On August 5, 2017 Carla Del Ponte resigned from the Commission. She claimed that she was frustrated because the Commission had no power. She is reported to have told a panel discussion at the Locarno Film Festival: "I am quitting this commission, which is not backed by any political will. I have no power as long as the Security Council does nothing. There is no justice for Syria.” The remaining two members indicated that they would continue to work “for the right to truth of the victims and accountability for perpetrators of the violations and crimes committed in the war in Syria.”

While I understand the frustration expressed by Del Ponte, I commend the resolve of the other two members of the Commission. Del Ponte, of all people, should be well aware that the investigation of international war crimes requires patience and unflagging resolve. It is also necessary to respect the feelings of victims who cry out for justice and acknowledgement. In the early years of the ICTY there was similar frustration in the Office of the Prosecutor. Indictments were issued accompanied by arrest warrants. The alleged war criminals were not arrested even when they passed through road blocks in Bosnia that were set up by members of the United Nations protection forces. It was only after strong political pressure was exerted by some European Governments that sufficient will was found to arrest some of those who had been indicted as suspected war criminals.

Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were not arrested for more than a decade after they were indicted. Both of them eventually appeared before the ICTY in The Hague. Indeed it was during the term of office of Del Ponte that the Milosevic trial began. It was, of course, a tragedy that his hundreds of thousands of victims were robbed of full justice by his untimely death in his cell in The Hague shortly after the Prosecution case was concluded. Karadzic was arrested after evading arrest for thirteen years. He was found guilty of crimes including genocide and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment. His appeal is pending.

The former President of Chad, Hissène Habré, was known to have been responsible for massive violations of human rights during his time in office from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990. He lived in exile in Senegal. Only after many years of political pressure from human rights groups and some African governments, in the middle of 2013 was he arrested in Senegal and brought to trial before a special court established jointly by Senegal and the African Union. He was found guilty of crimes including rape, sexual slavery and ordering the killing of 40,000 people, and sentenced to life imprisonment. On April 26, 2017 his appeal was dismissed. It took more than a quarter of a century after the crimes were committed for Habre to be brought to justice.

If evidence against Milosevic and Karadzic had not been diligently collected and preserved by the Office of the Prosecutor, no prosecution would have been possible when, after many years they were brought to trial. So, too, no trial could have been mounted against Habré without the evidence that had been collected by a national investigative commission.

I have no doubt that sooner or later some of the war criminals responsible for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Syria will be brought to trial and compelled to face the evidence that has been collected by the two United Nations commissions referred to above. I hope that one day a democratic government in Syria will empower its own domestic courts to investigate those crimes and, if not, that other domestic courts might exercise their jurisdiction or failing all of that, that they will be brought before the ICC or some special court that might be established as it was in the case of Habré. Had frustration prevented the collection and preservation of evidence in the cases of Milosevic, Karadzic and Habré they would have escaped justice. That would have been a tragedy for the victims. In Syria, the atrocities continue to be committed. The meticulous investigation of those responsible must continue without abatement or loss of resolve.