Posts by Alexandra Dodger
Eroding Impunity for International War Crimes: Criminal Tribunals or National Reconciliation Commissions?
Next week, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is hosting a conference to look back at the 17 years of criminal trials they have held since their founding. Looking back and looking forwards at the legacy of the ICTY and truly calculating its impact is a daunting prospect. Since its creation, the ICTY has been charged with prosecuting the most egregious violations of international humanitarian law during armed conflicts in the Balkans in the early 1990s. The UN Security Council established the Tribunal with Resolution 827 in 1993, with the conviction that “the prosecution of those most responsible for the commission of atrocities during the conflicts would contribute to the restoration of peace and security in the former Yugoslavia.”
Almost two decades later, the spectre of armed conflict no longer looms on the horizon for the former Yugoslav republics, but questions of nationalism and identity are still pervasive. Today’s peace in the Balkans is an uneasy one, punctuated by political flareups. The 2008 declaration of independence by Kosovo is but one example of the recent history of contested outcomes; the matter is still before the International Court of Justice.
But perhaps the ICTY has helped to entrench the notion of turning to courts – whether domestic or international – as a recourse for grievances. “Assessing the Legacy” of the ICTY considers exactly these questions. Although…
Haitians Seeking Refuge: Canada’s Obligations Under International Law
Since the devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, Canadians have opened their hearts and their wallets, raising over $27 million during a recent two-day telethon, for a total of more than $50 million for victims of the Haitian earthquake. The Haitian community in Montreal is particularly sizeable and Quebecers have dispatched medical teams, emergency rescue squads and hundreds of soldiers from the Valcartier base. Canadians seem to feel a sense of unprecedented kinship and solidarity with the Haitian people.
It is little wonder then that phone lines have been ringing off the hook at Immigration Canada, with calls from well-intentioned viewers seeking to alleviate some of the pain and suffering they watch on their TV screens by adopting Haitian orphans. However, despite estimates that more than 50,000 children have become orphans as a result of the quake, many agencies are calling on governments to deliver aid, not adoptions.
While fast-tracking adoptions already approved by the Haitian and Canadian governments may be a humane and logical tactic to support Haiti, additional mass adoptions of children from the earthquake zone may in fact violate international law. Haitians orphaned by the earthquake do not meet the traditional criteria of Convention Refugees, in that they are not subject to persecution based on their “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”, but there…
Quebec Courts Open a New Chapter on Corporate Civil Liability: Paying for War Crimes?
The Palestinian village of Bil’in is headed to the Quebec Cour d’appel, in an attempt to hold two Montreal corporations civilly liable for their actions in the occupied Palestinian territories. Justice Louis-Paul Cullen of the Superior Court ruled against the villagers in a decision handed down on September 18, 2009.
Bil’in is a tiny agricultural community of 1,800 residents located 12 kilometres west of Ramallah, well within to the 1967 Armistice line dividing Israel and the West Bank. Though it is firmly rooted in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the village has been bisected by the Israeli “Security Barrier”. The route of the barrier was deemed to be illegal, and in breach of international law by the International Court of Justice in 2004. In 2007, the High Court of Justice in Israel ordered the wall re-routed, confirming they saw no security or military reasons to maintain the current path of the wall, deeming it “highly prejudicial” to the villagers of Bil’in. Still, the wall remains in place, prompting Bil’in and its allies to seek new forums for judicial redress.
Their attorney, Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, decided a new approach was needed and began to target the corporations that he claims are complicit in the loss of Bil’in’s land. On the…
