with and I'm only throwing these out so that in the question and answer time you can ask me questions if you like because I won't go into much detail on them. But when I started we had of course the terrible events that occurred in Gaza. We've dealt with the flotilla incident as I'm sure everybody here is aware of, a lot of issues in relation to the Middle East. We've had to focus very much on Palestine and the question of Palestine's application to the United Nations but also more intensely in a way because that was a sort of specific issue at a particular time is the question of the status of Palestine within the organisation and in life. The fact that it joined UNESCO last year has given rise to a lot of legal implications. This year Palestine is quieter at the moment as opposed to exactly this time last year when the application of Palestine to become a member of the organisation was before the Security Council which had come through the Secretary General. And then we've had to deal with situations like Côte d'Ivoire, Libya of course, Haiti, Sri Lanka, constantly the Democratic Republic of Congo which is a constant issue on our table and Syria which I will speak about more specifically. So this just to give you a sense of the range. So what's the vision of my office? I thought maybe I'd just touch on that very briefly with respect to the implementation of international law for the UN as a global actor. My role council my task is to support the Secretary General's commitment to the strengthening of the rule of law, the pursuit of justice and specifically the ending of impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. So this is very much at the heart of the sort of advice and sort of relationship that we have with the Secretary General in terms of supporting his commitment to the rule of law. And why is the rule of law important? Essentially the rule of law is vital just in a crisp sense for the establishment of respect is fundamental and essential for the prevention of conflict for the establishment of peace in the aftermath of conflict for the effect of protection of human rights and of course for sustainable economic progress and development. So in this connection I was delighted to have a role to play with the Secretary General at the rule of law debate which commenced last Monday. It was the first time that the General Assembly has decided to take on the rule of law as a specific topic to discuss and debate before the main General Assembly began on Tuesday. So it was a very, very interesting day and it was remarkable I think that over 50 heads of state and government decided to come to New York for the earlier day in order to engage and to be involved in the rule of law discussions. So I thought that was quite indicative in terms of the importance that is now attached to rule of law, the fact that over 50 came and then the rest were essentially foreign ministers. So it was an extremely high level of attendance at the debate. So I thought maybe I'd touch on two somewhat topical issues. I was going to speak about the Congo but I think in terms of timing I'll wait until questions if anybody is interested. And I thought I'd focus on the UN's work for the ending of impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide and then to also talk about responsibility to protect which is of course linked to this topic. International justice generally, the 1990s and early 2000s were historical periods in international justice for the obvious reasons that we had had the terrible atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. And the international community was galvanised at that time as a result of the terrible events that had occurred and the difficulties which the world and the United Nations faced in dealing with those situations and the terrible failures that occurred at that time. So as I say the international community was very focused as a result of which it was decided to establish by the Security Council the special tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. And I think these tribunals were evidence of the recognition that the principles established at Nuremberg which really had been allowed to lie fallow for all the years after Nuremberg that individuals will be held accountable for the picture. And that was a great perpetration of atrocity crimes. So this is now very much at the heart of the United Nations quest for justice. So my office has been very closely engaged in the establishment of these courts and in supporting them throughout their work. I believe there are many skeptics but I believe that they have achieved an enormous amount in terms not only of bringing justice for the victims but justice in terms of accountability for the individuals who are engaged. But also it has in a sense international justice in these regions both in Rwanda and the broader region in Africa but also in the former Yugoslavia have brought sort of the rule of law to the region. And in a sense these courts have become the catalyst for the rule of law at a very difficult times post conflict transitions for these two countries and regions. Heads of state of course have not been exempted and an impressive body of jurisprudence has evolved and developed. So some 18 years now after their establishment the ICTY and the ICTR are basically closing their doors and folding up. The recent arrests last year and the year before Mladic Hadich and the trial of Karadish are all underway and the appeals will be determined by both those courts and the residual mechanism which is being established by the Security Council to take on the necessary after effect work of the two tribunals which includes of course the maintenance of archives dealing with the potential fugitives in the case of Rwanda because there are no fugitives from the ICTR. ICTY and protection of witnesses and other issues which some of you will be familiar with but all of this is now being dealt with by a new residual mechanism which will be established. I just should mention in relation to the ICTY that I think it's quite an extraordinary statistic that all 161 in DITs have been brought to justice in one way or another. Some have died but all of them have been brought before the court. In other words there are no fugitives that were identified by the prosecutor who have managed to escape justice. So that in itself is quite an extraordinary statistic. The ICTR we can't say quite the same thing but it also has been extremely successful. And now some of the remaining trials are being transferred to Kigali on foot of the conviction of the court that Kigali is now in a position to administer justice in a way that achieves international standards necessary for the UN to be able to pass on the work to them. So then we have the special court for Sierra Leone which of course also has folded its doors in terms of the work that's being done in Sierra Leone. The Charles Taylor trial was produced, the former president of Liberia produced a successful conviction and what's astonishing and remarkable about this case is that of course it was the conviction of a former head of state by an international criminal tribunal for planning, aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity and of course this case and I sense this very much in the UN in New York. It has really truly sent a signal to leaders that sovereignty is no longer a barricade for justice and that a day of accountability and a day of reckoning will come for those who perpetrate these crimes and that head of state immunity while of course it still exists and is very much something to which we are committed and nevertheless it doesn't apply in a wide range of circumstances and a former head of state will be vulnerable. Then finally in terms of the ad hoc tribunals I'd like to mention the extraordinary chambers for the courts of Cambodia which some of you will have heard me speak about before and I know that some of you are particularly interested which I find really quite unusual quite frankly that when we speak about international justice people are not really interested in what has gone on in Cambodia. I think it's far away and it sort of seems like an awfully long time ago but quite honestly I think that the court in Cambodia is in the course of trying possibly or arguably the most significant war crimes trial since Nuremberg despite all the terrible things that have happened in the world and the other courts and what they have had to do. As you know the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979 essentially obliterated a quarter of their population so this is a system of justice which has been established to determine accountability for those crimes. It is an extremely difficult court to manage. It crosses my plate virtually every day in one way or another. There are allegations of political interference. There has been political interference. There have been difficulties with regard to corruption in the court, all sorts of unimaginable and unimaginable difficulties to be handled. However, the court is still going. We have the conviction of Khanguk Ev, otherwise known as Doik, who was the head of the S21 prison which had been a school just outside of Phnom Penh where up to 20,000 people, he supervised this prison and up to 20,000 people came through the prison and were either killed there and tortured and killed or sent to the killing fields of Chong Ek just outside of Phnom Penh. He was convicted for 35 years and reduced to 19 years for the years he had served. I thought, having come from this environment with my legal training and the wonderful people that I worked with who had trained me well, I was very well equipped to discuss and argue on the question of the sentencing because in Cambodia the people were devastated at the fact that he had only got 35 years and why he hadn't had his head chopped off or at least had a life sentence. What I said in the United Nations, which is a lot of words I know and certainly words for the people of Cambodia, was that this is symptomatic of a rule of law discussion in any democratic state where sentencing in this country and I would speak about my own country that when sentences were delivered by judges very often there would be that national debate about is it enough or should it have been more or was it enough or the rape or whatever it is and that this is a healthy sign within Cambodia of the fact that the court in itself has become a catalyst for the rule of law and these sort of discussions are not bad although that doesn't needless to say assist the victims. One of the things that also struck me that may be of interest was that 35,000 people came from the villages and towns in Cambodia just to come to the courtroom, just to be there. Many of them of course couldn't get in but just to be somewhere in the vicinity of this very decrepit I have to say courtroom because we go through terrible times in relation to the buildings and the monsoons and all the rest of it. But they came and they stood there just to feel the justice and if I may which is not a legal point just to describe my experiences I've had to go to Phnom Pen on a number of occasions because of the difficulties which we're facing but the first time I went I was asked if I'd like to go to Chong Ek having gone to the S21 which I felt I had to do having been persuaded that I would like to go to the Chong Ek killing fields and having lived in Cambodia as a child I thought you know I really need to be able to do this. So I went to the killing fields and because of the monsoon rains this is to show you the sort of the fact that this country is still very, very underdeveloped and although it's doing so much better now but when I walked in there was nobody there in this the killing fields there were no other there were no tourists there was nobody there and I was taken across the fields to different places to trees and to I'm one or two of you I know have also been there. But the rains had just come and out of the ground were little rags of blue and I said to my guide so what are these and they said that's just the clothes of the people who are so the ground in other words that the rains are such that the bones are still coming up from the ground and the Cambodians haven't yet maybe they leave them there in order to but it was a very, very desolate experience for me and for everybody just to even see it. So they're essentially the ad hoc tribunals that as I say are coming to a close so now we have what's left is the international criminal court which is of course the most significant permanent, the only permanent court we have to administer international criminal justice. And the international criminal court will now take over and has already started to do significant work. We're celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and I when I talk about the ICC I take every opportunity to refer to the role of states and the principle of complementarity upon which international justice is essentially founded. And the principle of complementarity is that essentially it is the duty of states first and foremost to prosecute for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide and that international criminal justice is not there to supersede or take over the role of national jurisdictions but to complement them. So it's only where states are either unable or unwilling or a combination of both to prosecute for these crimes does international justice come into play. The principle of complementarity is crucial for the future of international criminal justice and the quest to end impunity for these great violations. It's clear that the role of national jurisdictions and the principle of complementarity has become the absolute bedrock of international justice. What I tend to say in many arguments that seem to come our way in relation to the selectivity of justice within the ICC etc. That essentially justice and I know in this room you're very aware but we have to say it in an international context because of the fears of intrusion on sovereignty and all of that anxieties that many in the international community have about international justice. The justice is a nation's choice and essentially it is for nation states in the first instance to determine where and how accountability should be brought to bear but the reality is that in many, many states in the world they are not capable or they are not willing to prosecute and we have examples across the board that we can discuss in greater detail. So I think with the ICC the last thing to mention is that it is now currently it has jurisdiction over seven situations. They are based in Africa and this is where the selectivity criticism comes into play because it's all in Africa but what we must bear in mind is that many of these situations are self referrals and arguably the ICC would not even exist if it weren't for Africa. So the following situations the DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda, Darfur, Libya, Kenya and Cote d'Ivoire. In the case of Darfur and in the case of Libya the Security Council decided to refer both these situations to the ICC so it isn't a case of self referral. The others on the other hand are cases of self referral. The court did have one conviction and that is this year in the case of Lubanga who's been convicted of war crimes of conscripting children under the age of 15 into armed groups and listing children into armed groups and using children to participate actively in armed conflict. So essentially there are I think four key elements to international criminal justice that I think we can take away at this time 10 years into the ICC and with the folding up of the ad hoc tribunals. First is that the old era of impunity is well and truly over in its place slowly but surely we have established and are establishing an age of accountability. Secondly in this new age of accountability nobody is above the law. We would take this for granted here but internationally that is something that could never be taken for granted and it certainly can't still but it's something that we are very committed to and the international community has shown its commitment to this. And in particular heads of state leaders will eventually be held accountable for their actions. Thirdly as I've mentioned before sovereignty is no longer barricade and the days of sovereignty being a barricade to justice are gone. And finally the most difficult of all there is no peace without justice peace and justice must go hand in hand very obvious nearly cliched statements to make at this point but something that we grapple with every day of the week in the United Nations in relation to the peace deals negotiations which we are trying to discuss. I had a meeting last week just to give you an example and we talked more about Syria but I had a meeting with Lactar Brahimi just before I left who has been appointed by the League of Arab States and the Secretary General as his special representative and he has to deal with the question of balancing the peace with justice and of course at the moment as you can imagine the only thing on his mind is peace but it is something that we make a point of saying that you cannot move forward on peace without justice being taken into account. So how we do that of course is a whole other day's work. And so I thought now to just turn to the concept of responsibility to protect and many of you may know about this principle but so those of you are familiar with it forgive me from starting at scratch. I'll just very briefly. This is a relatively new concept but it's been highly relevant in a number of conflicts in the last few years but particularly in the last two years. It's still evolving and is developing. In essence in 2005 the international community and heads of state and government agreed that there should no longer be a tolerance of the perpetration of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing. So the community agreed that they would put together this principle which would lie at the heart of hopefully everything that would be done in this extremely broad area and objective of the UN. So essentially to give a brief explanation we divide it into three pillars. The first pillar is the obvious one but it's so obvious and yet there is so much work to be done. The first pillar is the responsibility of states to protect their own populations from war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing. The second pillar is the responsibility of the international community to assist states where they are failing or where they indeed where they need. They don't even have to have failed where they need assistance in relation to protection of the civilians from these atrocity crimes. And the third which is by far the most controversial and difficult is where states are manifestly failing to protect their populations. The responsibility of the international community to take timely and decisive action to intervene to protect populations. Now before we go into the use of force and chapter 7 issues I should focus a little bit on the other elements which are chapter 6 and chapter 8 of the charter. Chapter 6 is that part of the charter which deals with the peaceful resolution of disputes and peaceful settlement of disputes. The aim of chapter 6 is to try to bring about peaceful resolution before conflicts occur. And even when conflicts occur during the course of those conflicts to use the tools under chapter 6 which do not amount to the use of force to try to reduce the difficult elements of a conflict or potential conflict. And the chapter 8 is the engagement of regional organizations which we can see very much is going on at the moment in relation to Syria. In fact the fears of Syria are not just Syria but largely the region as well and the impact that this is going to have on the region. So the regional organizations are very very engaged there. But the most difficult part of the third pillar is the question of the use of force and the obligation of the international community to take timely and decisive action. And this is chapter 7. And under chapter 7 of the charter is the authorization to use force when the Security Council agrees that force should be used. It's taken under chapter 7. And what I find the most controversial aspect is when the whole concept really was beginning to be debated at the very beginning of my term as the legal council, what I found was most of the NAM, most of the developing world have a real anxiety about and beyond the developing world a real anxiety about responsibility to protect being used as a tool to go over and above the provisions of the charter. In other words that it provides a legal basis for humanitarian intervention. And of course we have the whole situation that we had in Kosovo and the intervention by NATO without security council authorization. So the question there was well is that legal? But that's also a difficult topic and a separate topic. So what I say is and have said consistently and very often not to very welcoming ears is that the charter does not allow the use of force over and above two areas. One where the security council has given its authorization which of course requires the authorization of the concurring votes of the permanent five members or in self defense under article 51. And clearly when we're talking about responsibility to protect we're not talking about self defense. So essentially there cannot be intervention legally under the charter without the authorization of the security council. So responsibility to protect signifies a broad acceptance of fundamental principles of human rights. It reinforces the normative content of crimes of genocide war crimes and crimes against humanity. And it affirms states obligations under international law to prevent, prosecute and punish these atrocity crimes. At the heart of R2P is the recognition that state sovereignty which is of course the cornerstone of international relations entails responsibility. And this underscores that sovereignty entails enduring obligations towards one's people as well as certain privileges. And this in itself is not a new concept that sovereignty is responsibility or entails responsibility. But in terms of the debates that are going on to this day it is very often a debate between those who maintain that sovereignty requires absolute non-intervention in the affairs of states. But then if the repost is that sovereignty entails responsibility then it is primarily the responsibility of states in the first instance and then the international community to ensure that as populations are protected from these crimes. So having said that it doesn't add a new layer of international law the real question then is well what does it do? What is the added value? And it's quite subtle and quite difficult but there is an added value of course and to just put it succinctly as I can I think to say that it encapsulates the moral and legal imperative of the international community in relation to these four crimes. It's a potentially powerful vehicle for an important political process where political pressure as well as tangible technical and material assistance may be brought to assist states to exercise their responsibilities. Some argue that R2P has no normative effect and others hold that it's an enabling new norm but as I've said it doesn't create any new layer of international law. But what I say is that while it's not an obligatory new norm it doesn't impose any binding new duties it does confer additional responsibility and that responsibility is the responsibility to take action. And what's interesting about this is that while it doesn't add a new layer of international law it is resonating more and more in international relations. If you look at the resolutions that were taken which I'll speak a little bit more in more detail about Libya but the resolutions that were taken in relation to Libya the very beginning of Security Council resolution 1970 expressly refers to responsibility to protect and bear in mind that China and Russia were part of this so to have them as well as the obvious states within the P5 actually using the concept of responsibility to protect as a basis for then going on to in the case of Libya referring the matter to the International Criminal Court and taking sanctions and taking other measures under chapter 7 and then of course under 1973 Security Council resolution 1973 the authorization for the taking of all necessary measures for the protection of the civilian population. All of this was done under the rubric and architecture of responsibility to protect. Of course we've had kickback then in relation to Libya after the events which I'll just touch on in a moment. How am I doing dohee on time? I'm all right good. Just to give a sense of where does the rule of law sit in all of this. We had to look at this very carefully in my office because the concept didn't sit within my office. There's a special representative of the secretary general and he has a very clear and loud voice on the topic and basically was focused on this topic that this was his job as well as a special representative on genocide and they joined offices. But the constant concern that I had was where are the lawyers in all of this. We need to be there at the cold face of R2P and the first tool that I used which really helped us to get into the very heart of the subject is the fact that the very obvious one but the fact that the rule of law weaves its way through each of the pillars. If you think of the first pillar which is the pillar of the responsibility of states to protect their own population. The rule of law is so obviously there. States that enter into agreements, international agreements for the protection of refugees, human rights treaties and join the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court and actually implement the provisions of these international treaties are less likely to degenerate into situations of the atrocity conflict. The first pillar requires that states manage and this is something that I think is very particular say when you think about Rwanda that states manage diversity to promote equality, inclusivity, respect for fundamental rights and observance of democratic values and practices. In this way states provide the architecture for the prevention of these crimes so that's how in the first pillar in a simple way and rule of law is so critically important. The second pillar is much more obvious which is the responsibility of the international community to assist states and to develop their societies and structures in a way and their infrastructure in a way that prevents them from going down the path of the commission of these crimes and there it is a responsibility I think of all of us and we in Ireland I think do an enormous amount for the international quest to bring justice and rule of law to states. And the third pillar then is of course as I've mentioned the more technical aspects why the rule of law is so very much at the heart of what we talk about in relation to issues such as the use of force that while there may be the well intentioned desire to include humanitarian intervention until states decide to change the charter and this does not fall for square within responsibility to protect. I've mentioned about Libya and the fact that all the different measures that were taken there really fell for square within responsibility to protect. I think at this stage it's premature I mean despite the fact that there was a lot of controversy obviously after the NATO action and a lot of strong views that the NATO action had gone too far. You can see both sides of the argument and as the legal counsel I'm somewhat circumspect in coming down on either side. So what I would say is that it's premature to pass judgment still at this stage but the NATO intervention was applauded for stemming the violence against the civilian population while it's also been criticised for going beyond the limits of the Security Council authorization. Some states expressed concern that they went beyond what was strictly necessary. Others maintained that the protection of civilians in Libya required the drastic action that was taken and that many thousands of lives were saved while the facts speak for themselves. In this connection just with regard to the NATO action I think a significant feature in terms of the criticisms is that the International Commission of Inquiry which was appointed by the Human Rights Council found that NATO had conducted a highly precise campaign with the demonstrable determination to avoid civilian casualties. So that view I think is the predominant view in relation to the situation in Libya. We have now a mission in Libya on Smil another one of these UN acronyms but my office works extremely closely with that mission. And there I say that people have asked me what responsibility to protect is no longer relevant for Libya and I say but of course it still is because if you go to the first pillar and you think about the responsibility of states to protect their own populations now we have a state in transition, a state that is really trying to find its feet and it's very delicate stage and particularly with what's going on in the region that it's very important that the international community assists that state to prevent it from ever deteriorating into the sort of environment in which it was before. So this is where the first and second pillars come back into play and what the UN is currently doing there. I've spoken about international criminal justice and I think it's very important for us to bear in mind that the concept of responsibility to protect can't succeed without a credible threat of a response and a common conviction that the world will no longer tolerate impunity for an atrocity crime. So this is a sort of a natural link between the two subjects. Just one final point on the concept. After the Libya action and all the criticism that came forward a number of states got together and came to the General Assembly with a new concept and we haven't of course even vaguely got started with the concept of responsibility to protect but with their concern particularly about the third pillar and about the use of force Brazil took the initiative to bring to the table a measure from their perspective to replace or supplant responsibility to protect which is called responsibility while protecting. The notion being that the security council and you can see where the concern links to the initiative that they took. That the security council before it takes any decision to use force would have to decide, look at, consider and decide upon issues such as is this a matter of last resort. What is the proportionality issue and to have a proper regard to the issue of proportionality and to do a proper assessment of the balance of consequences. That this under the responsibility while protecting would become an obligation of the security council. And then secondly when a decision is taken to actually use force that the security council would be under an obligation to monitor and to report to the broader community the carrying out of the taking of action with use of force. So this concept when it came up first of responsibility while protecting really caused a lot of concern because a feeling of well that will just push back R2P and there will be no progress if we put something else on the table. But I found particularly last week that there's more and more discussion about responsibility while protecting because there is so much concern about the security council. So we anticipate that there will be possibly some sort of healthy dynamic between the two and that they will evolve together and possibly at some point in the future blend. So with this concept very much at the forefront of our efforts we of course are thinking about it every day, every hour of every day in relation to what's going on in Syria. So I'm happy to take any questions in relation to this topic but just very briefly to say that the challenge for the international community is to find ways to prevent further escalation of the conflict. But just on the R2P contribution we say that it's to underscore the responsibilities of states vis-a-vis their populations to pressure and motivate the international community to help states to meet them. This is a given and it seems to be happening every day when so much of the world is focused on Syria. As I've said earlier under the third pillar it does include the taking of collective action where states fail to meet their obligations. Just to say and of course it's not just to do with R2P, it's to do with the changed world we live in. But I was very curious last year when the terrible situation in Syria started to evolve. I was very curious as to the extent to which the organisation had looked at the terrible tragedy that had happened now nearly 30 years ago when Assad's father slaughtered over 20,000 of his people in Hamah. And I wanted to know whether either my office or the Security Council or the General Assembly or any organ of the organisation had even had a look at what had happened then. And despite our trawling through everything we found absolutely nothing. So there was 30 years ago, which really isn't that long ago, this issue, this terrible event occurred and the Security Council did not bring it to the table. The General Assembly didn't have a discussion about it and my office had never any engagement now. My day is taken up every day at the beginning of every day on Syria. The business of the Security Council while it seems to the world as though it's really not doing anything and it's not doing possibly what it should be doing. And there is undoubtedly a paralysis at a certain level with regard to certain issues. It nevertheless is the case that the Security Council is having to look at this issue every day and the General Assembly last week. I don't think there was a single speaker who stood up during the debate who didn't speak about Syria. So there's definitely a changed world and of course when we are trying to promulgate the concept of responsibility to protect and all that it means, we say that it is to do with of course a changed environment and to change communications etc. But also to do with the fact that the world is now alive to the responsibility not only of states for their own populations but also of the international community to protect populations from these terrible crimes. So I think I'll stop with that Dahi, is that alright? Thank you very much.