(CIJA) Commission for International Justice and Accountability

angelburst29

The Living Force
(CIJA) Commission for International Justice and Accountability

I sense, an investigation and background checks needs to be conducted on the CIJA organization? Some evidence suggests it's based or has a branch in San Francisco, California (USA). Recently, CIJA provided evidence in Court that found the Syrian Gov. and President Assad responsible for a Journalist death (Marie Colvin). A report, published today, accredits the CIJA with a German arrest of two Syrian citizens, claiming "suspicion of crimes including torture of prisoners" during their work for a "Syrian Intelligence service". Only identifying information is a "Anwar R" as a suspect. Information is vague and no real proof is forthcoming, other then their claimed "documentary evidence and witness testimony"? I wondering, if the CIJA was set up by an Alphabet group, for the sole purpose of discrediting "targets" that don't conform or agree with their Political objectives?

Germany’s arrest of a high-ranking Syrian suspected of crimes against humanity marks the first big success for a team of investigators who smuggled out a vast trove of incriminating evidence early in the war, one of its members said on Wednesday.

February 13, 2019 - German arrest is first big catch for Syria investigators

German arrest is first big catch for Syria investigators

German prosecutors said on Wednesday the man, identified as Anwar R., and one other Syrian citizen had been arrested on suspicion of crimes including torture of prisoners during their work for Syria’s intelligence service. A third arrest was made in France.

The investigation was supported by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a team funded by the United States and several European governments, which has been quietly building cases for years.

Its deputy director, Nerma Jelacic, said CIJA had provided documentary evidence and witness testimony against Anwar R..


“For the kind of people you can find in Europe, this is a big fish,” Jelacic told Reuters.

In 2011 and 2012, Anwar R. headed Branch 251 and later Branch 285 of Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate, where officials had free rein to detain and interrogate suspected opposition activists, she said.

“These two branches are the most notorious ones. One of our witnesses has described Branch 251 as the most effective, dangerous and secretive branch, and responsible for 98 percent of the violence committed.

“That branch was not only receiving people into detention but also carrying out raids and searches for individuals wanted for organizing the protests (against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule).”

Anwar R. would be on the third rung down from Assad and would not have had direct contact with him, she said.

ARCHIVES
CIJA is led by Bill Wiley, a Canadian ex-soldier who advised the defense in the trial of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and is a veteran of the Rwanda and Yugoslavia war crimes tribunals.


By working with Syria’s opposition, not including groups designated by the United Nations as “terrorists”, CIJA managed to exfiltrate 700,000 pages from Syrian intelligence and security archives, a potential goldmine for human rights prosecutors.

Wiley told Reuters in 2014 that CIJA was preparing prosecution-ready dossiers, despite not having a court that would hear its cases.

Syria is not a member of the International Criminal Court. Its allies on the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China, have blocked efforts to refer the situation to the ICC, despite reams of evidence collected by the United Nations, CIJA and others.

Jelacic said CIJA was now providing support to 13 countries, and was getting requests for assistance “almost on a daily basis”. It answered close to 500 requests from law enforcement last year, with information pertaining to Islamic State as well as Syrian government officials.

Last month its evidence and testimony were used in a U.S. lawsuit where a judge ruled that Assad’s government was liable for at least $302.5 million in damages for its role in the 2012 death of renowned U.S. journalist Marie Colvin.

This is the US lawsuit mentioned above. I was unable to locate any Court Dockets on the San Francisco Court ruling? I did find this statement of interest, considering the first article is describing a German arrest.

"Colvin’s family was represented by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, which focuses on human rights litigation. The group’s executive director, Dixon Osburn, said the lawsuit was the first seeking to hold the Assad government liable for war crimes. Since it was filed, there has been some similar legal action in Europe, including Germany."

I sense, the CIJA is using the US Lawsuit and Judgement as a license, to further it's activities in targeting individuals and Governments, in an agenda to discredit and defame their opponents. The Political opinions of both, Germany and the US are that "Assad must Go"! Is the CIJA being used as a tool to spread false accusations and to exert Political pressure?

A U.S. judge has ruled that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government is liable for at least $302.5 million in damages for its role in the 2012 death of renowned American journalist Marie Colvin while covering the Syrian civil war.

January 31, 2019 - US Court finds Syria liable for Journalist Colvin's killing

U.S. court finds Syria liable for journalist Colvin's killing

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said in a ruling made public on Wednesday that the Syrian government “engaged in an act of extrajudicial killing of a United States national.”

Colvin, a 56-year-old war correspondent, and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs while reporting on the Syrian conflict.


The civil lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court by Colvin’s family in 2016 accused officials in Assad’s government of deliberately targeting rockets against a makeshift broadcast studio where Colvin and other reporters were living and working.

The Syrian government was not involved in defending the lawsuit. As in other cases in which foreign governments are sued in U.S. courts, Colvin’s family is likely to face an uphill battle in recovering any of the damages.

Colvin’s family was represented by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, which focuses on human rights litigation. The group’s executive director, Dixon Osburn, said the lawsuit was the first seeking to hold the Assad government liable for war crimes. Since it was filed, there has been some similar legal action in Europe, including Germany.

The ruling, Osburn added, could help pave the way for greater scrutiny of Assad’s conduct.

“It’s the first proving ground that the Assad regime has engaged in war crimes. He has engaged in a brutal set of crimes against humanity,” Osburn said in an interview.

The judge wrote that “a targeted attack on a media center hosting foreign journalists that resulted in two fatalities and multiple injuries ... is an unconscionable act.” The judge ruled that additional damages would be calculated at a later date.

The lawsuit described the attack as part of a plan orchestrated at the highest levels of Assad’s government to silence local and international media “as part of its effort to crush political opposition.” Some of the evidence supporting the lawsuit was provided by two defectors from the Syrian government.

Lawyers for the family included as evidence a copy of an August 2011 fax that they said was sent from Syria’s National Security Bureau instructing security bodies to launch military and intelligence campaigns against “those who tarnish the image of Syria in foreign media and international organizations.”


Jackson wrote in the ruling that the day before the attack, an informant provided the location of the media center to the Syrian government. That night, Colvin had given live interviews to CNN and two British broadcasters, the BBC and Channel 4.

There is evidence that Syrian officials celebrated after the attack, Jackson added.

In a 2016 interview with NBC News quoted by CNN, Assad said Colvin herself was at fault in her death. “It’s a war and she came illegally to Syria, she worked with the terrorists, and because she came illegally, she’s responsible of everything that befell her,” Assad said.

A biographical film about Colvin, called “A Private War” and starring British actress Rosamund Pike, was released last year, bringing fresh attention to her career.
 
Not sure much of an investigation is possible. It's been tried:

How can we study secretive organisations? The Commission for International Justice and Accountability and the Politics of Methodology
The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) established in 2011 through European state funds is a private, non-profit NGO ... Unlike their well-funded international human rights organisation counterparts (particularly Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International), CIJA actively avoids public advocacy and is at pains to preserve its highly secretive profile. It has no website and locations for its European offices are suppressed. It has generated almost no publicly available reports. - Dr Michelle Burgis-Kasthala

It looks like it's was founded to do what official bodies prefer not to, for legal (read: reputation) reasons:

The Future of International Criminal Evidence in New Wars? The Evolution of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) - Melinda Rankin, 2018
This article explores the intellectual formation of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). It illuminates how the development of the CIJA was an attempt by state and non-state actors to affect the course of international criminal justice in Syria and Iraq. First, this article argues that the CIJA was the result of four factors: the UK Foreign Office’s desire to support human rights activists in Syria; lessons learned from previous international criminal tribunals; attempts by non-state legal practitioners to invent new ways to overcome the gaps and limitations of the international criminal justice system; and the willingness of Syrian civil society to risk their lives and use the law to hold those responsible for mass atrocities to account. Second, the article argues that as non-state actors with a focus on evidence management, the CIJA may represent an innovative approach to investigating mass atrocities, particularly for activists and civil society actors who wish to play a role in evidence management in new wars. Lastly, it shows how the CIJA may work in parallel with international mechanisms, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and other inter-state actors, to collect evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in new wars, particularly when the ICC is unable to do so. This study combines qualitative research with empirical analysis and draws on a range of primary and secondary sources, including a number of interviews conducted with CIJA personnel, former ICC practitioners, and other practitioners in international criminal law.

https://www.researchgate.net/public..._for_International_Justice_and_Accountability
The failure of the United Nations to effect a 'responsibility to protect' in Syria and Iraq has provoked acrimonious debates over how the international community should respond to mass atrocities in the contemporary international order. Moreover, the fact that the International Criminal Court and other United Nations (UN) agencies remain unable to investigate in Syria and Iraq, has reinvigorated debate on the mechanisms available to bring those most responsible for humanities gravest crimes to account. This article examines the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). As non-state actors, CIJA conduct their investigations outside the United Nations system, with the aim of investigating and preparing case briefs for the most senior leaders suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria; and war crimes, crimes against humanity and allegations of genocide in Iraq. This article argues that in preparing case briefs for individual criminal liability for a future prosecution, CIJA have attempted to extend the system of international criminal law, and in so doing, pose a challenge to traditional notions of the state in relation to the concept of war and the law, and the relationship between power and law in the international system. The article concludes by the asking the question: does the international community have a 'responsibility to prosecute' those suspected of criminal misconduct?

It's present on Chatham website:
Pursuing Atrocity Accountability in Syria - 2015
14 May 2015 - 10:00am to 12:00pm
Chatham House, London
Participants

Dr William Wiley, Executive Director, Commission for International Justice and Accountability
Chris Engels, Head of the Regime Crimes Team, Commission for International Justice and Accountability
Toby Cadman, Barrister, Nine Bedford Row International
Chair: Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Distinguished Fellow, International Law Programme, Chatham House

....Attendance at this event is strictly by invitation only.

Next such event, this time hosted by The Hague Institute for Global Justice, took place in October 2015
Summary:

Pursuing Accountability in Syria – The Hague Institute for Global Justice
On 1 October 2015, The Hague Institute for Global Justice hosted a panel discussion entitled “Pursuing Accountability in Syria.” The discussion took place under the Chatham House Rule.

In the absence of a UNSC referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC), or criminal investigations at the national or regional level, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) is collecting information that could eventually be used to hold perpetrators of IHL violations accountable. The private actions of the CIJA amidst the ongoing conflict in Syria represent a departure from the practice of conducting international criminal investigations under the aegis of public institutions. The panel addressed many aspects of this new and innovative model of private criminal investigations in the midst of ongoing conflict, including challenges, accomplishments, advantages, and the future of CIJA.

After welcoming remarks by the President of the Institute, Dr. Abi Williams, the panel was opened for discussion by the moderator, H.E. Ms. Anniken Krutnes, Norwegian Ambassador to the Netherlands.
Panelists included:
  • Dr. William Wiley, Director and Founder of CIJA
  • Stephen Rapp, Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues at the State Department
  • Mr. James A. Goldston, Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative

While the CIJA initially faced challenges securing adequate funding from donors, it can now operate effectively. On the other hand, the CJIA is faced with questions regarding its legitimacy, accountability and oversight, transparency, and quality control.

Chatham again:
Standing Up for Justice in War - 2016
 
...continued

CSCE interviews Chris Engels
Sep. 2018
Interview with Chris Engels, Director of Investigations and Operations, Commission for International Justice and Accountability

... We have had a number of donors over the years. Our current donors include the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Demark, the Netherlands, and Norway.

Describe CIJA’s collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and other U.S. government entities.

By design, CIJA has a strong relationship with U.S. law enforcement. CIJA’s primary goal is to assist in the prosecution of those responsible for the terrible crimes committed during conflicts. We have the advantage of being able to operate safely in conflict zones with unique skills to preserve the materials we collect in a way that they can be used at trial.

To do that, we work with any legitimate governmental agency that is investigating these types of crimes including the FBI and DHS. We are happy to work with them and believe it is our responsibility to do so. We received over 500 requests last year to assist in law enforcement investigations and the number is increasing this year. In the United States, this work has a national security element as well.

Have members of Congress supported the work of CIJA?

Oh yes. The best example of this is probably from congressional hearings on the issue. I have had the opportunity to appear before the Helsinki Commission and the Lantos Commission to discuss international criminal justice. Helsinki Commission Chairman Senator Wicker and Co-Chairman Congressman Smith, are both great supporters of this type of work and they fully support our justice efforts. More generally, you can see the will of Congress to support this type of work in the many resolutions, laws passed, and bills still making their way through Congress–like H.R. 390

The US cut funds for CIJA in 2014
From Foreign Policy:
Exclusive: Washington Cuts Funds for Investigating Bashar al-Assad’s War Crimes

The U.S. State Department plans to cut its entire $500,000 in annual funding next year to an organization dedicated to sneaking into abandoned Syrian military bases, prisons, and government facilities to collect documents and other evidence linking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its proxies to war crimes and other mass atrocities during the country’s brutal civil war, according to the recipient of the assistance and a senior U.S. official.

For the past two years, the U.S. State Department has channeled a total of $1 million in funds to the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a group of international war crimes prosecutors that sends local researchers, lawyers, and law students into Syrian battle zones to collect and extract files and other evidence that can help map the Syrian command structure and identify the military orders authorizing illegal activities, ...

In an abrupt reversal, Obama administration officials recently notified the commission that the State Department would be eliminating its $500,000-a-year contribution, according to the group. “We do not know what the U.S. policy is on this issue, but after extensive negotiations we were informed recently that we would not be receiving further support from the State Department DRL [the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor] to continue our activities in 2015,” Nerma Jelacic, the commission’s chief spokesperson, said in an email. “We were told that criminal investigations were not a priority for that program in 2015. ... She hinted that the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, Stephen Rapp, had not supported the decision. “Ambassador Rapp and his team have been highly supportive of our work but they do not control the funding,”

Rapp confirmed that State has ceased funding but said it does not indicate a lack of support for the commission and that Washington still believes its work is vital. The commission — which also receives a total of about $5 million per year from Britain, Denmark, Germany, Norway, and Switzerland — has proven capable of raising enough funding without the need for American support, he said. But a second senior U.S. official said the commission’s grant has simply “run its course.”

“As far as State Department funding for justice and accountability in Syria, there has been no change,” the official said. “The bottom line is that we remain 100 percent committed to collecting this kind of information.” ...

More than two years ago, the Obama administration took the initiative to ensure that Syrian regime leaders would one day stand trial for their crimes. On April 1, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed the establishment of “an accountability clearinghouse to support and train Syrian citizens working to document atrocities, identify perpetrators, and safeguard evidence for future investigations and prosecutions.” Several months later, the State Department help set up the Syria Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC) with $1.25 million in start-up funds. The center, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands, and has received a total of $3.7 million in donations, is dedicated to promoting accountability and transitional justice. Mohammad Al Abdallah, the center’s executive director, said he was unaware of the State Department plan to cut funding to the commission.

Other persons involved and some loose connections:

Nawaf Obaid (Wiki)
Is an author, academic, philanthropist and a former Saudi Arabian government advisor. He currently serves as the CEO of the Essam & Dalal OBAID Foundation (EDOF) in Geneva, Switzerland. Obaid is also a Commissioner at the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA).

Academic career

  • April 2017 – August 2018 | Inaugural Visiting Fellow for Intelligence and Defense Projects at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.[10]
  • March 2017 | Co-founded the Saudi & GCC Security Project at The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.[11]
  • September 2012 – April 2017 | Visiting Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.[12]
  • January 2008 – January 2016 | Senior Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.[13]
  • May 2004 – January 2007 | Adjunct Fellow for the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC. [CIA-affiliated think-tank ]
  • January 1999 – January 2000 | Research Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in Washington DC


ARK Group blog

Back in 2011 the first project we undertook in Syria was to support the documentation of human rights violations with my very good friend Dr William Wiley
When Bill and I set out to train and support Syrian investigators to bring back from Syria ... - Alistair Harris, CEO, ARK

ARK, Who we work with:

ARK has been awarded cooperative agreements, grants and contracts by the following clients:
*European Union (Instrument for Stability)
*Government of Canada, Global Affairs Canada
*Government of Denmark, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
*Government of Italy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
*Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
*UK Department for International Development, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence (through the UK Conflict Pool and Conflict Stability and Security Fund)
*United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
*US Department of State, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO)

Munk School of Global Affairs, Toronto
Prospects of Justice, Avenues for Accountability: Investigating War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Syria, 2016
Join CIJA’s William Wiley and Nerma Jelacic in a conversation with Munk School Director Stephen Toope on international accountability, international criminal investigations, and the remarkable work being undertaken by CIJA investigators.

Two blog posts by Mark Kersten, a Fellow based at the Munk School of Global Affairs

What Counts as Evidence of Syria’s War Crimes? - 2014
The following is a snippet from an article that I wrote for the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage. It is based on interviews I conducted with international investigators, as well as staff from the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

... A key concern for any investigation – and the pursuit of justice more generally – is impartiality. The Commission of Inquiry has catalogued crimes and human rights abuses committed not only by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but also by opposition groups. This poses a serious dilemma for any group investigating atrocities. Any investigation on the ground and in real time requires cooperation – often from the same groups that are perpetrating crimes. Jelacic readily admits that the CIJA needs to cooperate with some groups that may be implicated in the commission of crimes: “We have been quite open about it. In order to gain access to certain areas we need approval of opposition forces … [and] the majority of what we do are regime offences.”
... Privately, there is also some concern amongst jurists about how groups like the CIJA collect and document evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria. They fear that such evidence could be dismissed if it was ever introduced at the ICC or another international tribunal, potentially allowing Syrian perpetrators to escape prosecution. If witness evidence is tainted or the chain of custody of physical evidence is broken, such evidence would almost certainly be dismissed by judges. ...


And on the same Munk School 2016 event: Event: Prospects of Justice, Avenues for Accountability – Investigating War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Syria
 
Excellent investigative work, PoB! HIGH Five!
:perfect:

* CIJA actively avoids public advocacy and is at pains to preserve its highly secretive profile. It has no website and locations for its European offices are suppressed. It has generated almost no publicly available reports.

* the development of the CIJA was an attempt by state and non-state actors to affect the course of international criminal justice (in Syria and Iraq).

* As non-state actors, CIJA conduct their investigations outside the United Nations system, ...

* CJIA is faced with questions regarding its legitimacy, accountability and oversight, transparency, and quality control.


CJIA has a distinct flavor of being an Israeli Intelligence operation (non-state actors) - backed by the Rockefeller Foundation (Chatham house)?

The CIJA is non-conforming to International (criminal justice) Law and Statutes or the United Nations Mandates ... under which, if my understanding is in order, both Commissions were drawn up under (City of) Rome's codifications? As for the United States, the U.S. Constitution has been superseded by Admiralty Law (British) since Abraham Lincoln’s Executive Order putting it under martial law during the Civil War and it (EO) was never rescinded but has been re-instated every 2 years since. In light of all this, the CJIA doesn't conform to British Admiralty or Roman Laws but is a separate entity.

* The private actions of the CIJA amidst the ongoing conflict (in Syria) represent a departure from the practice of conducting international criminal investigations under the aegis of public institutions. I take that to mean - no oversight or collaboration from a separate outside source?

* By design, CIJA has a strong relationship with U.S. law enforcement. All I can say in that regard, "Who "owns" and controls most of Washington and it's security apparatus" and gets millions-$-billions a year sent to it from the US for "security"?
 
This hearing is interesting and seems to point out elsewhere, angelburst, while your pick may be one of those who benefit for free (just a guess):

Canadian Parliament: 33rd meeting of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights

Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2016
We have with us today Dr. Bill Wiley.

By way of introduction, I would reiterate that my name is indeed Bill Wiley. I am the executive director of the CIJA. ... The CIJA's 150 personnel collect evidence to the highest legal standards and undertake analysis with an eye to preparing, as we do, dossiers inculpating ranking individuals for present-day and future criminal prosecution in domestic as well as international jurisdictions. ... CIJA personnel deployed in Syria and Iraq, roughly 50% of the CIJA complement, take considerable but managed physical risks to ensure that, unlike in past conflicts, linkage cases are established whilst the subject conflicts are under way. ...

Evidence collected by the CIJA is central to facilitating ongoing criminal justice efforts in national jurisdictions where perpetrators have been apprehended, particularly in the European Schengen zone. At the present time, the CIJA is assisting no fewer than 12 western countries in the domestic prosecution of Syrian regime officials, returning Islamic State fighters, and other members of extremist groups ... In Syria and Iraq, the CIJA has several dozen investigators on the ground handling multiple operations throughout these countries.

To date, our personnel have moved into secure storage in the west in excess of 700,000 original pages of Syrian regime documentation; conducted hundreds of victim, and most especially insider, witness interviews; and collected other forms of physical and electronic evidence. Additionally, the CIJA continues to build a names database of Syrian regime political, military, and security intelligence officials. This system currently holds in excess of 1.2 million names. A distinct database of foreign terrorist fighters holds several thousand names.

In closing, I should like to highlight the fact that Canada is one of the very few states contributing concretely to efforts that are rendering possible criminal justice for core international crimes.

[Answering MP's questions, excerpts:]

The CIJA budget in the current calendar year is approximately 7 million euros. Off the top of my head, that's probably $10.5 million Canadian. Those funds, at the present time, are forthcoming from Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Union. We are hoping that Denmark and Norway will soon rejoin us as donors. They've been very generous donors in the past.

In fact, in the current fiscal year plus an additional six months, so over an 18-month period, Canada's given us $3.3 million. It's divided between Syria and Iraq. It comes through different funding streams although we tend to see it as effectively one war. That's just the way things are organized at Global Affairs.

Canada is the most generous donor at the present time, or perhaps it's tied with the European Union; it depends on the conversion rates. The problem is not that Canada should give more; the problem is states, including states that draw very heavily on our material, that give nothing. This is our fundamental problem. The CIJA, because it is a criminal investigative body and performs a task that would normally be done by public authority, doesn't fit properly into any country's or the European Union's normal donor funding streams. We simply don't do normal NGO stuff, if I could put it in crude terms.

One of our better partners.... Is it Global Affairs Canada now? I've lived abroad for many years, and I apologize, I'm not always up to date on the latest name changes. Global Affairs Canada is one of our better partners, in fact as good as any, on a par with the United Kingdom and the European Union in particular, insofar as they assist us on the political and diplomatic level, in places like Baghdad, bringing us together with other interested states to raise money and so on and so forth.

The Syrian regime names database was set up, or we started the process of setting that up, about two years ago. It's always been funded by Germany, and it's run outside of our headquarters. It was initially run in Sofia, Bulgaria. For security reasons I won't say where it is now, but it remains in continental Europe. It employs Syrian refugees in this task. Effectively, we're pulling names from the digitalized regime documentation and putting them into a stand-alone database with hyperlinks to the source documents. It's a very inexpensive, simple platform, and a great many immigration authorities are using it.
In a public forum such as this—I apologize profusely—it would be remiss of me to indicate which countries are drawing on this, but suffice it to say that it's available to any liberal democratic state that needs it.

Is he referring to Musk School of Global Affairs? Or to Global Affair Canada? Or perhaps to Canadian Global Affairs Institute (Global Affairs) which has its roots in 1928, in the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA)? Looks like they are interconnected anyway.

The Canadian Global Affairs Institute (Global Affairs) is an independent, non-partisan research institute based in Calgary with offices in Ottawa. Incorporated as a charitable organization in 2000.
The Strategic Studies Working Group (SSWG) is a partnership between the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Canadian International Council (CIC), which incorporates the former Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies. The SSWG is administered by Global Affairs which also conducts research and produces publications on security and defence issues on behalf of the partnership. All projects undertaken by the SSWG are first approved by CIC ...

Criticism and Controversy

Global Affairs institute has been accused of being a right wing think tank, supporting militarism instead of diplomacy. In an article from July 2016, the Globe and Mail examines the Institutes support of Canada's $15-billion combat-vehicle sale to Saudi Arabia at a time of a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and the think tanks acceptance of donations from defense contractor General Dynamics – the parent of the arms maker in the export contract.

The Canadian International Council (CIC) is Canada's foreign relations council. It is an independent, member-based council established to strengthen Canada's role in international affairs.
The CIC's Board of Directors includes:
... Janice Stein, Director, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto

Funding
The Canadian International Council is a non-for-profit organization and a registered charity with Canada Revenue Agency.
Funding comes from private sponsorship, membership fees, donations, and events. The CIC's major fundraiser is its Annual Gala Dinner, where the Globalist of the Year Award is presented. Past recipients include Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund in 2012; Naguib Sawiris, CEO of Orascom Telecom Holding and Founding Member of the Free Egyptians Party (Al Masreyeen Al Aharrar), a political party founded in the wake of the Arab Spring in 2011; George Soros, ...

In June 2006, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs partnered with the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in the new Canadian International Council (CIC), a single umbrella organization to promote public engagement with Canadian foreign policy and international relations. With a $1-million donation from Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM), in September 2007, the relationship was deepened to form a new partnership. The CIC pools the capacities and expertise of the CIIA, CIGI and the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, to create a public policy think-tank on Canada's foreign relations. A national fellowship program to support candidates from academia, public service and the business community will be headquartered at the Munk Centre. As part of the arrangement, CIIA operations would be incorporated into the CIC.

The Integrity Initiative And The British Roots of The Deep State: How The Round Table Infiltrated America (SOTT)

By 1919, the Round Table Movement changed its name to the Royal Institute for International Affairs (aka: Chatham House) with the "Round Table" name relegated to its geopolitical periodical. In Canada and Australia, branches were created in 1928 under the rubrics of "Canadian and Australian Institutes for International Affairs" (CIIA, AIIA).

Staffed with Rhodes Scholars and Fabians, the CFR (and its International Chatham House counterparts) dubbed themselves "independent think tanks" which interfaced with Rhodes Scholars and Fabians in academia, government and the private sector alike with the mission of advancing a foreign policy agenda that was in alignment with the British Empire's dream of an Anglo-American "special relationship". One such Rhodes Scholar was William Yandall Elliot, who played a major role mentoring Henry Kissinger and a generation of geo-politicians from Harvard, not the least of whom include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Samuel (Clash of Civilizations) Huntington.
 
This hearing is interesting and seems to point out elsewhere, angelburst, while your pick may be one of those who benefit for free (just a guess):

It looks like I'm back to square one, again.

The CIJA budget in the current calendar year is approximately 7 million euros. Off the top of my head, that's probably $10.5 million Canadian. Those funds, at the present time, are forthcoming from Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Union. We are hoping that Denmark and Norway will soon rejoin us as donors. They've been very generous donors in the past.

What adds to the confusion, the Countries highlighted above, funding CIJA - are all against the Assad Government?
 
The Gray Zone has now a comprehensive article on CIJA by Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton:

This celebrated Western-funded nonprofit collaborated with al-Qaeda to wage lawfare on Syria

Its main idea is presented in this excerpts:

[CIJA] is at the forefront of an emerging strategy to bleed the Syrian government even as the war comes to a close.
In reality, [it] is bankrolled by the very same Western governments that have fueled the proxy war against Syria, and was founded to supplement the regime-change operation that those states initiated in 2011. ....

The Syrian opposition and its supporters abroad have spent the past eight years doing everything in their power to lobby the United States to launch a direct military intervention to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad. They have deployed red lines, White Helmets, and a constant stream of white lies to argue that the US military has a “responsibility to protect” Syrians from their government.
Despite billions of dollars poured into a cataclysmic proxy war, this monumental effort failed: Syria has largely been stabilized, and refugees are slowly trickling back in. In frustration, a motley crew of veteran regime-change warriors and lawyers are resorting to a new and largely untested strategy.

Their efforts
amount to legal warfare, or lawfare, and the Commission for International Justice and Accountability is a key player in the new campaign.

Some describe the latest weapon in West’s regime-change toolbox as “transitional justice.” To others, it is referred to as the “Responsibility to Prosecute,” a play on the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine, or R2P, that was applied with varying degrees of catastrophe by liberal interventionists in theaters from the former Yugoslavia to Libya.

In other words, government actors could be prosecuted abroad if powerful Western states can establish the perception that they committed a crime, even if no such acts were previously proven. Under the new doctrine, the West’s designated enemies are guilty until proven innocent.

The “Responsibility to Prosecute” was conceived to address another obstacle in prosecuting Syrian officials: Neither the United States nor Syria is a state party to the Rome Statute which established the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Under the novel doctrine, Washington could have its cake and eat it too, referring war crimes prosecutions of official enemies to friendly countries like Germany that accept universal jurisdiction without having to interact with the ICC.

Hayward concluded, “from the standpoint of concern to serve US-based corporate interests, there is more at stake than the matter of who should be president of Syria.”

Possible targets of this new legal tactic lie well beyond Damascus, and in any nation judged to be excessively recalcitrant.
Citing as precedent a series of unproven allegations and US sanctions measures applied against the Venezuelan government, Cutz argued that members of Maduro’s inner circle should be tried in Latin American countries that have signed on to the Rome Statute, thus enabling the US to remain outside the jurisdiction of the ICC.

But the strategy for applying the “Responsibility to Prosecute” against Syria’s government is far more developed than the one targeting Venezuela’s.

And the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) is hoping to pave the way for this novel form of lawfare.
In an article for a legal website in March, researcher Melinda Rankin revealed that CIJA is the main non-governmental entity working with Germany to “fill the gap” in the absence of an ICC commission targeting the Syrian government.

But CIJA was not only created to function as a legal extension of US power; it is wholly dependent on Western military might to advance objectives that apparently include regime change and growing the corporate consultancy firm of its executive director.

In the article, you'll find details on key players, connections, etc., including on CIJA cooperating with al-Nusra / ISIS/ al-Qaeda and paying them.
 
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