Aut Deportare Aut Judicare: Current Topics in International Humanitarian Law in Canada
Derek Jinks, Jackson Maogoto, and Solon Solomon, eds, 'Applying International Humanitarian Law in Judicial and Quasi-Judicial Bodies,' 355-87. 2014
36 Pages Posted: 29 Dec 2014
Date Written: July 2, 2014
Abstract
The Canadian experience with international humanitarian law is dominated by cases involving foreign nationals accused of committing war crimes abroad. Canada has developed a system whereby these individuals can be pursued either through criminal prosecutions, or through immigration proceedings modelled after the Exclusion Clause in article 1F(a) of the Refugee Convention. In practice, the immigration remedies are far more frequently pursued. In the context of a debate that is relevant in many countries, this chapter examines the comparative characteristics of the two types of procedures and the merits of relying, as Canada does, almost exclusively on the immigration option. The chapter also reviews other current topics in international humanitarian law in Canada, for instance the domestic civil liability of a Canadian corporation for complicity in war crimes committed in other countries, as well as the role that norms of international humanitarian law play in the extraterritorial application of Canadian constitutional law. The author concludes by calling upon international tribunals adjudicating war crimes and crimes against humanity to consider as a useful resource the now extensive body of cases emanating from courts in Canada and other countries that have decided similar issues in the context of refugee and immigration proceedings.
Keywords: Article 1F Exclusion Clause, Business and Human Rights, Canada, Complicity, Constitutional Law, Crimes Against Humanity, Immigration Law, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Litigation, Law of Armed Conflict, Law of War, Refugee Law, War Crimes
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