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- World Heritage Convention (3)
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- Armed conflict; International Humanitarian Law; International Law (1)
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- Complicity; Criminal Law; History of Criminal Law; International Criminal Law; Blame Attribution (1)
- Complicity; aiding and abetting; unitary theory of perpetration; modes of liability; superior responsibility; joint criminal enterprise; JCE; theory of criminal law; international criminal justice (1)
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Articles 1 - 30 of 36
Full-Text Articles in Law
Transparency Evolution: More Than The Right To Know, Ljiljana Biuković, Pitman B. Potter
Transparency Evolution: More Than The Right To Know, Ljiljana Biuković, Pitman B. Potter
All Faculty Publications
Providing an analysis of global regulation and the impact of international organizations on domestic laws, this collection grew out of a central objective to explore methods of domestic engagement with international trade and human rights norms, and the inherent difficulties in establishing balanced links between these two international law regimes. The common thread of the papers in this collection is a focus on the application of socio-legal normative paradigms in building knowledge and policy support for coordinating local performance with international trade and human rights standards in ways that are mutually sustaining.
The Court Jurisdiction And Proceedings Transfer Act And The Hague Conference’S Judgments And Jurisdiction Projects, Joost Blom
All Faculty Publications
The Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act (CJPTA) codifies the substantive law of jurisdiction in British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. One of the questions that may be posed by the future of the CJPTA is how the jurisdictional system that it enacts would function in relation to two potential international conventions that are contemplated by the Hague Conference on Private International Law. One, a convention on the enforcement of judgments, is in an advanced stage of negotiation and may well be adopted by the Hague Conference. It deals with jurisdiction indirectly, by defining jurisdictional standards or “filters” that must …
The Ahistoricism Of Legal Pluralism In International Criminal Law, James G. Stewart, Asad Kiyani
The Ahistoricism Of Legal Pluralism In International Criminal Law, James G. Stewart, Asad Kiyani
All Faculty Publications
International criminal law (“ICL”) is legally plural, not a single unified body of norms. As a whole, trials for international crimes involve a complex dance between international and domestic criminal law, the specificities of which vary markedly from one forum to the next. To date, many excellent scholars have suggested that the resulting doctrinal diversity in ICL should be tolerated and managed under the banner of Legal Pluralism. To our minds, these scholars omit a piece of the puzzle that has major implications for their theory – the law’s history. Neglecting the historical context of the international and national criminal …
The Strangely Familiar History Of The Unitary Theory Of Perpetration, James G. Stewart
The Strangely Familiar History Of The Unitary Theory Of Perpetration, James G. Stewart
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A unitary theory of perpetration is one that does not espouse different legal standards for different forms of participating in crime. In this Article, I pay homage to Professor Damaška’s influence on my work and career by reiterating my earlier arguments for a unitary theory of perpetration in international criminal law. Whereas my earlier work defended the unitary theory in abstract terms then for international criminal law in particular, this Article looks to the history of the unitary theory in five national systems that have abandoned differentiated systems like that currently in force internationally in favor of a unitary variant. …
Bordering The Constitution, Constituting The Border, Efrat Arbel
Bordering The Constitution, Constituting The Border, Efrat Arbel
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It is an established principle in Canadian law that refugees present at or within Canada’s borders are entitled to basic constitutional protection. Where precisely these borders lie, however, is far from clear. In this article, I examine the Canadian border as a site in which to study the constitutional entitlements of refugees. Through an analysis of the Multiple Borders Strategy (MBS) – a broad strategy that re-charts Canada’s borders for the purposes of enhanced migration regulation – I point to a basic tension at play in the border as site. I argue that the MBS imagines and enacts the border …
Complicity In Business And Human Rights, James G. Stewart
Complicity In Business And Human Rights, James G. Stewart
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These remarks, delivered on April 9, 2015 at the American Society of International Law’s Annual Conference, address the context of complicity discussions in public international law generally then their significance and scope in Business and Human Rights in particular. The Panel on which I delivered this talk was one of the first to discuss the topic of complicity across different fields, including International Criminal Law, the Alien Tort Statute, Business and Human Rights and the Public International Law of State Responsibility. In my comments, I offer five initial points contextualizing these discussions for the field of public international law writ …
The Turn To Corporate Criminal Liability For International Crimes: Transcending The Alien Tort Statute, James G. Stewart
The Turn To Corporate Criminal Liability For International Crimes: Transcending The Alien Tort Statute, James G. Stewart
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In November 2013, Swiss authorities announced a criminal investigation into one of the world’s largest gold refineries on the basis that the company committed a war crime. The Swiss investigation comes a matter of months after the US Supreme Court decided in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. that allegations like these could not give rise to civil liability under the aegis of the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”). Intriguingly, however, the Swiss case is founded on a much earlier American precedent. In 1909, the U.S. Supreme Court approved the novel practice of prosecuting companies. Unlike the Court’s position in Kiobel …
Book Review: Theory And Practice Of Harmonisation, Mads Andenæs & Camilla B. Andersen (Eds), Toby S. Goldbach
Book Review: Theory And Practice Of Harmonisation, Mads Andenæs & Camilla B. Andersen (Eds), Toby S. Goldbach
All Faculty Publications
"Theory and Practice of Harmonisation" is an edited symposium publication which tackles the ambitious topic of legal harmonisation. Some common themes can be identified. First, several papers deal with the background to or reasons for harmonisation and consider whether harmonisation goals are being met.Second, several papers examine language-textual issues or problems with defining concepts. A third centralizing theme is the role of legal institutions, in particular courts, in facilitating harmonisation. Finally, a fourth theme is evident in those papers that look at the instruments, mechanisms or legal techniques that are used to implement harmonisation. As a whole, the text seems …
Migrant Smuggling: Canada's Response To A Global Criminal Enterprise, Benjamin Perrin
Migrant Smuggling: Canada's Response To A Global Criminal Enterprise, Benjamin Perrin
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Migrant smuggling is a dangerous, sometimes deadly, criminal activity. Failing to respond effectively to migrant smuggling and deter it will risk emboldening those who engage in this illicit enterprise, which generates proceeds for organized crime and criminal networks, funds terrorism and facilitates clandestine terrorist travel, endangers the lives and safety of smuggled migrants, undermines border security, and undermines the integrity and fairness of immigration systems. Introduced in the Canadian House of Commons in June 2011, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration System Act (Bill C-4) includes proposed amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that would enhance …
Ten Reasons For Adopting A Universal Concept Of Participation In Atrocity, James G. Stewart
Ten Reasons For Adopting A Universal Concept Of Participation In Atrocity, James G. Stewart
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The legal doctrine that assign blame for international crimes are numerous, unclear, ever-changing and often conceptually problematic. In this Essay, I question the prudence of retaining the radical doctrinal heterogeneity that, in large part, produces this state of disarray. Instead of tolerating different standards of participation across customary international law, the ICC statute and national systems of criminal law, I argue for a universal concept of participation that would apply whenever an international crime is charged, regardless of the jurisdiction hearing the case. Although I have argued elsewhere that a unitary theory of perpetration should serve this role, I here …
Shifting Borders And The Boundaries Of Rights: Examining The Safe Third Country Agreement Between Canada And The United States, Efrat Arbel
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This article analyzes the Canadian Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal decisions assessing the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States (STCA). It examines how each court’s treatment of the location and operation of the Canada-US border influences the results obtained. The article suggests that both in its treatment of the STCA and in its constitutional analysis, the Federal Court decision conceives of the border as a moving barrier capable of shifting outside Canada’s formal territorial boundaries. The effect of this decision is to bring refugee claimants outside state soil within the fold of Canadian constitutional …
The End Of 'Modes Of Liability' For International Crimes, James G. Stewart
The End Of 'Modes Of Liability' For International Crimes, James G. Stewart
All Faculty Publications
Modes of liability, such as ordering, instigation, superior responsibility and joint criminal liability, are arguably the most discussed topics in modern international criminal justice. In recent years, a wide range of scholars have rebuked some of these modes of liability for compromising basic concepts in liberal notions of blame attribution, thereby reducing international defendants to mere instruments for the promotion of wider socio-political objectives. Critics attribute this willingness to depart from orthodox concepts of criminal responsibility to international forces, be they interpretative styles typical of human rights or aspirations associated with transitional justice. Strangely, however, complicity has avoided these criticisms …
Overdetermined Atrocities, James G. Stewart
Overdetermined Atrocities, James G. Stewart
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An event is overdetermined if there are multiple sufficient causes for its occurrence. A firing squad is a classic illustration. If eight soldiers are convened to execute a prisoner, they can all walk away afterwards in the moral comfort that “I didn’t really make a difference; it would have happened without me.” The difficulty is, if we are only responsible for making a difference to harm occurring in the world, none of the soldiers is responsible for the death — none made, either directly or through others, an essential contribution to its occurrence. In many respects, this dilemma is the …
Foreign Administrative Law And International Taxation: A Case Study Of Tax Treaty Implementation In China, Wei Cui
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U.S. taxpayers and the IRS increasingly have to take into account the interactions between U.S. and foreign laws, but they have paid little attention to the administrative law backgrounds of foreign tax laws. In a growing range of cases, the need for such attention has become urgent. This Article describes a novel class of cases encountered by U.S. taxpayers that emanate from tax treaty implementation in China. In these cases, U.S. (and other foreign) investors face certain rules that conflict with common treaty interpretations, and that, at the same time, are not legally binding under Chinese domestic law. The question …
Migrant Smuggling: Canada's Response To A Global Criminal Enterprise: With An Assessment Of The Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act (Bill C-4), Benjamin Perrin
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Migrant smuggling is a dangerous, sometimes deadly, criminal activity which cannot be rationalized, justified, or excused. From both a supply and demand side, failing to respond effectively to migrant smuggling and deter it will risk emboldening those who engage in this illicit enterprise, which generates proceeds for organized crime and criminal networks, funds terrorism and facilitates clandestine terrorist travel; endangers the lives and safety of smuggled migrants, undermines border security, with consequences for the Canada/U.S. border, and undermines the integrity and fairness of Canada’s mmigration system. Introduced in Parliament in June, 2011, the Preventing Human Smugglers from Abusing Canada’s Immigration …
Introduction: Changing Dimensions Of The Canada-China Relations, Pitman B. Potter, Thomas Adams
Introduction: Changing Dimensions Of The Canada-China Relations, Pitman B. Potter, Thomas Adams
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Bilateral relations with the People’s Republic of China involve matters of great strategic interest to Canada. Recent changes in the frequency of high level visits; the effect, style and content of bilateral communications; and perspectives held by various sectors in each country about the other all suggest that the Canada-China relationship has changed significantly in recent years. China remains vitally important to Canada for a variety of reasons and in a variety of sectors. Political and diplomatic cooperation on issues of direct bilateral concern and also on issues of global import remains critically important. Commercial and trade ties linking Canada …
The Market For Treaties, Natasha Affolder
The Market For Treaties, Natasha Affolder
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Corporations are consumers of treaty law. In this article, I empirically examine three biodiversity treaty regimes - the Convention on Biological Diversity, Ramsar Convention, and World Heritage Convention - to demonstrate that corporations implement or internalize treaty norms in a variety of ways that are not captured by the dominant model of treaty implementation – national implementation. As an exegetical model, I explore how corporations use biodiversity treaties as a source of private environmental standards. I focus on the interactions between mining and oil and gas companies and biodiversity treaties, as revealed through transactional documents, corporate reports, security law filings, …
Corporate War Crimes: Prosecuting Pillage Of Natural Resources, James G. Stewart
Corporate War Crimes: Prosecuting Pillage Of Natural Resources, James G. Stewart
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Pillage means theft during war. Although the prohibition against pillage dates to antiquity, pillaging is a modern war crime that can be enforced before international and domestic criminal courts. Following World War II, several businessmen were convicted for the pillage of natural resources. And yet modern commercial actors are seldom held accountable for their role in the illegal exploitation of natural resources from modern conflict zones, even though pillage is prosecuted as a matter of course in other contexts. This book offers a doctrinal road-map of the law governing pillage as applied to the illegal exploitation of natural resources by …
The Future Of The Grave Breaches Regime: Segregate, Assimilate Or Abandon, James G. Stewart
The Future Of The Grave Breaches Regime: Segregate, Assimilate Or Abandon, James G. Stewart
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Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions are one type of war crime. In this Article, I argue that the grave breaches regime has three possible futures. In the first, the regime remains segregated from other categories of war crimes in deference to the historical development of these crimes. This future, however, is one that will see a relatively dramatic decline in the use of grave breaches in practice, primarily because other offences cover the same acts more efficiently. In the second possible future, the grave breaches are entirely abandoned, but this eventuality seems both improbable and undesirable. Even though judicial …
Beyond A Politics Of The Possible? South-North Relations And Climate Justice, Karin Mickelson
Beyond A Politics Of The Possible? South-North Relations And Climate Justice, Karin Mickelson
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This symposium’s issue on ‘Climate Justice and International Environmental Law: Rethinking the North–South Divide’ asks contributors to explore the intersection between law and emerging ideas of climate justice, and how international environmental law is shaped by and in turn reshapes (or fixates, or interrogates) our understandings of the North–South divide. In relation to the former, the author posits that there appears to be a profound disconnect between the law and the politics of climate change, one that reflects a broader disconnect between those who view the challenge posed by climate change through an ethical lens, and those who see it …
Bill C-268: Minimum Sentences For Child Trafficking Needed, Benjamin Perrin
Bill C-268: Minimum Sentences For Child Trafficking Needed, Benjamin Perrin
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Under-aged girls as young as 12 years old are being subjected to sexual exploitation by traffickers according to a Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada (CISC); this is a pressing national problem, as organized crime networks are actively trafficking Canadian-born women and under-age girls within and between provinces and to the United States, destined for the sex trade. Law enforcement agencies are beginning to investigate and lay human trafficking charges under Canada’s Criminal Code s. 279.01 which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 14 years, and up to life imprisonment if the accused kidnaps the victim, subjects them to aggravated …
Humanitarian Assistance And The Private Security Debate: An International Humanitarian Law Perspective, Benjamin Perrin
Humanitarian Assistance And The Private Security Debate: An International Humanitarian Law Perspective, Benjamin Perrin
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The changing nature of armed conflict has had a dramatic impact on the security risks facing humanitarian personnel. Historically, the safety of humanitarian aid delivery was secured through the consent of the relevant Parties to the conflict. However, non-international ethnically-motivated armed conflicts, failed and failing states, and insurgency-based warfare have fundamentally challenged the viability of this traditional security paradigm. In confronting today's complex security climate, humanitarian organizations are faced with a diverse menu of alternatives to enhance their security. The debate over armed protection that has sharply divided the humanitarian community is explored in this paper, including a critique of …
Searching For Law While Seeking Justice: The Difficulties Of Enforcing International Humanitarian Law In International Criminal Trials, Benjamin Perrin
Searching For Law While Seeking Justice: The Difficulties Of Enforcing International Humanitarian Law In International Criminal Trials, Benjamin Perrin
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International criminal law finds itself at the confluence of public international law, international humanitarian law, human rights law and national criminal laws. Our understanding of the interrelationship between these sources of law has been hampered by the conventional wisdom that public international law doctrines applicable to disputes between states can be readily transposed to the international criminal prosecution of individuals. A detailed analysis of selected decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda demonstrates that these tribunals could not simply rely on classical sources of public international law to resolve difficult …
An Emerging International Criminal Law Tradition: Gaps In Applicable Law And Transnational Common Laws, Benjamin Perrin
An Emerging International Criminal Law Tradition: Gaps In Applicable Law And Transnational Common Laws, Benjamin Perrin
All Faculty Publications
This thesis critically examines the origins and development of international criminal lave to identify the defining features of this emerging legal tradition. It critically evaluates the experimental approach taken in Article 21 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which attempts to codify an untested normative super-structure to guide this legal tradition. International criminal law is a hybrid tradition which seeks legitimacy and answers to difficult questions by drawing on other established legal traditions. Its development at the confluence of public international law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law and national criminal laws has resulted in gaps …
Democratising Or Demonising The World Heritage Convention?, Natasha Affolder
Democratising Or Demonising The World Heritage Convention?, Natasha Affolder
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In recent disputes surrounding mining projects in and around World Heritage sites, the legitimacy of the World Heritage Convention regime has been attacked for a host of democratic failings. These accusations of 'democratic deficits' originate from both opponents and supporters of the Convention regime. They challenge the compatibility of international processes with national law and institutions, raise questions of accountability and transparency, and revisit tensions between state sovereignty and common heritage. This paper traces these perceptions of democratic shortcomings in the Convention regime to certain misunderstandings of the Convention, to failed participatory processes at the national level, and to the …
Mining And The World Heritage Convention: Democratic Legitimacy And Treaty Compliance, Natasha Affolder
Mining And The World Heritage Convention: Democratic Legitimacy And Treaty Compliance, Natasha Affolder
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International treaties and the institutions which administer them are increasingly the subjects of democratic scrutiny. In recent disputes surrounding mining projects in and around World Heritage Sites, the legitimacy of the World Heritage Convention regime has been attacked for a host of democratic failings. These accusations of democratic deficits originate from both opponents and supporters of the Convention regime. They challenge the compatibility of international processes with national law and institutions, raise questions of accountability and transparency, and revisit tensions between state sovereignty and common heritage. To foster compliance with the World Heritage Convention, we need to boldly engage with …
Cachet Not Cash: Another Sort Of World Bank Group Borrowing, Natasha Affolder
Cachet Not Cash: Another Sort Of World Bank Group Borrowing, Natasha Affolder
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This article explores the extent to which the World Bank's Environmental and Social Guidelines now serve as standards of acceptable global environmental and social behavior for transnational corporations. Although the World Bank Standards were not created for the purpose of providing global rules for business on social and environmental issues, they are frequently cited as de facto global standards. This article reveals the unlikely rise in prominence of these standards and the widespread adoption of these rules by corporations, public and private financial institutions, governments, and export credit agencies. This example of private borrowing of public standards is intriguing not …
Domesticating The Exotic Species: International Biodiversity Law In Canada, Natasha Affolder
Domesticating The Exotic Species: International Biodiversity Law In Canada, Natasha Affolder
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While a significant body of international and regional agreements now addresses habitat preservation, wildlife protection, and biological diversity, these advances on the international level often fail to be effectively translated into domestic law. In this article, the author argues that international biodiversity law is being treated in Canada as "exotic". It is peppered into parties' submissions without a principled explanation of its role in Canadian law, receives little consideration from the courts, and must ultimately rely on non-legal means of enforcement. The author examines the jurisprudence dealing with four major biodiversity treaties. She notes that the judicial treatment of these …
China And The Human Right To Health: Selective Adaptation And Treaty Compliance, Pitman B. Potter
China And The Human Right To Health: Selective Adaptation And Treaty Compliance, Pitman B. Potter
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The international community has devoted considerable energy to dialogue and exchanges with China on issues of treaty compliance in areas of trade and human rights, and while many improvements are evident in China’s legal regimes for trade and human rights, problems remain. Further, academic and policy discourses on China’s trade and human rights policy and practice are all too often conflicted by normative differences and illusions about them. The paradigm of “selective adaptation” offers a potential solution by examining compliance with international trade and human rights treaties by reference to the interplay between normative systems associated with international rule regimes …
Leading Towards A Level Playing Field, Repaying Ecological Debt, Or Making Environmental Space: Three Stories About International Environmental Cooperation, Karin Mickelson
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This article considers a number of different ways of conceptualizing the relationship between South and North in the environmental context, focusing on international responses to climate change and, particular, the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It explores three stories about international cooperation. One derives from the concept of "ecological debt," the second comes from the concept of "environmental space," and the third, which might be said to underlie the U.S. approach to the Kyoto Protocol at the present time, is labelled "leading towards a level playing field." This article provides an overview of all …