This week, I had the opportunity to speak before the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in Ottawa. I spoke Canada’s piecemeal commitment to international law and to the prosecution of international crimes. I appeared alongside Professor Jennifer Welsh and Professor Adam Chapnik. The full video of the speech and the questions and answer period can be found here.

My remarks focused on Canada’s refusal to exercise universal jurisdiction over international crimes and its troubling position on accountability for atrocity crimes committed in Israel and Palestine. In case the speech of interest to readers, I have published it below.

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Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to speak to Canada’s commitment to a rules-based system in relation to the very currency of diplomacy: international law.

In particular, I will focus on Canada’s approach to prosecuting international crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.

Canada has done a great deal to support accountability efforts in recent years.

Since 2022, Canada has consistently supported the prosecution of international crimes in Ukraine. With The Netherlands, Canada has taken Syria to the International Court of Justice over torture.

But many question why there are so many inconsistencies in Canada’s support for international law and accountability efforts.

I want to explore two questions I believe are instructive in relation to Canada’s position on prosecuting international crimes and Canada’s standing in the world.

First, what would Canada do if a mid-level Russian or Syrian war criminal, or a member of the Wagner Group entered Canada? 

As a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, Canada is obligated to investigate war crimes and prosecute them in its own courts. Canada’s diplomatic partners would expect it to prosecute, and not become a safe haven for war criminals.

Yet all too often Canada does nothing or only attempts to deport the alleged war criminal instead of prosecuting them. And if Canada did deport that person, it would seek zero guarantees that they would be held accountable in the country they were deported to.

In 2016, the Department of Justice released a report that stated over 200 perpetrators of international crimes reside in Canada. It has not prosecuted any of them. Canada has the laws to do it, the resources to do it, but it won’t do it.Unlike its allies, since the early 2010s, Canada has abandoned the use of universal jurisdiction.

My second question is: what would Canada do if the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for senior Hamas leaders and those responsible for the atrocities committed on 7 October? There is a real prospect that this will happen in the coming weeks. What would Canada say to the Israeli families of hostages who have asked the ICC to investigate Hamas’ war crimes? What would it tell Palestinians victims and survivors?

Right now, the only answer consistent with Canadian policy would be to say that Canada would oppose ICC arrest warrants for Hamas leaders because it believes Palestine is not a state and the ICC has no role to play in the situation in Palestine.

Indeed, Canada has opposed every single independent, impartial, and international effort to investigate and prosecute international crimes committed in Israel and Palestine. Every single one.

The question arises: what are the rules when Canada supports victims and survivors of international crimes sometimes and in some places, but not other times and in other places? 

Those who look to Canada – victims of atrocities, diplomats, staff in international organizations, and others that I engage with – want leadership on a consistent rules-based system.  They still expect Canada to lead, but they wonder why it is unwilling or unable to do so.

It is not too late. I believe Canada can lead.

In that light, I wish to offer the following recommendations to the Committee:

1. Establish a diplomatic post of Ambassador for International Justice to help coordinate accountability efforts. 
   
2. Invest in holding atrocity perpetrators living in our midst to account here, in our courts, under Universal Jurisdiction or work with deportation destination countries to ensure they are held accountable there.
   
3. Support the ICC in all of the situations under its jurisdiction. To do so, Canada does not have to accept Palestine is a state (Belgium, Switzerland)
   
4. Study the possible creation of a hybrid court for Israel and Palestine staffed by international prosecutors and judges, with some Israeli and Palestinian staff too.
   
5. Lead international efforts to trace and where possible seize assets of perpetrators of international crimes, transnational organized crimes, and large-scale corruption.
   
6. Support efforts to amend the Rome Statute of the ICC so it can prosecute the crime of aggression including in a situation close to our hearts, Ukraine.

Thank you.