Canada on Notice: The Attack on International Law Is an Attack on Canada
Last week, Marco Rubio imposed sanctions against noted Canadian jurist Kimberly Prost, stating that her work with the International Criminal Court represented a "national security threat" to both the United States and Israel.
Madame Prost is a dedicated and independent jurist investigating war crimes. Rubio stated the United States would "take whatever steps are necessary" to stop her and the International Criminal Court from doing their work.
It is notable that Trump has lifted sanctions on Russian kleptocrats but is imposing them on the International Criminal Court. And a Canadian judge. He backs it up with the leg-breaking threat to "take whatever steps are necessary" to get his way.
We are in the age of gangsters. Canada has been put on notice
There is no tiptoeing around this. This is a flagrant assault on an impartial judicial institution which operates under mandate from 125 countries around the globe.
All of this is being done to protect Benjamin Netanyahu over the crimes committed in the death camp that is Gaza.
So far, Prime Minister Mark Carney is sticking to his new-found policy of keeping his elbows down. He has said nothing.
France has stated that they are "appalled" by Trump's actions. Our ambassador to the UN, Bob Rae, also used the word "appalling" in a tweet. That tweet was abruptly taken down. Who pressured him into silence? Elbows down doesn't work when you're dealing with threats over crimes against humanity.
If the Prime Minister refuses to stand up for Canadian jurists and the court, it will represent a serious betrayal of Canada's longstanding positions on international law. It will mean that Canada's commitment to international law exists at the whim of those who break international law.
Canada has a long history of defending the international rule of law. We played a key role in the establishment of the ICC. We helped establish the Statute of Rome that laid out the key protections of rights against state violence. Canadian peacekeepers were on the ground in Rwanda and Yugoslavia.
We were the first nation in the world to adopt comprehensive legislation that implemented the Rome Statute. The Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act provides clear legal protection for jurists against intimidation, obstruction of justice, and obstruction of officials.
These are all key principles that Rubio has just threatened.
No doubt the drafters of the legislation were anticipating that jurists would face threats from tinpot dictators in Africa or the Balkans. Instead, we have the United States flagrantly breaking Canadian and international law in its attempt to silence investigations into crimes against humanity.
Canada cannot pretend this threat didn't happen.
It is a total provocation.
Trump wants the court shut down. He wants key supporters of the court to fall into line. The move follows the American threats against the United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her investigations into war crimes in the Palestinian territory.
In the aftermath of the horrific Hamas violence of October 7th, Israel had a massive outpouring of international support. Bob Woodward writes in the book War that major efforts were underway in the West and the Middle East to pressure the release of the hostages.
But from the earliest days of the incursion into Gaza, Netanyahu's agenda seemed less about freeing the hostages and more about destroying Gaza. The brave Israeli journal Haaretz was warning the world that the real agenda was the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.
The world watched increasingly bold and vicious assaults as the IDF blew up hospitals, shot up aid convoys, used food as a weapon of war, killed journalists and gunned down hungry children at supposed aid stations.
The genocide has been a live-streaming event of horror. None of us will be able to claim we didn't know.
People expected their leaders to do something: to push for observers; to demand an end to the unrestrained killing; to take steps to ensure food aid was delivered. Instead, the key Western allies did nothing. When ordinary citizens took to the streets to demand action, their leaders turned on them.
Across Europe, peaceful protests have been met with batons. In the UK, the Labour government of Keir Starmer has gone to frighteningly ridiculous levels to denounce authors, musicians, church ministers and senior citizens as "terrorists" for protesting the deliberate starvation of children. In Germany, even speaking pro-Palestinian slogans will net you jail time.
These are the same leaders who are very public in their denunciations of the brutal civilian killings by the Russians.
This double standard has been corrosive to Western credibility.
I remember being at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation for the European Parliament in Vienna in 2023, where a shot-up Ukrainian ambulance was put on display. Politicians from multiple countries had their pictures taken in front of the ambulance as a sign of Western solidarity with the besieged Ukrainian people.
And yet, the killing squads of the IDF not only went after ambulances, they murdered paramedics and buried them in mass graves. They systematically destroyed the entire medical infrastructure in Gaza.
Once again, radio silence from Western leaders.
The rest of the world took note of the hypocrisy. And this did nothing to build support for Ukraine.
In October 2023, I attended the European Security Council meetings in Dublin. While there, a member of the Ukrainian delegation took me aside to express his deep concern over the United States' failure to challenge Netanyahu.
"The Americans have fucked us," he said about Biden's refusal to address the increasingly egregious crimes of the IDF.
"Russia is telling countries in the global south that the West has double standards on human rights. Why would these countries stand with Ukraine when they see the West failing to speak for Gaza as well?"
I thought of his words as I read the news that Foreign Minister Anita Anand is attempting to build support for a Ukrainian peace deal by lecturing non-aligned nations on the need to support international law.
As the US threatens a Canadian judge. As the Israeli army is ramping up the full destruction of Gaza City, and talking about mass deportations of survivors to South Sudan.
Little wonder that Canada's words ring so hollow. But it is to the detriment of Ukraine and Gaza. Both countries are linked through the fact that the criminal regimes share a similar playbook.
From the earliest days of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian attack on civilians and cultural institutions was a bold repudiation of treaties and standards that held nations to account in the years following the Nuremberg trials.
Anne Appelbaum, in her book Autocracy Inc., writes:
"These acts were not collateral damage or accidental side effects of the war. They were part of a conscious plan to undermine the network of ideas, rules and treaties that had been built into international law since 1945 and to destroy the European order created after 1989."
Putin's desire to destroy the Western order is obvious. Netanyahu has used the same provocative game plan.
So why was the West so willing to denounce Putin's violations of international rules of war while taking no steps to sanction Netanyahu?
Matthew Duss, writing in the IPS Journal, argues in Hypocrisy as Foreign Policy:
"By failing to impose any genuine consequences for blatant and systemic human rights abuses and international humanitarian lawbreaking, Europe and the United States have created an unmistakable permission structure for Israeli apartheid and now genocide."
Gaza may be the place where the international rule of law went to die. But Gaza also opened the door to the age of monsters.
If Israel can get away with deliberately starving an entire people or threatening their extinction through shooting, bombing and mass deportations, then all manner of crimes become possible.
And responsibility for this nightmare lies with the pusillanimous nature of Western leadership, who refuse to enforce sanctions and the rule of law.
Which is why the threat to Canada matters.
Trump and Netanyahu have little to worry about from many European leaders who have shown their willingness to turn a blind eye to genocide. There are a few exceptions: France, Ireland, and Spain.
Which brings us to the muscle being applied to Canada.
Canada has stated its determination to recognize Palestine and has called out the famine. But we have yet to impose any level of serious sanctions. Our willingness to take a clear stand remains in question.
By attacking a Canadian jurist, Trump has put us on notice.
We need to decide on whose side we will be. Will PM Carney defend our longstanding international position on the rule of law, or will he hope that he can get along with gangsters?
This is a fundamental question about morality and values. They can't be traded for a better deal on soybeans or aluminum. You either have them or you don’t. It is a line in the sand moment. Does Canada stand for the rule of law, or do we try to go along for the ride into the increasingly dark 21st century?
The world is watching.
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Thank you.
The fascist Trump administration claims "national security threat" on damn near everything whereas it is the USA that is now the biggest threat to the world's economy and peace. Nobody will be safe until they are removed from power.
Thank you, Mr. Angus. What is transpiring on the world stage right now is further proof that there has been a loss of empathy and morality in leadership. Humanity has become nothing more than a pawn in their game of power. Elbows up.