Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs
Issue 23 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Tuesday, March 12, 2002
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, to which was referred Bill C-35, to amend the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, met this day at 6:05 p.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Peter A. Stollery (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Our witnesses are from the Canadian Section of Amnesty International.
However, before we hear from them, I should like to advise honourable senators that Minister Graham, who appeared before us at our last meeting, has tabled his response to questions of committee members, in both official languages. That letter has been circulated.
I would now ask the witnesses to proceed.
Mr. Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International (Canadian Section): Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to appear here this evening. Amnesty International certainly welcomes the opportunity to share with you our concerns and, most important, our recommendations regarding Bill C-35.
[Translation]
I am the general Secretary of the English-speaking branch of Amnesty International's Canadian Section. With me, I have Mr. David Matas, who is a lawyer specialized in international human rights. Mr. Matas is also Amnesty International's legal network coordinator in Canada.
Furthermore, I would like to add that we also represent here tonight our colleagues from the French-speaking branch of Amnesty International situated in Montreal. Although our presentation will be in English, we will be happy to answer questions in French if needed.
[English]
We are not here because we have any particular position with regard to diplomatic immunity or, indeed, with regard to what diplomats or other governmental representatives do or do not enjoy at any given time. We are here for one simple reason: to uphold and promote human rights in our work globally, we take a strong stand against impunity. In our experience, immunity can and often does serve to bolster and deepen impunity.
Impunity is one of the most serious obstacles we face worldwide in the struggle to reach a global human rights environment. We live in a world, and have lived in a world for centuries, where the worst criminals are precisely the ones most likely to escape justice. There is a far greater chance that a person will end up in prison for committing one murder in a back alley brawl than if they have overseen and masterminded the systematic slaughter of hundreds or thousands of individuals as part of a campaign of political, religious or ethnic violence.
As such, it is no wonder that abuses have continued at the horrifying and staggering level they have. Why not carry out massacres, widespread disappearances or mass torture, including rape? Those who have done so before have never paid a price for those crimes. Quite the opposite, they have often gained a great deal, including political office, international prestige and economic wealth.
Honourable senators, there is much that furthers this impunity. Most obviously, of course, those in power have a clear and vested interest in protecting themselves, their friends and their cronies from facing justice. As long as those responsible for the abuses are in power, the prospect of justice at the national level, therefore, is dim at best. Even when they are no longer in power and have perhaps been succeeded by an opposition party, there are often still significant forces that make justice at the national level a real challenge.
Before relinquishing power, the outgoing regime likely passed laws granting themselves amnesties for the wrongs, or cloaking themselves in immunities meant to protect them from prosecution. If they did not have a chance to do it for themselves, the new regime may do it for them, because if it has been a time of conflict and upheaval there may be considerable impetus for the new regime to grant the amnesties and immunities to that outgoing regime in an effort to forge peace and stability.
Sadly though, we know from many examples worldwide that peace brought about through amnesties and immunities is generally short-lived. We have long known, therefore, that with such formidable challenges to justice at the national level the international community must step in and fill the void to ensure that serious human rights criminals do in fact face justice.
I wish to highlight that recently there have been great strides in this direction. The development of the legal concept of universal jurisdiction now applies to the most serious forms of human rights abuse, meaning that all courts have responsibility to pursue cases, no matter the identity of the perpetrator, the victim or the country where the abuse occurred.
This was most famously reinforced by the House of Lords' two rulings in the Pinochet case two years ago. At the same time that these developments occurred at the national level, international tribunals have taken shape, ready to do the work national courts are unable or unwilling to do. Throughout the 1990s, the special international tribunals dealing with Yugoslavia and Rwanda have been hearing cases. They are likely to be joined soon by a joint national- international court for Sierra Leone. Most important, we are on the brink of the establishment of a permanent