Emboldened regimes are determined to crack down on opponents at home and abroad – regardless of political norms and international law
John Packer is the Neuberger-Jesin Professor of International Conflict Resolution at the University of Ottawa.
Evidently, protective interventions by Canadian security services failed Mr. Nijjar, as did the rule of law. It failed us all. And that is cause for the greatest of concern and merited outrage. For extrajudicial executions and extraterritorial assassinations violate the essence of sovereignty – of Canada’s exclusive jurisdiction, of the sanctity of territorial integrity and of the rule of law on which we all sleep and wake each day.
These are not fantastic overimaginations. Transnational repression has long been an instrument of authoritarian regimes with the means and absence of scruples to use it abroad in violation of every norm and standard of international law. In the early 1990s, I investigated and reported for the United Nations upon such cases by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime – oil rich, technically proficient and ruthless.
Canada is an increasing target because of the combination of our open society and our lauded policy of giving refuge to the persecuted, having welcomed more than one million refugees since 1980, with increasing numbers in the past few years. Their exile or refuge in Canada often does not end their opposition to their home countries’ regimes.
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