Friends,

We hope you are well.

Today in The Geneva Observer, against the backdrop of what many observers call Spain’s #MeToo moment around the Luis Rubiales controversy, in International Geneva’s continued love affair with FIFA, we report on the organization’s developing relationship with the UN system. FIFA tells us that it has Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, UN Women in New York, and UNODOC in Vienna. A tight relationship indeed, which for many observers raises some disturbing questions. It comes as no surprise that the list does not include OHCHR, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

What do the BRICS want? Co-existence or Cooperation? asks Daniel Warner, in a thought-provoking analysis of the group’s last summit in Johannesburg. And is the West ready to hear the group’s message, he wonders?

Apropos of this, last Sunday’s op-ed by former Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio has prompted several reactions from G|O readers. One of them, a senior Latin American diplomat knowledgeable about the diplomatic consultations within the group, wrote to us: “It is a misrepresentation to write that [the BRICS], including the new adherents, [are] promoting the death of the current international order. Although the case of Russia in Ukraine represents a serious violation of International Law, these are countries that uphold the international law-based order, [in] contrast with the US [and the West], which prefer to speak of ‘rules-based international order.’ […] The status quo is only being challenged by the BRICS to the extent that there is a widespread aspiration among them for more representative institutions and less unilateralism.”

Staying on the BRICS, we can’t resist a bit of an advertisement for ourselves and The Geneva Observer, which gets a timely shout-out in today’s Le Monde by Alain Frachon, one of the paper’s senior foreign affairs columnist. (He, too, is behind a paywall.)

We may have learned about it only a few days ago, but last year, Switzerland issued an arrest warrant against Rifaat al-Assad, former Syrian Vice-President and uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. A revelation, argues international lawyer Alain Werner, Founding Director of Geneva-based NGO Civitas Maxima, that tends to confirm that any hope for justice in Syria comes from Geneva rather than The Hague. 

As usual, it’s all below. Thank you for choosing to support us and our journalism through your subscriptions. We hope you will encourage others to do the same! We will see you next week, but before that, you’ll get another guest essay in your inbox on Sunday.

From all of us at The G|O, all the best.

International Geneva’s continued love affair with FIFA

By Jamil Chade, with Philippe Mottaz

We all remember the moment. With advance notice to The New York Times and a few other media organizations, on the morning of December 3, 2015, acting on US information, the Swiss police descended on a 5-star Zürich hotel in a carefully orchestrated pre-dawn raid to arrest several members of the FIFA leadership. Switzerland doesn’t parade, handcuffed, those accused of alleged crimes; presumed innocent until proven guilty, the figures were hidden from public view by white sheets—presumably borrowed from the hotel’s stock—as they were taken away in unmarked police vans. It was an earthshaking moment for the Zürich-based federation—and for football fans around the world, it brought hope that after years of scandals and evidence of growing corruption, FIFA would reform itself.

International Geneva, too, saluted the moment, and then welcomed FIFA’s new leadership with open arms; after all, FIFA had just onboarded Navi Pillay, the highly respected former High Commissioner for Human Rights, putting her and a few other distinguished legal personalities on its Committee on Governance. But it didn’t take long for Navi Pillay to realize that the football organization was simply instrumentalizing her and her colleagues in an attempt to burnish its image and acquire legitimacy with the UN—the very definition of “bluewashing,” wrapping themselves in the color of the UN flag.

In 2017, in an opinion piece in The Guardian, the three independent experts on FIFA’s Governance Committee explained how FIFA blocked their attempt at transforming the organization. “Our sin? We appeared to take our task at FIFA too seriously,” they wrote. Their finely chiseled piece was scathing, all the more because it was based on months of experience working at FIFA. “The leadership of football does not answer to the court of public opinion; it responds to its own constituency. […] There is a huge structural conflict of interest at the heart of FIFA: its leaders depend for their survival on those whom they ought to reform; power in FIFA is a political cartel. […] We have concluded that FIFA cannot reform from within,” they stated. 

And what exactly were Navi Pillay and her two independent colleagues trying to do while working on a better governance for FIFA? “We [also] tried to enforce gender equality, human rights, and regulate the integrity of FIFA elections and faced resistance on all of them. Ultimately it became clear to us that the leadership, in order to secure its own survival, could no longer support our independence.”

Human rights violations continue in companies linked to FIFA

A year earlier, in 2016, FIFA included the protection of human rights in its code of conduct, adopting a policy stating that “human rights commitments are binding on all FIFA bodies and officials.” 

In article 3 of its statutes, football’s governing body commits that it will “respect” and “strive to promote” human rights and to address any adverse human rights issues across its operations—a commitment reinforced by its adherence to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which include “due diligence” in relation to all aspects of its operations, and an assurance that measures must be taken if serious human risks are identified.

The extent to which FIFA has reformed since Navi Pillay’s day is difficult to assess. It remains the subject of intense debate, with the organization insisting it has changed its ways, while its critics repeatedly bring evidence to the contrary. Increased attention was brought to the question around the World Cup in Qatar and the collateral scandal of Qatargate. Furthermore, over the last few years, several press and NGO reports have revealed severe alleged human rights violations by sport equipment companies linked to FIFA’s sponsor programs.

On the eve of the just concluded Women’s World Cup, Equidem, a human rights and labor rights organization, denounced grave human rights violations against women in FIFA’s merchandising supply chain. “FIFA has already failed workers in spaces predominantly taken up by men, and women are, as ever, left even further behind. Equidem has uncovered rampant exploitation of women workers that produce FIFA apparel,” it wrote in July. The NGO received “distressing testimonies from women working in factories that source official merchandise for FIFA tournaments in Bangladesh, who earn well below living wages, are forced into unpaid overtime, and threatened with job loss when falling pregnant, all while facing disproportionate levels of verbal abuse and the illegal denial of worksite childcare and maternity leave, forcing them to send their children to live elsewhere so they can work […] Even as FIFA has voiced support for pay equity for women players, it does not show that same care for its women workers across its supply chain. In Equidem’s investigation, researchers heard numerous stories of workers that had been systematically denied freedom of association, creating a culture of fear within the factory.[…] The [above] findings can be coupled with the patterns of abuse and exploitation Equidem has uncovered in other FIFA contracts and supply chains, in Qatar and elsewhere around the world,” its report notes.

Despite the introduction in 2017 of its human rights policy as a bidding criterion for hosting tournaments, Amnesty International reports that

FIFA “has since failed to perform appropriate human rights risk assessments when awarding other tournaments.” Amnesty International also decries the fact that, since 2017, the Club World Cup has been awarded to China, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Saudi Arabia, without any transparent process or consultation with civil society.

Last May, UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk called on the football governing bodies to finally tackle racism in the sport, not shying away—after racist attacks were directed at Real Madrid’s Vini Jr—from expressing the belief that football bosses were not taking the issue seriously enough.

Saudi Arabia on a sportwashing - and money making - spending spree

For rich petro-states, using global mega-sports events to polish their image has become the norm. Following Qatar’s lead, they are borrowing from each others’ playbooks, with Saudi Arabia now buying up the whole sports world, from football to F1 and golf. Estimates suggest that the kingdom has spent close to $10 billion buying players, clubs, broadcasting rights, events and brands in the world of sports—a colossal sum but a mere 2.5% of its wealth. Qatar spent $220 billion on its World Cup. 

In anticipation of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, FIFA was hoping to sign a sponsorship plan with Visit Saudi, Saudi Arabia’s state tourism authority. The contracts allowed Visit Saudi to place publicity in every stadium of the tournament, ensuring its distribution to the entire world. For human rights activists, the agreement was a clear example of pure ‘sportwashing,’ in light of the repression and suffering of Saudi Arabia’s women’s rights defenders.

“Human Rights Watch wrote to FIFA on February 3 to underscore the contradiction between Saudi Arabia’s Tourism Authority sponsorship of the Women’s World Cup and the football body’s claims that human rights are a key part of its values,” the activists said. FIFA never replied to the letter.

The contract was abandoned. But not so much due to pressure from the UN; FIFA’s decision was motivated mainly by the fear it would lose other sponsors, with Western brands worried about a backlash.

(A few weeks later, Human Rights Watch released a report alleging that Saudi border guards brutally killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers, including children, trying to cross to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023. )

Saudi Arabia’s growing involvement in football is worrying human activists who insist that FIFA abides by its human rights commitments. In a recent opinion poll conducted in 15 countries by The Sport & Rights Alliance—which includes the Committee to Protect Journalists, Football Supporters Europe, Human Rights Watch, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), The Army of Survivors, Transparency International, World Players Association and Amnesty International—53% of people interviewed said human rights should be a critical consideration in deciding who hosts major international sporting events.

For Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s head of economic and social justice, “it is clear that the public wants human rights to be a high priority so that the World Cup is a celebration of the game they love and never provides a platform for exploitation, repression or discrimination.”

“Since 2017, FIFA has made important progress in recognizing its human rights responsibilities. But human rights assessments and considerations have not been applied systematically when awarding FIFA tournaments,” says Andrea Florence, director of the Sport & Rights Alliance. “To demonstrate they are serious about their own policies and statutes, it is critical that FIFA puts human rights front and center when choosing the host for the 2030 men’s World Cup.”

The pressure by fans, sponsors and public opinion will likely increase. It remains to be seen if and how the UN institutions will join the call for change.

FIFA still cosying up to the UN

Meanwhile, FIFA President Gianni Infantino continues to be courted by International Geneva. In May, he was a keynote speaker at the World Health Assembly, alongside Swiss President Alain Berset, former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, and Mozambique’s president Filipe Jacinto Nyusi. He is a “brother” of Dr. Tedros and a frequent guest at WHO, where the two kicked the ball in the hall of the organization after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). He recently spoke about women’s right at the WTO with Dr. Ngozi (although his recent pronouncements on the issue created some controversy.) In July he signed a “landmark” MoU with the UN High-Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, while the status of another MoU with the International Labor Organization remains unclear.

-PHM and JC

UNHCR, WHO, and FIFA responded. We choose to publish their responses in their entirety.

UNHCR

“UNHCR signed an MoU with FIFA to increase the availability of sports programming for refugees and to ensure that forcibly displaced athletes are provided opportunities to excel. The MoU also focuses on the inclusion of refugees in sport and recognises the important role of sport and cultural activities in social development, inclusion, cohesion, well-being and protection, particularly for refugee children, women and girls, older people and people with disabilities. Before entering any new partnership, partners undergo a strict due diligence process to ensure UNHCR’s integrity and independence, optimize the benefits of collaboration and manage potential risks. This screening process follows UN due diligence principles, including on human rights, integrity and sustainability standards. UNHCR monitors and reviews its partnerships on a regular basis.”

WHO

WHO has a MOU with FIFA with the main aim to promote health through Sport as we have done around the FIFA World Cups in Qatar and Australia/New Zealand.All relevant information can be found here:https://www.who.int/initiatives/sports-and-health.WHO has promoted physical activity, introduced healthy food options in stadia, launched several health campaigns and worked with the host country on health security.WHO is focusing on health but is supportive of sister agencies efforts such as ILO’s work on labor conditions.

FIFA

We are convinced that the global social challenges in sport and beyond can only be addressed through collaborations with entities determined to make a difference to the lives of people and we are proud to work closely with our UN partners in that respect.  FIFA is recognised as the sports body with the most advanced human rights programme in line with its responsibilities outlined in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. As such, FIFA has for example integrated a human rights commitment in its Statutes, adopted a dedicated Human Rights Policy, integrated human rights requirements in the bidding and hosting requirements of its competitions, created a dedicated human rights department in its administration and developed programmes to promote human rights protections across activities of national football federations. Collaborations with relevant UN entities help further strengthen these measures and contribute to heightened enjoyment of human rights in football and beyond. FIFA has recently had the following partnerships with UN agencies: MOUs: WTOWHOUNHCRUNODCUN WOMEN Ad hoc partnerships: WFPUNESCO These partnerships have led to a number of specific activities that harness the power of football to support social causes. Here are a few examples:•            Social impact campaigns during recent tournamentFootball to highlight social causes at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™FIFA partner with United Nations agencies to run social campaigns during World Cup•            Public Awareness campaigns on Mental & Physical Health during CovidFIFA and WHO #ACTogether to tackle COVID-19FIFA launches #ReachOut campaign for better mental healthFIFA, WHO and European Commission launch #SafeHome campaign•            Football for Schools in collaboration with UNESCO:  Home - FIFA Football For Schools•            Implementing tobacco free tournaments: FIFA and FIFA encourages smokers to join WHO’s “Commit to Quit” campaign•            Engaging with refugees in local communities where the tournament takes place facilitating positive experiences for the implied as well as helping to drive the narrative of no discrimination: Refugees Unite for Peace at FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023•            Working closely with UNODC on protection of sports integrity (anti-match manipulation; anti-corruption); child safeguarding; youth development/ crime prevention through football. FIFA and UNODC wrap up year-long global programme Generally speaking, under the MOUs the respective partners bear their own costs associated with implementation of activities. Please note that during the covid crisis FIFA donated USD 10 million to the WHO COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

What do the BRICS Want - Coexistence or Coperation?

By Daniel Warner

Headlines about the recent meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) in Johannesburg used traditional realpolitik language: “BRICS nations to meet in South Africa seeking to blunt Western dominance;” “BRICS expansion wished for by China has become a reality.” While those titles may be appropriate on the level of traditional power politics and relations between countries, they miss the larger question: What do the BRICS want? If the BRICS countries only wish to counter Western dominance in order to impose their own dominance, that’s just realpolitik. But if they wish to participate in a larger remaking of a more equitable global system based on justice and equity, that’s a whole other ball game.

The Chinese leader, President Xi Jinping, made statements during his visit to South Africa that suggested differences between a new international order and something closer to a global order. On the one hand, Xi said that the BRICS should expand to include new members such as Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, to counter Western domination. “It can’t be that whoever has the thicker arm or the loudest voice has the final say,” he stated in an obvious rebuke to Western powers. The more BRICS members, he assumed, the more power the BRICS allies would have to compete with the US-led, post–World War II multilateral system. And maybe China would be the future dominant power in a new international order.

On the other hand, Xi called for the BRICS expansion “so as to pool our strength, pool our wisdom to make global governance more just and equitable.” A global governance that is more equitable and just goes beyond mere competition between countries. Global is not inter-national, with its inherent rivalries between countries. Global is also inclusive, including actors above the state level such as supranational institutions like the United Nations, or sub-state actors within civil society. The German legal scholar Wolfgang Friedmann summarized the difference between international and global in terms of inter-state co-existence vs. global cooperation.

Global issues are beyond realpolitik

Beyond differentiating between international and global in terms of actors and competition, the differences also concern issues. Climate change and pollution would be excellent examples of the need for global cooperation. Individual, economically competing countries cannot solve global warning or planetary pollution. All actors—public and private, states, multilateral organizations, multinational corporations, individuals, civil society—must cooperate in order to deal with climate change and pollution. (This is precisely the argument of the late German philosopher Hans Jonas in The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, in which he argues for the need for global responsibility based on universal cooperation following the implications of modern technology.)

Presenting the recent BRICS Summit as a counterbalancing force to the G7 or other Western institutions misses the possibilities for significant change. Global issues are beyond realpolitik. In that sense, the question of the relationship of the BRICS to global governance warrants close attention.

Specifically, how do the BRICS see their relationship to the United Nations, an international institution historically dominated by the victors of World War II? Are the BRICS against cooperating in traditional international institutions or are they preparing a different world order based on their emerging power?

This is what President Xi Jinping said about global governance and the UN in his major summit speech, titled ‘Seeking Development Through Solidarity and Cooperation and Shouldering Our Responsibility for Peace,’ on Aug 23, 2023:

“Strengthening global governance is the right choice if the international community intends to share development opportunities and tackle global challenges. International rules must be written and upheld jointly by all countries based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, rather than dictated by those with the strongest muscles or the loudest voice. Ganging up to form exclusive groups and packaging their own rules as international norms are even more unacceptable. BRICS countries should practice true multilateralism, uphold the UN-centered international system, support and strengthen the WTO-centered multilateral trading system.”

In other words, China is not calling for a total overhaul of the international system. Xi is calling for a different type of multilateralism, one not dominated by Western powers, yet one within the basic tenets of the principles of the UN Charter established by the West. He is calling for more equity within the given system, not radical change.

(Historically, it is important to note that much of the BRICS agenda comes out of the Global South’s 1970s call for a New International Economic Order following decolonisation and leading to the Right to Development. While neoliberals then and now quickly reject any proposals away from market-based economics, the growing power of China’s state capitalism and growing inequalities within Western powers have resurfaced, in another form, in the BRICS demands.)

For the UN, "there is simply no alternative to cooperation."

How did the Secretary-General of the United Nations react to Xi’s remarks? First, the UN head recognized the current weaknesses of the traditional system run by the victors of WWII and the growing role of emerging powers: “For multilateral institutions to remain truly universal, they must reform to reflect today’s power and economic realities, and not the power and economic realities of the post Second World War.” How to do this? “I have come to Johannesburg with a simple message: in a fracturing world with overwhelming crises, there is simply no alternative to cooperation. We must urgently restore trust and reinvigorate multilateralism for the 21st century.”

As part of an effort to “reinvigorate multilateralism for the 21^st century,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres mentioned two UN initiatives for greater cooperation: the Sustainable Development Goals and a Climate Solidarity Pact. (He did not mention the war between Russia and Ukraine.) What is important to note is that there was agreement by the Chinese president and the UN Secretary-General on the need for cooperation within the established multilateral system following the principles of the UN Charter.

So what do the BRICS want? At least according to the Chinese president, they want the current multilateral system to remain, but to ensure that it is as equitable and fair. Do the BRICS want co-existence or cooperation? Again, according to Xi, they want a little of both. They want to participate in the existing multilateral system, but not as it functions today. While it would be too strong to say that China and the growing BRICS movement want to dominate the existing system, as the Western powers have for many years, they want, at least, a more equitable, less Western dominated system.

Following Xi’s statements, the BRICS have not rejected the existing Western-created system, nor have they proposed a totally new one. In terms of a more equitable global governance within the United Nations, the BRICS movement should be seen as a positive step. Evidence of global cooperation on issues such as climate and pollution could be positive indicators to that effect. But values such as human rights or following Charter norms on war and peace remain outside full cooperation. That was obvious from the BRICS Summit.

So we are left in a grey zone between co-existence and cooperation, with co-existence on certain issues and cooperation on others. It is obvious that despite all the calls for global cooperation and governance, countries will cherry pick which institutions they will use to their advantage. What is crucial to note following the BRICS Summit and enlargement is that the tension between co-existence and cooperation will be played out in different ways within the existing multilateral system. President Xi, as de facto leader of the BRICS, made no call for a new world order; just a need for serious reform towards more equity, justice and inclusion. The UN Secretary-General agreed. Will the West?

-DW

For justice in Syria, hope comes from Geneva rather than The Hague

By Alain Werner*

It was an operation which had remained secret for more than a year to ensure its success, but on August 16, Geneva-based organization Trial International revealed that the Federal Criminal Court had, in a judgement of July 19, 2022, ordered the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) to issue an international arrest warrant for the former Syrian Vice-President and uncle of Bashar al-Assad, Rifaat al-Assad. The news confirmed that when looking for justice and accountability in Syria, hope comes more from Geneva than from The Hague. 

In 2013, Rifaat al-Assad became the subject of a criminal denunciation issued from Geneva by Trial International, a non-governmental organization “fighting impunity for international crimes and supporting victims in their quest for justice”. He had been accused of committing war crimes as commander of the Syrian Defense Forces in the 1980s: Under his command, troops are suspected of having participated in the slaughter of several thousand people in Tadmor and Hama. Regarding the atrocities committed in Hama, following the city’s uprising against the regime in 1982, sources put the death toll between 10,000 and 40,000. Al-Assad is said to have been present in the city of Hama, and to have instructed members of the security forces to “clean it of the thugs,” to transport all men between the ages of 14 and 65 to detention centers, and to kill any survivors.

The Swiss Office of the Attorney General (Ministère public de la Confédération or MPC in French) initially opened an investigation on December 19, 2013, as Rifaat al-Assad was staying in a 5-star hotel in Geneva at the time. In September 2015, al-Assad was interviewed by the MPC in the same hotel. However, only on November 30, 2021 did the MPC finally instruct the FOJ to issue him with an international warrant for arrest and extradition, for war crimes. After an investigation criticized for its length, it was a decision that came just a month too late: Al-Assad had been residing in France, but had left the country in October to escape a 4 year prison sentence handed down to him for amassing €90 million of assets in a “fraudulent way.”

Legal paralysis of the International Criminal Court

How is it possible that Switzerland and France were unable to work together to prevent al-Assad from sneaking out of France in October 2021 and returning to Syria? His ability to slip through the cracks has jeopardized not only the execution of his sentence in France, but also any prospect of a hearing in Switzerland before the MPC.

The twists and turns of this sensitive case did not stop there, as on December 9, 2021, the FOJ in Bern simply refused to act on the OAG’s request that they publish the international warrant for al-Assad’s arrest and extradition. According to the FOJ, as al-Assad has no personal connection with Switzerland—he is not Swiss, has not killed any Swiss citizen, and does not currently reside in Switzerland—the office determined that, in these circumstances, Swiss law does not allow for his extradition.

On July 19, 2022, the Federal Criminal Court set the record straight. It ruled that the FOJ could not vest itself the authority to verify whether a measure requested by the MPC was justified or not, as the latter enjoys broad discretionary powers under Swiss law.

It now remains to be seen whether Rifaat al-Assad will ever be tried in Switzerland for the alleged crimes committed in Tadmor and Hama. But thanks to the tenacity of Trial International in Geneva and the OAG in Berne, an international arrest warrant against him for war crimes has now been issued, and this is in itself immensely important for the numerous Syrian victims.

For crimes committed in Syria since 2011, Geneva has also played a decisive role, given the legal paralysis affecting the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The latter has no jurisdiction to investigate or judge crimes committed in Syria, since the country has not ratified the Rome Statute on which the ICC is founded. In addition, any resolution by the UN Security Council to refer the situation to the Court is systematically blocked by Russia, which has used its veto powers 17 times between 2011 and 2022 to protect the Syrian regime’s abuses from investigation. In light of this situation of deadlock, in December 2016, the UN General Assembly established the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for international crimes committed in Syria since 2011.

More and more proceedings for Syria

For the past six years, this Geneva-based UN mechanism has been gathering and analyzing evidence. It then collaborates with state authorities to obtain—in the absence of any proceedings in The Hague before the ICC—as many trials as possible before national jurisdictions. To this end, upon the physical presence in various European countries of persons suspected of international crimes, the principle of universal jurisdiction is used.

This collaboration between the IIIM and national authorities has produced concrete results, such as the January 2022 judgment against Anwar R. in Koblenz, Germany. Anwar R., former head of the investigation department of Branch 251 of the Syrian intelligence services, was sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity in the form of torture, murder and sexual violence. 

Through these exchanges between a UN mechanism and national courts, these national proceedings for Syria are multiplying, not only in Germany but also in France and elsewhere. A few days ago, for example, a complaint was submitted in Norway against an Iraqi national who has been living there for six years, suspected of crimes committed during the war in Syria.

The ICC is playing a key role in the fight for accountability for the atrocities committed in Ukraine, and should, of course, remain the symbolic flagship of international justice. However, the growing importance of national trials—in which Geneva plays a full part at various levels—is crucial in the fight against the global cancer of impunity for mass crimes.

-AW

*An international lawyer, Alain Werner is the founding director of Civitas Maxima, an organization which "facilitates the documentation of international crimes, and pursues the redress of such crimes on behalf of victims who do not have access to justice."

Today's Briefing: Philippe Mottaz - Jamil Chade - Daniel Warner

Editorial assistance: David Jenny

Edited by: Dan Wheeler