 very respectable. So I hope you won't mind that I will invariably take the six at the other end of this session as well. But first to Mike and Joe and Jess for organizing this and bringing us together. It's an incredibly timely discussion and I think intersects with a lot of a range of different research interests and I for one coming in and discuss and for all have been delighted to have the chance to read the papers. Now, for those of you who I don't know I'm somewhat of an interloper coming across from the law faculty here at King's College London, where I'm a reader in criminal law, and my work has predominantly been on international and transnational criminal law but very much from an perspective so I'm delighted to be part of this panel, which has the rather I might say wonderful title of Mars Clio and the courts. And so, so what I will do in terms of the structure is actually want to take the opportunity to introduce all of our speakers. Each, we have three papers in total, each paper will be presented for 15 minutes, which should then give us half an hour for discussion. I would encourage you to please put questions on to the Q&A box, as well as raising your hand, because then I can feed those questions in and we can sort of sustain a response to the papers. But let me start by just saying what a wonderful panel this is. And let me introduce your speakers today and this will be the order in which they will speak as well. First we'll hear from Professor James Gao, who is very familiar to you as a professor in the Department of Law Studies here at King's. And then he'll be joined by his colleague Professor Robert Hayden, who's a professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, writing on law and anthropology. And they'll be talking to us about a paper entitled person document and after action report using being and becoming the ethics of expert testimony in the first international criminal trial. And following from this we'll hear from Dr. Ivor Vokousik, who is an assistant professor in international history at the Department of History and Arts at Utrecht University and is also a visiting fellow in the Department of Law Studies at King's. And Ivor will be talking to us about defense strategies of alleged perpetrators at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the case of Frivolica. And then finally we'll hear from from Lena Rasslin, who's joining us from the University of Law London, and is a recent graduate of the MA in conflict security and development studies here at King's. And she'll be speaking to us on a really fascinating paper that I very much enjoyed reading called advancing universal justice in the digital world, the admissibility of open source evidence in the courts of England and Wales. So that's where we're headed. And without further ado, let me please hand to James and Robert. Can I find a picture of that one. Good morning. I think I was taken rather by surprise there. I'm not Bob Paydon, though it will say Bob Paydon. I was trying to put Bob Paydon's picture up, but we were expecting to have a break to sort out some technical things here. Ivor and I are in a room together. So we're going to have to move ahead. In the, this is not properly a paper. It may well become a paper we're trying to work on it there hasn't been time for me. So what we're going to do is read from something that Bob sent me which set this going. And after that I'll turn to other bits of it. The idea is an understanding of what it is to be in a particular position of being a witness and in our cases of being the first witness for the prosecution in my case and the first witness for the defense in his. You know, world, new world creating big bang environment. I'm just a bit shocked because I have somebody else being presented as Nikki Palmer. I know I'm proposing as Bob Paydon, but that's quite strange. I think I think the reason it's happening is it depends the links that we used to access. So, so Lena will make sure that it's very clear that that's you and James I can really see that that's you and not Robert. So jump in for a second with apologies we did run over time on panel one. And we don't want to disadvantage you and we do have a lunch. Don't worry, just move on with adaptable and flexible. We can pause for a few minutes though if you if you like. Mike, let's just move on. Okay. We're even further behind now. So, so the idea is to explore being a witness and the idea of the witness as document. What I'm going to do is read first from something that Bob sent me, he was asked to make a presentation at Pittsburgh. About a year ago he sent me a copy of what he'd written for that, which was a reflection on the on the experience and nature of being a witness for the defense. There are four aspects to this one of which is the reflection which is more likely to be the end of the paper but I'm going to read it first in the interest of time because I can then adjust however long they speak to the time that remains. But the two bits I won't be talking about one is being the conduit of documents to be a witness is to be somebody who introduces material documents of other kinds into the process, who interprets, and who is a guide in a way. The second is what happens afterwards. I could point to instances, for example, the CMH defense, seeking to block the use of transcripts of my testimony in later court processes, or we can look to the way in which actually the narrative that was established through my evidence at the start run right was the use of the Serbian focused prosecution cases to the very end. But with no need for my to my being there because the purpose for which I was originally there have been satisfied. But I will look at the two ideas that I said one that kind of reflection on the experience and in an age of impact. And how to generate been around in 1990s when we were doing this kind of stuff. We would have been greatly celebrated. And the second on the person document. So first, I shall read apologies for reading. I'm going to find it a good thing, but it seems the best way to represent something of Bob seen as Bob is at the moment in Zenits are doing field research and can't get a connection to join us. So talking to people to inform them of making decisions can bring criticism. It can lead to personal attacks. Oddly enough, these attacks come from folks who are other times can accuse one of being in his case complicit in war crimes simply by speaking on some topics and in the way that he does. The Yugoslav and Rwanda conflicts led to the creation of the first international war crimes tribunals since Europe, which leads to another issue expert witnessing to be or not to be, and especially one for the defense. The field of transitional justice has been a growth industry, spending lots of money and creating lots of jobs for lawyers from North America, Western Europe in particular. There are more criminals to justice and thus faster reconciliation. At least that was the theory. And in 1996 when the Yugoslavia Tribunal got going, the indication of Nuremberg is an inspiration made it seem plausible. It's not very plausible now, but that's another story. Obviously being an expert witness for the prosecution generally be seen as admirable. Is there a link here to those stirring calls for anthropologists to be witnesses more generally. My problem was that I was called to be the first expert witness for the defense in the first war crimes trial since Nuremberg. The issue had nothing to do whatever with the crimes charged, but rather was jurisdictional and hinged on rather technical issues of constitutionalism and laws. I did it. The defense attorney beat me down, my initial refusal, but he only wanted me to say on the stand what I'd already said in print. I decided that the tribunal could not provide real trials if qualified witnesses could not testify truthfully for the defense in connection with legitimate issues. And I still believe that. But the same kinds of people who criticize one for trying to provide objective analyses and for speaking with people in government who are involved in making real decisions, criticize one for trying to take an international tribunal seriously as a real court, instead of as a show trial, or a Kafkaesque process. So at what point, though, do you ignore your own ethical principle rather than testify. In my case, turning away at the feelers from Sorbonne and Milosevic as lawyers was easy and instantaneous, and based mainly on my knowledge of how deeply responsible he was for the hardships of people throughout Yugoslavia. I think that some was turning down requests from counsel for some positive politicians when I thought that I could provide information that could aid their defense, and that they will be in tried unfairly. That's where I found I'd been beaten down by the strident criticisms. I received for having been an expert witness upon a technical constitutional issue in the first case. Sorry, I misread that. It seems that if you take seriously the position that defendants have the right to a real defense instead of only a token one. You have to be prepared to sacrifice your reputation, and maybe much of the rest of your academic career. I couldn't do that. So let me bring these ramblings to a close. I think Cabo, who invited him to make the presentation first place, posed me these questions. To what extent are academic engagements around urgent morally charged questions of human suffering grounded in humanitarian tendencies to intervene, respond and say, and are such moral imperatives congruent with or conflicting with scholarly responsibilities towards accuracy, nuance and reliability. And now an academic can offer much of anything of value to the people and institutions responding to crisis. That is, that is not grounded on the story obligations, the basing analysis and this recommendations on reliable and accurate data, analyzed without consideration of what might be considered the preferred adca preferred even for the academic making the analysis. Otherwise, what do we offer that is not already provided. Sorry, what do we have that's not already provided by journalists who write better than most scholars do, or international humanitarian experts who actually have training and experience for these tests, or propagandists for one side or in their faith that have not gone to them human rights are so securely on their side, but any country argument must itself be unethical. Or those morally driven folks who knowing nothing at all about a region still know all that is important to know about a crisis. But then, how could we access that assess all the likely effects of actions without adhering to scholarly responsibilities and principles. And that I'm going to conclude by going back to one little bit. And I think it's an important idea to understand. In all of this. This is Bob, but I would share this. I'm able to draw on the thoughts of others who would face such dilemmas, which are not new papers classical lectures sciences vocation and politics as a vocation were published after his unsatisfactory experience support staff to the German delegation of the sign negotiations. I think that is a sense of people trying to go with the evidence whatever that evidence is, whatever it shows. I have no sense of my time that because I forgot to start my time will start. So I'm going to say very quickly something about the person document. To be a witness is to be an instrument of proof. The witness is tested in the courtroom by the judges by the advocates involved. And it's a vital part of the process. The witnesses themselves, however, are vital. They are living corporeal beings. What I'm thinking about is linked to something called embodied research. And whilst it's not embodied research as such it wasn't set out and designed in that way. There's a kind of informed by that approach, reflective way of thinking, and perhaps still attached to ideas of enlightenment objectivity and evidence. Just to introduce is the idea based on that thing of what can bodies do. And one thing that bodies can do is become documents they can become documents in the form of witnesses. We as veterans of a courtroom are indeed in the guinea pigs in that courtroom in that novel experimental environment. And just to be clear, we all tend to think of documents as written pieces of paper with writing on them. If we spread our thoughts a little more widely, we can think of them as inanimate physical material recording of information which might also be graphic or our role, increasingly digital reflecting all the other different elements. But it can, but at its root in the etymology of that idea of a document is something that is evidence that is proof. And it stands from the Latin for proof, and it's not itself stems from the Latin dot series for to teach. And so as teachers, and we're used to being teachers in university classrooms as well, and in other ways in life, what we're doing is being the encapsulation of documentation. The launch pad for other uses of documentation that's appearing physically as a document as a document that has to be tested, that is a presence that has to concentrate that has to have appearance that has to have a procession that has to endure dreadfully bad backs which is what I had for the first three days of trial experience, almost unable to sleep and able to repair. These are all part of the process. And it's that document as a product of documents, but also as a trigger for further documentation that is the idea I want to introduce, but I haven't got much further than that. And I'm guessing the time really must have gone by now, because I didn't start the clock at the right time so I'll stop having probably confused people more than enough, or send them to sleep. Thank you. That was excellent. Lots of questions, but I'm going to hold my fire and hand to Ivor first. I'm really looking forward to discussing this further. Ivor, could I bring you in? Sure. Thank you very much. We're in the same room that that was hopefully now it's resolved. If you just don't mind Eva. It's all right. All right. So let me get started. First of all, thank you very much for chairing the Spanel and thank you for the organizers. It's a pleasure to be here. So I will be speaking today about defense strategies of alleged perpetrators at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and I'm going to be specifically focusing on Sinepani. I'm going to have a PowerPoint. I'm just going to talk through some of the early thoughts on this research. I want to say that this is an early draft and I'm just starting to work on this but it seems to me that it's important to invest some time into understanding defense arguments and I think this nicely ties into the previous paper, because I do not actually think that this has been done sufficiently. And on the ICTY soon the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia because it conducted a great number of trials, actually greater than other international reports. And there is a set of trials that that dealt with Sinepani conducted over a period of 20 years, and it concerned military and civilian defendants high up lower level, including executioners. And Sinepani, of course, is such a great accusation. Therefore, it is fascinating to consider how individuals defend themselves against these great accusations so due to time limitations I'm just going to proceed assuming that you know the basics kind of the basic rules of what happened in 70s and around East Bosnia in July 1995. So at the ICTY I would say the system is adversarial so the sides of the prosecution and the defense largely sell a story so to say illegal theory and evidence to the judges and then they see sort of if they bite, so to say, which makes it interesting as these arguments are then explicit and designed to be convincing and we can even talk about how they resonate beyond the courtroom. So the main question about this exploration for this exploration is what strategies and arguments have been have the accused at the ICTY use to defend themselves against allegations of perpetrating genocide as argued by the prosecution. So an additional paper which is not an additional question which is not in the draft paper is, do they focus on themselves. Or do they kind of think about defending the state or the political project, or do they defend themselves but frame it as a defense of the of the project in the nation because of course anyone who will follow the ICTY knows that it has been often said in this earlier that I'm not here defending myself I'm defending the nation and then think like that so I'm historian and the sources that this research is based on are all publicly available the ICTY is actually the only international court which allows as much access to its transcripts and evidence as well as court documents, which also brings me to take this opportunity to nudge other institution international courts, and actually domestic as well as I've done elsewhere to do the same and provide evidence for historians really incredibly rich material. I was also an analyst in the special war crimes department of the prosecutor's office in Bosnia and Herzegovina about 1012 years ago. So I worked on it in these cases myself, and my research also draws heavily on on that experience so my main sources are final briefs. So these are documents that come at the end of the trial where normally the council kind of packaged the final sort of documentation and key evidence into a narrative story about how their version of events and kind of what their arguments are, as well as transcripts of closing arguments which mirror these final briefs, witness statements, military documents or other other kinds of evidence. The outcome of the trial so what judges say about these arguments and the veracity of this claim is not so important to me here. It is more about how they accuse or how the accused choose to present their case and and why and I will just sketch out some arguments briefly and welcome opinions if you think I'm missing some of the big ones. The trials I think matter because of what Diane Orton here said many years ago they shrink the space for denial. So today only people I would say at the very margins of the political discourse said that claim that nothing happened in this case and we actually see that in force to what is disputed is the circumstances that led to the killings, how many people were killed. And very importantly, crucially, they dispute the genocide label as a legal category. So today they talk about the terrible crime strashan's launching in BCS policy and survey and equation. So some of the notable cases that maybe some of the participants want to look into our drudging at them of each other. Karstic Popovich and others that are calling me, of course, rather on courage each other. These are people that different levels, different responsibilities, civilian military kind of intelligence, high up, and in drudging at them which is a real kind of shooter. They're all completed. All convictions for celebrities are related crimes. So these are I think a very rich resource to look into. So the mass executions were really kind of a logistical challenge so to say and we see in the ICT why evidence records of the Bosnia Serb army struggling to have some of these completed so we have communications between various accused. Many people who are involved in this also of course leaves traces of how they were involved and anecdotally in watching trials I remember seeing in one courtroom, the army blaming the police for some times, while at the same time in the other courtroom the police was blaming the army. So I think this is really something interesting to look into. I also find it interesting that no one came to court and says yes I did it and yes I meant it, even though many of them, you know, kind of had these larger than life personalities, knowledge for example as a good example of that. So of course maybe that's not realistic at the end of the day everyone wants to not be in jail. But it's I think also interesting to think about that. At the end of the day many of the accused you know had no knowledge had no power, had no ability to stop anything and to the extent that they had any ability they did everything they could but then darn something happened. So just prosecution arguments were very briefly about the circumstances that the seven it's ankle about the Bosnian army entering the town about the people fleeing at the UN base about the two or three nights before the women and children were transported away about the column of mostly men trying to flee the gov to the government control territory and I have no time to go into all the story here so sorry if this flies a little bit about the heads of some of the participants but these are also the executions of course and the burials and the primary and secondary graves. And of course then the defense also responds to those prosecution arguments because the prosecution is driving the course the case forward. So, of course the prosecution also argued, you know, what was the particular role for each accused so there's a big narrative that's similar. And then of course there's the details for each particular accused based on their role in participation we also have of course, guilty please, which are interesting because to a certain extent they accept, or to a large extent they accept the crucial parts of the prosecution narrative, which for example the executioner offered kind of an explanation of fear and duress to explain his participation. And that's also interesting because this is kind of a set of arguments that not that is not really available to those high up because you know for general matters she can't like fear of the rest of what. So it's also interesting how they come as a result of people's position and people's personal circumstances so what about the defense just in a couple of minutes so one argument that seems to be key for the defense in several cases is that some persons were killed, but it was not ordered. It was mostly framed as an act of revenge, kind of uncontrollable because Serbs in those areas around Japanese suffered raids from the enclaves territory so this was kind of a revenge, sort of some kind of an eruption of kind of you know hatred or revenge after it fell. Another key argument is for example for the first mass killing that happened in Kravica in a kind of an agricultural warehouse in the 13th of July where over 1000 people were killed is again this revenge idea that there was a Serb policeman who was killed by the Bosnian detainees and then kind of the Serb forces retaliated. And this is what drove the killing of over 1000 people that's kind of the story. Another argument has to do with the victims so that those killed were in fact soldiers killed in battle and not executed. So here we saw a lot of testimony also by experts talking about entry wounds and bullet holes and angles and you know, the tight hands and things like that so there was a lot of that kind of evidence where the prosecution and the defense focus on these kinds of arguments and the defense was very much kind of strong on this point that many of the victims were not in fact executed but were killed in battle, and that the burials performed by Bosnian Serb authorities in the aftermath were not clandestine, but they were an attempt to contain disease. So in BCS we would say Assana Zia Terenna, which is something that you normally do after a battle. So they kind of this was the argument for why they were putting the dead in graves. So in terms of forensic evidence, just also one kind of illustration is that for example the blindfolds that some of the victims were wearing at the time of the execution. The defense very much framed that as these were not blindfolds, these were bandanas as worn by Bosniak fighters, kind of Mujahideen sort of force. So these are like bandanas that then kind of fell on their eyes after death or in the moment of death, but they were not, they were not actually blindfolds. And this is also something that we see in a number of different cases. So just to conclude in the interest of time. So what I think is really interesting is that the defense arguments seem to be similar, and they seem to run across time and cases, which is interesting, because in these cases judges are not buying them, or at least the majority of judges in the majority of cases are not buying them so it's interesting to see that they are still perpetuated and repeated in future cases, even though like guys it's not really working. So I find that really interesting. It will be also I think fascinating to try to compare, you know, how this changed over time where people defending themselves much differently in the late 90s or early 2000s when the forensic evidence was much slower, then in comparison to the cottage mottage cases by which time many of the grays were found many of the DNA analysis was done the prosecution was much more ready to prosecute at this late hour, because they practice to say with many kind of cases before it would also be interesting to see, you know, high level lower level strategy civilian military but also one thing to investigate I would also argue would be local cases many of them were in Bosnia and Herzegovina but there were also these are kind of middle level to lower level perpetrators and it would also, you know, it's a different legal framework, of course it's different style of trial it's not an adversarial process it's kind of an investigative judge or kind of driven process so I think that would be interesting as well but there the problem is again that the material is not available largely. So, I would again kind of try to nudge our conversations also to these kinds of pressures or advocacy to release as much as possible the records for for research so I'm just starting to dig deeper into this and I'm looking forward to your comments and thank you very much. I hope I was okay with time. Thank you. And also really, really valuable reflections and I hope we can pick up on some of those temporal questions I know you've written on it previously as well so I think that there's real really valuable sort of overlap with some of the other papers as well so thank you very much. Yes. Hello. You can't be heard. Can you hear me now. Is that better. If I sorry I'll come closer. Excellent on time Eva, I'll pick it up in the in the discuss some comments, let me hand to Lena. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you to the erudite panelist for sharing your research and thank you to Michael Nikola and the conflict records unit team for having me on this panel to share my recent research. So in 2021, while I was pursuing my legal studies I was also working with the Center of Information Resilience which is a London based NGO with a team of open source investigative experts who are using their, their skills to capture, assess and verify open source information that provides witness to human rights abuses and state violence against civilian populations in conflict. So my legal studies combined with my work with the Center is kind of really what drove me to question how this relatively new form of evidence will be admitted into the courts to achieve accountability for these very grave crimes. This is particularly as a lot of these investigators and activists are collecting this evidence that is posted online, without really knowing what accountability mechanism, or what jurisdiction it's going to be used as evidence in. In recent years we've, we've really seen a shift in international criminal justice towards the prosecution of core international crimes in the domestic courts under the principle of your universal jurisdiction. Particularly for example, you know with Syria, the, the outlook for potential accountability mechanism or tribunal being set up seems so distant. That's why we've seen in Germany, France, Sweden, Finland have already prosecuted war criminals from the Syrian conflict in their domestic courts under universal jurisdiction. So this is incredibly promising and a lot of these, these, these courts have used open source evidence as the basis for prosecution. Meanwhile, in the UK, universal has has not gained so much, you know universal jurisdiction has not gained so much traction, only a few of such prosecutions have proceeded to the English courts and even fewer have resulted in an actual convictions. There are various reasons for this. However, a lot of the experts posit that this has been largely due to concerns about the standard of evidence upon which these arrest warrants are issued. However, as we all know, obtaining the necessary evidence and identifying witnesses and particularly tangible evidence of a crime that took place in a conflict in another territory present significant challenges. So with the very nature of these core international crimes such as torture crimes against humanity and war crimes, render them amongst the most complex and difficult crimes to prosecute. They are compounded when these investigations or trials take place far away from where the crimes are being committed, whether it be for political legal or security reasons. So these are just some of the evidentiary challenges that are inherent in international criminal justice. While tangible evidence is difficult, if not impossible to reach open source information documenting crimes can be found online, readily and an overabundance. So we've seen, you know, particularly with the onset of the Syrian conflict an enormous amount of user generated content being posted online and distributed in almost real time directly from ongoing sites of violence and conflict. Open source information has gained significant attention over the last decade, particularly as war crimes and crimes against humanity in places like Syria, Myanmar, and even Ukraine. Right now, as we can see, are being documented online in almost real time. So I believe that the internet has really opened the door for who is doing the documenting and conflicts we're increasingly seeing documentation in the forms of images and videos being shared online directly either by by victims or witnesses or sometimes even perpetrators themselves. We've also seen, you know, organizations emerge such as the Syrian archive and Bellingcat who are doing, you know, amazing investigative work and have made tremendous strides and, and collecting very verifying and archiving massive amounts of open source information related to these kinds of crimes and conflicts. And their work has been incredibly important in preserving a lot of the these experiences that are shared directly from conflicts on the ground. So digital open source information just to provide a quick definition is any kind of information on the internet that is available to any member of the public, whether it's through observation purchase or request. And open source information becomes evidence when it carries evidentiary value, so that it can be admitted into the court and establish facts and legal proceedings. So I, in my opinion, with the ubiquity of the internet, it seems almost inevitable that that open source evidence will soon be inevitable and criminal proceedings. So I believe that the question really now for the international justice criminal justice community is how can we leverage open source evidence to facilitate future criminal investigations and prosecutions. With the immense amount of open source information documenting these crimes that are online. Obviously this presents enormous opportunity within the legal practice. Sorry, it provides invaluable evidence in details of the who what where crimes open source information also allows investigators to overcome evidentiary barriers, identify, identify witnesses and oftentimes it may even provide crucial evidence of the time location victims and even perpetrators of a crime. However, with, as with any other type of evidence, there are, it comes with inherent evidentiary challenges, and it is also vulnerable to biases gaps and potential manipulation. So, the questions for those seeking to rely on open source evidence in the courts is now. How are we going to persuade the court to admit this kind of evidence, you know, into evidence, how are we going to persuade the court to admit open source information into the courts. And how are we going to persuade the court that the item of evidence is indeed authentic and reliable as a real piece of evidence. So, in the context of digital open source information. This is going to, you know, post significant challenges, particularly where videos or photos documenting crimes have been either uploaded anonymously or the provenance of the item is unknown. There's also, you know, the element of, we are currently living in an era of fake news and disinformation, and we see competing narratives seeking to dominate how war is being perceived by the public emerging online and almost real time. So therefore proving that an item of evidence is reliable in other words that it is what it purports to be will play a key role with the courts and determining and establishing its admissibility. So, as, as my colleagues would know, I've experienced working with the ICC. You know they have somewhat more lenient evidence, evidence of miscibility standards in the courts of England and Wales. However, they've already made strides and welcoming the use of open source information. As in 2015, in the case of Ahmed al-Faqil Mahdi, he was prosecuted and convicted for the destruction of cultural heritage, just based on open source evidence found online including geolocation, social media, videos and satellite imagery. And in 2017, the ICC also issued an arrest warrant against the now deceased Libyan warlord Mahmoud al-Warfali based entirely on open source evidence after video emerged on social media of a special forces unit headed by him committing summary executions of over 20 blindfolded men. He was later killed and he never he unfortunately never got to go to trial. However, an arrest warrant was issued on the basis of these videos that were found and distributed on social media. So where the ICC cannot launch an investigation investigators can collect open source evidence and hand this over to prosecutors for use in the universal jurisdiction cases. So as I've mentioned we've seen the shift in Europe where open source evidence has played a crucial role in impacting the initiation of investigations and into universal jurisdiction prosecutions for war crimes and particularly in Syrian Iraq, these are the main ones that we've seen so far. We have a landmark case, a universal jurisdiction case in Koblenz, Germany that you know the judgment was just issued very recently where a former Syrian regime official was convicted for several charges of torture and other crimes against humanity. While he was the head of the al-Qaqib detention center in Damascus in Syria. So, you know, the court admitted evidence from the prosecutions, what they had termed structural investigation, so they had gathered enormous amounts of open source material regarding widespread and systematic crimes against humanity and war crimes by the Syrian regime in Syria. And while the defense was raised that this was not directly relevant to the defendant because it didn't establish a clear link between himself and the crimes, it, the court admitted it on the basis that it provided a wider context into what was systematically occurring in detention centers across Syria, and therefore it was not, it was found not to be too prejudicial to the defendant and, and provided valuable contextual evidence into what was occurring at the time. So this also demonstrates how universal jurisdiction cases can use OSCE to, sorry, open source evidence to really create to establish a link between a particular person and a crime. So as we can, you know, open source evidence has incredible evidentiary value for international criminal justice. And while there are clear evidentiary challenges associated with its admissibility in the courts. There are tremendous strides that have been made by organizations in a somewhat ad hoc matter by open source investigative experts, and the criminal international criminal justice community, who have been developing methodologies such as the Berkeley protocol for collecting authenticating and preserving open source evidence in adherence to legal admissibility standards for accountability mechanisms. So in conclusion, I won't go into the nitty gritty of English law and admissibility, but although you know it is already in use in the ICC and in the European courts and to a certain degree here in the courts of England and Wales as well. There's still very little authoritative common law guidance on how how it will be evaluated for for its authenticity, its reliability, its relevance, and its provenance. So, you know, largely applying existing evidentiary principles to these items of evidence will, you know, with the same amount of scrutiny and standards for authentication and verification are sufficient for now. I think that going forward we need more authoritative guidance from the higher courts on how we can apply these evidentiary standards to open source evidence and and provide greater clarity and consistency and how its admissibility will be will be evaluated. And so that's that's it for me and I open to questions in a discussion perhaps would be more fun with the colleagues. Thank you very much. Lena Ruslan is coming up as Nicola Palmer on the notes and obviously that is not you know this is Lena Ruslan and thank you so much Lena it was really, really excellent so just to make sure we don't direct questions to the wrong person. Now, what we have some excellent questions on the chat and I'm going to bring those in in a minute. But I did get to have the oh we have now we have. James are you now sharing your screen I think that's okay. Just give me a second then that. I had my just give me one second let me just get that. Okay, great. So that was, thank you James for for bringing Rob really into the picture there that's good to see him I'm sorry he couldn't join us. But let me take, let me take two minutes to ask all of the panelists, a couple of questions that came up from from your presentations but but also from your papers and, as I mentioned, Eva and and Lena I really enjoyed reading your papers. So, James my question for you on the on the expert evidence is that I first I really like the, the reflexive process of having been having given that evidence and then reflecting on what that says about expert evidence before these trials. And it, and it obviously brought me to Richard Wilson's work, where he makes an argument he's obviously looked at expert evidence in relation to establishing the historic historical, the role of history and international criminal child. And then in his recent work he's looked at the role of expert evidence in establishing claims around the causation claims around hate speech across the ICTR the ICTY and the ICC. But my question for you is this. Richard suggests that that depending on the substantive area judges find expert witness testimony more different types of expert witness testimony more persuasive. So, when we were when you were looking at linguistic interpretations of whether or not a speech would be would insight, then qualitative data was seen was be it was very well received by the judges. But when they were looking at questions of determining certainly before the ICTR determining belonging to the ethnic group in that case Tootsie, then the sociological and anthropological testimony was dealt with extreme skepticism, and the judges were much more comfortable looking at testimony from mostly humanitarian workers who could testify that that this individual was holding a particular ID card that indicated a particular ethnic belonging. And these very, we sort of see different ways through which expert testimony is received by the judges, depending on the substantive points that that expert testimony is speaking to and I just weren't really value your thoughts on that. I think the account sort of engaging as a historian with the with the public records that have been generated by the ad hoc tribunals and also and also by the ICC now is hugely valuable. My question is about the in your paper I wasn't entirely clear as to whether you were only looking at cases where the Defense Council had, where the individuals had defended themselves personally. Or whether where they were being represented by by legal counsel because obviously with ICTR defendants, I mean I CTY defendants, there was quite a lot of difference there, and I wonder if you saw difference in the, in the legal strategies, and in and in the account that's told us those. And then I suppose that also goes to to Nigel Eltingham's work, where he suggests that before the ICTR Defense Council took one of two approaches, either they saw themselves as as sort of telling the untold story, making the grand narrative, or they saw themselves as really an individualized contestation of a particular factual allegation. And so I wonder the extent to which you're seeing similar difference as it as it's represented in the in the documents that have come out of the ICTY because his, his material is obviously coming out from from ethnographic and and qualitative interview based work. And then finally, Lina picking up so I really liked, you know, I actually really liked the legal detail that you went into, particularly identifying the criteria of relevance, authenticity and reliability as the criteria on which open source evidence will be assessed in K in courts before in, in England at Wales. And I wanted to I also note in your presentation that you really picked up on the idea that the ICC, following on from ad hoc tribunals has been very generous in its, in its admission of on the eligibility standards for evidence including admission of hearsay evidence. But one of the things that looking at the cases before the ICC at the moment shows is that there's quite a split in terms of the approach to assessing that evidence and the split goes along this line, either they're saying we need to be looking at the relevance of the authenticity and reliability of a single piece of evidence. Or we need to be looking at the authenticity reliability of a holistic body of evidence. And so the question of admissibility is not a question of only looking at one source of it in some instances one source of evidence, or in others it's looking holistically at triangulating a range of evidence in which case we could determine the authenticity based on the extent to which is triangulated by other evidence. And so I wondered if you was the extent to which you were seeing any of that in the reasoning before UK courts generally on admissibility of evidence, and broadly your view on that. Should we be looking at determining the reliability and authenticity and relevance of a single piece of evidence or should we be arguing for a holistic approach and the judges certainly at the ICC have been very divided on that. And then this this sort of picks up on on Matthew Ford's comment in the in the contribution in the previous session of the, of the provenance of open source evidence and the extent to which one can actually track where a piece of evidence is being generated and how you think that would fit into this relevance authenticity and reliability criteria that just that that the courts are actually applying certainly here in England and Wales. So that's for me, maybe I'll let the panelists each have a moment to respond to that. And then I'll bring I'll bring in the general questions we still have we still have 20 minutes which is great. I think you're going first because you were the first panel. I think so James I'm afraid. Okay. It may take time. I'm inclined to address Nandana's questions in the Q&A, do you want me to do that or not. Yes definitely I was going to bring Nandana in next to verbalize them but if you want to if you want to address them as well that's that's great James go for it. If you want to bring her into verbalize that's good if that's possible. I didn't know that was an option but first on Richard Wilson. Yeah. His work, the historians in the courtroom in history well I'm very interested in history as we leave her in what you can gain from the various material that emerges from these processes. And the issues around the scope of that material, because of the purpose for which it was introduced in the first place. I would point that there's a kind of difficulty in that approach of seeing historians. But when he interviewed me, long long time ago for that book and project, I pointed out a that I was not necessarily an historian and a model which might include some bits of history, but also my purpose, and that's not how I was labeled in trials, but also that the purpose and this comes back to a bit and that I read out from Bob was to establish subject matter jurisdiction. To establish for brave breaches for example, that there was an international conflict. So, the purpose of the evidence even then was not necessarily or primarily about about the history. So I think a part of that question. Can you say some evidence, I'm trying to be my note of what you said, depending on substantive area is the evidence more persuasive, I would say that might or might not be the case. It might be down to credibility, the performance of this is very close to the idea of being an embodied document. The document is treated exactly the same way we can discuss with we know and mapped about the kind of authenticity, authentication, veracity, reliability of digital information, one of the purposes of the person document is to be directed for reliability and authenticity, but also to be the instrument of demonstrating reliability, veracity authenticity for those different points. And when it comes down to I think more than anything else is the use of counsel makes of that document. Because I can show this in a way quite clearly through that first tidage trial, where the initial judgment and of course part of what was doing was was a giving history and background because the trial attorney wanted that to happen. And sometimes necessary for establishing the jurisdiction issues, but that in the initial trial judgment. And the difference to the evidence that Bob and I gave was something along the lines of they mostly gave complimentary evidence. And where they disagree, we've kind of ignored it or kind of massaged it in some way and then we just move on. And that's because the council didn't all of the introduced the evidence. The lead trial attorney was determined in a very Anglo, it was Australian Anglo Barista tradition, not to tell the judges what to think, you don't tell the judges what to think. And when they were being told what to think and what something was about. They didn't actually for themselves get to work out what it was about. Or in case in some of the judge McDonald's separate opinion, and I've said, there was stuff here that we could have used and we're told what to do with it. And so when it came to the appeals check that the prosecution then took that same material and argued it in a different way. And take a note on so in a sense the answer to your question is, maybe not only to do with the person document of the witness, but more to do with the way in which cancer makes use of the document in the proceedings. I'll stop, even though I want to say it looks about questions you post either and either, and I'll talk about Nandana and still don't know. I think you need it. Yeah. Nandana as an attendee can you and Mike and ask the specific questions to James. Yes, yes, I was going to do one at a time when we, when we go to either definitely. I don't know if that's possible. It might not be in which should we just take. So, sorry, questions, questions from participants in the audience that they have to put them in the Q&A it's only invited a panelist who can unmute. Okay, great, great. Thank you. Thank you, James. So you were right on that please do take them down as questions and then Eva can go around and then we can come back unless you want me to do now. Okay, that's fine. I'm happy with that too, Eva. Sure. Um, so let me first address the questions that you asked, which was basically about, was there a difference between people who defended themselves as opposed to people who were represented by council. I want to say by even for people who were defending themselves, for example, in Milosevic's case for in radical in the rather one cottage just case they still get advice. So this idea that they're really representing themselves I mean, yeah, but also. No. And of course, as lawyers will know even in cases where clients are represented, that you know that the representation is also informed by the desire to have a certain strategy so I think in some ways there may be less different than what we normally think about when we think about this but for all the cases that ended so Milosevic decide because that case didn't end. The cases that ended with convictions that I was talking about only the other one cottage really defended himself and he of course had counsel be the Robinson but also others who advised him. I think that has to do first with the profile and the character of the person so rather one cottage was of course a politician, he very much enjoyed attention very much enjoyed long big narratives about how things happen. I mean, you know, that's that's to a certain extent to a certain extent. Also a matter I would say of ability, like physical ability to be able to be in court for hours at a time, follow things in detail, respond, ask questions to witnesses for hours on the end, weeks, sometimes for the same witnesses. And that ability sometimes simply physically isn't available to others, for example, not it was just frail. And it's just, you know, one would argue I think also kind of intellectually, you know, would struggle with He so right as Jim says so he so I think it's also an issue of ability and not only like choice, and also profile you know maybe military guys are just less likely to be, you know, kind of taking that kind of a role, which is very much, you know, sort of in the center of attention kind of a role to take so there are I think these sort of differences. And in relation to kind of presenting the big narrative and defending the state the nation the political project or whatever as opposed to defending themselves specifically, I think the smarter ones defend themselves specifically and they're getting better advice. Now, then I think they would potentially in the 1990s when everyone was still like, Oh, what are we doing here and how does this process work and now I think good lawyers are all saying like, you know, forget about the project. I mean defend yourself. And I think so I think that's also a feature of just people knowing better how a process works defense attorneys being more focused prosecutions being more focused judges knowing what to do with things better. So I would say that. Now, I mean to a certain extent of course, especially for the high level cases you can't present a personal defense without addressing the project. You can defend themselves without saying something about the project, but guys like the agent of them which could, I think, because he's like, you know, or could more, because he was not in a political decision making a sort of position and he was defending himself for a particular day for a particular thing for a particular shooting. Yes, right. So I think there's also differences in that respect sort of where one is and just kind of how your indictment is shaped and then you kind of respond to that. So I'll leave it at that and then maybe in the next round we'll, we'll say anything. I'm going to be greedy and I'm going to chip in on either there as well, because it goes back to the same version of the same point I was making before about counsel and the realm of counsel. But in this case, it's a bit of a reversal. The counsel still follow the client lead. I don't have time to go into any total detail that I talked to some of the defense counsel in some of the big cases about why they didn't see what seemed to me other. And I want to ask you for this question about identifying any alternative approaches any alternative strategies in the research that she's done. To me it seems that they could have offered a different defense, but they stuck with the one that they were told to offer because that was the big narrative that they were supposed to be offering. Yeah, and the council could walk away and they can just go along with what they're told to do. And also going to this, you know, it's your point on the temporality of this that those strategies have changed over time as, as counsel have become more aware of what which ones have better, better legal traction. Lena, can I can I bring you in. Yes, sure. Thank you. All right. So with regards to the first question of whether should we be looking at, you know, authenticating open source evidence with a more holistic approach or kind of in a more singular manner. And as you mentioned with the ICC they kind of have more broader scope of admissibility so as I understand it, evidence, you know, open source evidence is admitted and then once it's been admitted, then the court will evaluate its probative value. Whereas in England there's a, there are far more like there's like kind of a series of tests there's no silver bullet it's a series of tests. If an item of evidence is not prima facie authentic, then, then they will, then they will have a voir dire kind of like a mini trial to evaluate that piece of evidence in which case you know the party seeking to reduce that evidence will will have to introduce additional kind of triangulating or verifying evidence to prove its authenticity. So in that sense, it is, it's kind of, it will be assessed in a singular way however you can you can establish its veracity in a holistic way. And I think that here, expert testimony, and you know if an open source investigator becomes an expert within his own right and is able to go to court and testify as to the methods that they've used for for verification establishing authenticity provenance, also chain of custody, handling of it, you know demonstrating perhaps through their own techniques that it hasn't been manipulated or tampered with in any way. Then I think in that, in that way, you know, I preferred the English the English law approach to be fair than the civil law jurisdictions which, which is much more prudent and it's much more to the discretion of the courts, I think that if we introduce two stringent of methods to authenticating admission and admitting open source evidence then we risk it being lost and not used in legal proceedings. So, as long as there's there's some more authoritative guidance from the courts and how they're going to be doing it but no strict kind of this is how it, you know, step like you know laying out the steps of how to authenticate it in a proper way. So that would, that would be unfair to open source evidence. And then with regards to, to provenance. As I see it there are two elements to provenance, you know, in part of the authenticating process. So it's it's if you can establish the kind of the user or the mechanical origins of that item of evidence, and where you cannot for example where either it's anonymous or you know it's been shared so many times online that you can no longer identify the original source. Then the courts will allow also, you don't have to produce the original item of evidence for and it's from the original source but so long as you can establish the integrity of that item of evidence. So as I, you know, and answering the first question expert testimony here is incredibly valuable and, and kind of describing and laying out the methods of how they've, they've authenticated that item of evidence and, and the Berkeley protocol and all of these kind of like methodologies for collecting evidence to legal admissibility standards have been incredibly valuable. And at that particular point I think that you know on chain of custody and establishing that it's been preserved throughout the chain of custody from from going from online into the hands of the investigator. I think that blockchain will probably play a very big role in the future whether you know victims or witnesses on the grounds have blockchain technology to be able to record in real time and upload that online when they're documenting crimes. If, you know, after collecting that that open source evidence, you know, experts can then secure it with a blockchain technology so that it can't be altered in any way. So, yeah, I think that the blockchain will probably be the future in a lot of this type of evidence that we see. Excellent. Thank you. That's so interesting. James and Eva, can I bring you in to respond to Namdana. Brilliant questions. It's so nice to get such real questions. I'm going to step on Eva's toes, and also come on with a couple of questions to her as well. There's a rationale to choose the final griefs or closing arguments. Evil answer for herself it's a rational but it seems to be quite obvious that that's where the argument is stated and if you're looking at the narrative argument that's where you get the essence of it. She may have a different answer. Yeah, the issue of consistency is a really important one. I'm not sure what either will say, but I think it's going to be an interesting question because it makes the question I just asked her before as well which is, they're going to tell us where they ever followed. On the big questions. In the idea of talking about person document that this is a physical process. It's a visual process and watching the court being in the court, but even more as I later on have watched it is like watching a soap opera. There's a difference between having the transcript from a hearing where you get a written account of things that happen and actually watching people and seeing what happens. And that does make a difference at times if you make a difference if you're watching the bench in how they behave but also how they respond to the others in the room. That's an important element when it comes to talking about the use of narratives in judgment and when she says would it have made a difference if we'd be in court later. Of course it would have made a difference. I can't tell you what that difference is but you know intrinsically, it has to be that it would have made a difference. Would it have made a big substantive difference overall. Can't be sure. I have a vein personal view that in the fragile situation of the Yugoslavia Tribunal in those early days and the way it was starting. I was the one I'd in the land of the blind and the best one stop shop available at that moment later on, better, better things became available for some of the issues. So it hadn't been established at that point that they could have jurisdiction over the crimes to be charged. Then the whole project might have found it. So, could it have come later. Maybe, but it might must have been there later. Otherwise, can't say for sure. Would it have been different if we've been on the other side. Possibly in some ways in others not as I indicated in that initial trial the initial trial chamber said well the evidence count complimentary overlaps a lot and just don't worry too much about the differences. But at the same time, I think it's unlikely. I agree on not many things except we've agreed on a lot to do with the experience of people witness and the responsibilities of those issues. But, you know, but there are lots of things where we can agree on bits of information, but what they mean becomes different. It's hard to imagine that we could or would have been, though, I think, I was always at the view as we should be that the role of the witness is to assist the court. People tend to see the adversarial processes being on one side or the other, and you're called by one side, and because that one side wants to lead evidence that will suit its purpose. And so in that sense, you could be on either side. And he said that I was in one instance at least to work on the defense side, but it would have been working the same evidence about from whatever they wanted to be different. And the pedagogy of understanding history influenced by testimony, of course it is influenced by the whole process and presence. You go with something with a specialist capacity, but it's a research process, you're working on things, you're learning things, and everything else that you do is wound up in one thing together, which is again why it's important to continue this reflection about the person document about what it is, and that idea of responsibility, that responsibility that has so many different dimensions. Great, thanks. Eva, I note that we are, we are at time. I will be very, I will be very brief. And I do also note that Mike has his hand up and has been patiently waiting there. So maybe I'll get Mike's question if that's okay, and then and then we'll come back to have a final comment from from everyone. Yeah, Mike. Yeah, thanks very much. I thought all three of those talks were really, really interesting. James James what you were suggesting I find really interesting and provocative in a positive sense and it has me thinking about something I've been grappling with since I started my current job and that's traditional categories legal categories of evidence. So, you know that can be cut across a bunch of different ways but I'm just thinking about the iterations in understanding what a document is what document your evidence is that's already happened over the last 20 30 years with the advent of you know electronic media and electronically stored information, and how much what a document is or what documentary evidence is has been stretched to accommodate new media. And I'm just, you know that the sort of critical or interpretive approach James that you're taking to suggesting the expert witness as a document. And I'm thinking in terms of you know the knowledge they contain as opposed to what their bodies might physically present in terms of evidence. And I guess to dot you know those traditional legal categories of evidence. Are they, are they outmoded are they still good can we stretch them yet further, or, or, you know, is it is it kind of a non issue and just I guess on my question is what are your thoughts on that. The second, the second question is probably more of an observation. I think on your, your points on open source evidence. You said it primarily, you know you're pointing to the ICC, the ICC's use of this, but I'd suggest taking a closer look at some of the mechanisms active now that are not focused on prosecutions but on collecting evidence. Look at the mind my mechanism in particular. They suffered from lack of physical access so there's been a default. I don't want to speak for them because I don't work on the inside, but there's been a default to online sources of information and you know, at least a year ago they were recruiting online intelligence, you know specialists. You know to add, just a couple of weeks ago that the the special advisor briefed the Security Council, and there was a side event. And it was, it was broadcast publicly on UN TV about the camp spiker massacre, and built into that argument one of my colleagues presented part of the argument is built around a dash publication as evidence towards an incitement argument. And that is open source. That's all fine where it gets interesting in terms of things like the Berkeley protocol and introducing better standards for not just not just authentication and verification but collection, right it all starts at point of collection. It's not just about open source intelligence and some in some sort of broad intelligences sort of way but there's a much more forensic and legal, legally compliant approach to doing this that has that has really I think developed significantly, probably over the last decade. And is is is kind of heavily part of the process now we're talking about digital forensics, more than open source intelligence. It applies to the physical media and extracting information in a way that is sounding will, you know, preserve the admissible admissibility of the physical object as well as the information contained in it, as well as going online and and and acquiring and and collecting material to that that sort of standard. So I'd say in terms of expanding the realm of the range of case studies of organizations that are bringing these kinds of methods on board, definitely look to those other mechanisms. There's a lot going on and it's being done to a pretty, pretty high standard so again, question is, what are your thoughts on that if any, think you're muted Nikki. I think it's okay I think I'm off mute. Eva, I'll pass to you, and we can have one minute each from from James and Lena. I'll first just continue to what James was saying about this idea of the expert as an officer of the court I was just recently at an event, the historical dialogues conference in Amsterdam and Christian Axel Nielsen, who is a historian based in Denmark was also making very much the same point he was justifying about the Bosnian police, and also in other cases, in some domestic jurisdictions in Germany and Canada I think if I'm not mistaken. So, Vladimir Petrov which is another historian who is also thinking about this so I think it's really on on kind of the radar of numerous people in different places in relation to the final briefs. James very much answered it correctly, I would say, there's also a pre trial brief. Pre trial, as the name says this is what how we're going to be argue market case but the final brief is actually the consolidated story after the entire processes world. If they if the defense decides you know what this prosecution arguments, we're not going to spend time on that so it's kind of the consolidate okay this is our best case. I think it's the beginning and I as a historian, don't only look at the text I actually look at the footnotes and then I trace those in the in the databases that the ICTY and the RCT is putting kind of out there. And just finally, on this question of paths not taken in strategies I think this is very very interesting and this is something that I would like to look into also in the future as this research proceeds. I would like to ask the question how free are they to choose a story, because these defendants are often dependent on states, states have interest states may give you money, but may say, Listen, nudge nudge. This is the story that we would like you to tell. So, I mean at this stage, you know, is it's something that I kind of know of sort of anecdotally, and I'm not sure how openly or or sort of how much one can make a substantiated evidence but it is, I would say that the assumption that there is complete freedom to argue your case in these cases that imply states, you know, state involvement state institutions are maybe not as free as as as we would think so I would love to kind of continue on that and maybe and maybe see where, where it leads. Yes, that was it for me. So I go over online. Yeah. Yes, to all my questions. And an extra bit on the digital forensics since that was mentioned. I recommend without remembering exactly what it was a chapter that I co-authored with Masia, who name in Gina, excuse my Persian, and Richard overall in the war or technology book that we edited challenges ahead, but ways of doing things. But the evidence will need to be the right kind, much of the digital evidence won't be the right kind. Thank you. Thank you. I feel like that's a good segue into my final comments as well because on documentary evidence. I actually had a very difficult time at first on how to legally classify documents, open source evidence, whether it's a form of real evidence of a crime or documentary evidence. So the rules governing admissibility will will will change depending on on how it's classified. And while international experts have treated it as documentary evidence there's no guidance in English law on on what kind of evidence it is however I've gone with documentary for now. Pivoting back to Michael. So as I mentioned at the beginning of the discussion I worked with the Center of Information Resilience which actually worked on the Myanmar witness project that you're talking about Benjamin Strick, who was leading that on as you mentioned, and they're doing an excellent work and collecting, you know, videos of these crimes that are happening, you know, state violence against civilians in Myanmar. In real time and creating kind of heat maps and times of location of, of when and where these these these instances of violence are taking place which, which will be incredibly value and valuable in a future accountability mechanism, which one, so far, I mean, I mentioned there's there is an enormous amount of amazing work that is being done, but without knowing and what jurisdiction it's going to be used in. So, I'm really raising the question of how, how we're going to be assessing it in England and Wales if we have the, you know, the opportunity to have a war criminal on in our jurisdiction. I think we'll be able to use this kind of evidence to, to bring them to justice. And yeah, so I agree there's there's incredible work being done. Your hand up but I, I also noticed that we're now at time. So, do you want me to hand to you and you can add your final comment there and then and then close for us to go to lunch. Sure, I can. I just wanted to jump in and sympathize with with with Lena. I have had exactly the same kind of problem. I'm not sure if it's a problem just more of an intellectual challenge and trying to understand degrees or or or I guess degrees of proximity of a document to the original event. I think it's a piece to dealing with this in terms of primary secondary tertiary. In legal terms you've got, you know, the real evidence, and then you need to sort of figure out you know what what do we mean by primary primary documentary evidence secondary context, especially when some of that might actually be real evidence committed or generated within the context of the commission of the crime. So I mean those as a non lawyer I would say those are always judgment calls that are going to, you know, come into play. It's a really interesting exercise and it's not one that, you know, there's some literature on it, but but it's it's an area that requires work and feel kind of privileged to be trying to test it. You know, in the field as it were and I'm looking forward to writing it up in some way and trying to puzzle puzzle through that in relation to maybe some specific cases, as opposed to just, you know, sort of abstract stuff. Okay, sorry, I didn't mean to take your space, Nikki, it's your panel and leave it to you to close. James, thank you Lena. I've really enjoyed the discussion huge food for thought. And thank you also to all of the participants and the other panelists, and obviously to to Joe and Mike for for bringing us all together. Right, well, I think it's now a lunch break if I'm looking at the program correctly. And then we're all coming back again together in an hour's time at 130, where we'll be looking at cases in access, very timely case studies of Ukraine and Columbia. All right, thank you everyone. Thanks, Nikki. Thanks. Thank you. Bye bye. We will, we'll leave the zoom call on. But feel free to just stop your videos and mute. Until then I'll be doing the same thing.