Legal Responses Towards Persons Suspected of International Crimes : An Examination of Four Cases in the Canadian Courts

Abstract

Canada's War Crimes Program pursues varying criminal and immigration responses towards individuals suspected of international crimes. The existing, but limited, literature on international crimes explores different state responses and the increasing use of immigration responses over criminal responses. Specifically, scholars have written on state adherence to the No Safe Haven approach where measures that prevent the entry of suspected individuals are being used more than measures that finds suspected individuals criminally responsible through prosecution. Commonly when scholars write on legal cases that include an individual suspected of international crimes, there is a sole focus on the response being sought and not the presentation of the response within courts that may provide insight into the responses. This thesis uses the legal cases of Seifert, Munyaneza, Skomatchuk, and Ezokola to analyze four different legal responses sought in Canadian courts. By conducting a thematic analysis on my dataset of court judgments and intervener factums, my analysis found legal documents to reveal Canada's practice of No Safe Haven within the courts. Despite the assumption that a presence of international crimes in a case will lead to a criminal response, my findings suggest that state actors present cases in a way that adhered more to preventing Canada from being a safe haven to suspected individuals as opposed to having Canada be at the forefront of preventing the impunity of suspected individuals. The importance of what I revealed contributes to understanding the actions of the War Crimes Program, and of legal actors' practices in responding to this social and moral concern.