Is Canada's Defence Minister A War Criminal?

Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, a provision that applies to "non-international armed conflicts" such as that in Afghanistan today, forbids "cruel treatment and torture" at "any time and in any place whatsoever." The United Nations Convention against Torture stipulates that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." And the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which Canada ratified in June 2000, specifies that "cruel treatment and torture" constitute war crimes. A war crime is also committed whenever someone knowingly facilitates cruel treatment or torture, including by "providing the means for its commission." As a result, any Canadian soldier who transfers a detainee into a known risk of torture could be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court. Or, because torture and complicity in torture give rise to "universal jurisdiction," they could be prosecuted in the domestic courts of any country, anywhere. The same applies to anyone "up the chain of command" who orders a transfer into a known risk of torture, either specifically or as a matter of policy. Last Wednesday, William Schabas and I sent a letter to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asking him to open a preliminary examination of Gordon O'Connor, the Canadian minister of national defence, and Gen. Rick Hillier, the Canadian chief of the defence staff. http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/208200

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