Ms Chantal Joris:

I agree that the situation is indeed depressing. As Deputy Munster said, in my opening statement I said we should focus on the conflict parties. Maybe Ireland could focus more on those nations that have an influence over the conflict parties, such as the United States or the European Union as a whole. They have a level of leverage that individual states may not. Another angle that has been mentioned before, particularly when it comes to Gaza, is that we have seen severe freedom of expression violations outside of the conflict zone also. People in the United States are prevented from protesting. There are severe crackdowns, so there is a limit on the pressure that can be put domestically on the government there to then apply pressure on the conflict party. This is an angle. We could focus on the freedom of expression violations and limitations of press freedom in states outside of the conflict zones.

One thing to consider when we talk about international accountability mechanisms is the avenue of exercising universal jurisdictions on the domestic level. We have seen in many cases, for example, in Switzerland where I am from where they have increasingly accepted and opened cases based on universal jurisdiction and have brought accountability through that avenue. Again, specifically linking these cases of attacks on freedom of the press or freedom of expression violations more broadly, can be an interesting manner of continuing this conversation and keeping the pressure up.