Canada has long been recognized as a global leader in human rights and commitment to international law, wielding moral authority much larger than its size. But our government's unreserved support for the conduct of Israel's recent military actions in Gaza has eroded Canada's hard-won credibility and moral standing.
The inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama provides new opportunities for Canada to play a more assertive role on human rights. Important steps might be taken with respect to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Colombia, and international institutions.
George W. Bush's term as president is coming to an end, and he has little to show by way of meting out justice for the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Perhaps this is why his administration seems so desperate to score a victory on the judicial battleground of the military commissions. That its target is Omar Khadr, a child soldier at the time of the alleged offenses, makes the spectacle all the more pathetic to the observer, and tragic for Khadr.
Jeffrey Simpson blames protectionism for opposition to U.S. and Canadian free trade agreements (FTAs) with Colombia. This ignores the real reason that groups concerned with workers' rights oppose the Colombian FTAs at this time: widespread anti-union violence, impunity, and the influence of paramilitary death squads.
The Pentagon, seemingly all too aware of what a debacle its military commissions have been, has come with a new tactic to prevent groups like mine, Human Rights Watch, from doing our jobs as watchdogs: Restrict our access to the press and handpick a new crop of observers.
At the upcoming Group of Eight summit, leaders of the world's richest countries will reaffirm their desire to promote democracy and development on the world's poorest continent. But at the same time, they risk undermining those ideals by welcoming Nigeria's fraudulently elected president into their midst as a partner. Unless the G8 countries use the occasion of the summit to speak out on Nigeria, they risk doing real damage to their own goals in Nigeria and across the continent.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is right to insist that Canada should not sell out human rights in order to promote trade and investment with China. Now he has an opportunity to show he is serious — when he meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Vietnam.
"I'm scared," says Krishna as we sit in his modest home in a London suburb. I did not expect to hear that from a man who fought for the rebel Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka for more than 10 years, and participated in some of the fiercest battles of that country's civil war.
Selvamani, a Tamil girl living in eastern Sri Lanka was only 15 when rebel forces began pressuring her to join them. "First they sent letters, then they began visiting my house," she said. "They told my family, `Each house has to turn over one child. If you don't agree, we will take a child anyway.'"
Prime Minister Paul Martin should use his trip to Sudan to advance his stated quest to define a new, more activist, international role for Canada, Georgette Gagnon argues in The Globe and Mail.
Canada has long been recognized as a global leader in human rights and commitment to international law, wielding moral authority much larger than its size. But our government's unreserved support for the conduct of Israel's recent military actions in Gaza has eroded Canada's hard-won credibility and moral standing.
The inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama provides new opportunities for Canada to play a more assertive role on human rights. Important steps might be taken with respect to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Colombia, and international institutions.
George W. Bush's term as president is coming to an end, and he has little to show by way of meting out justice for the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Perhaps this is why his administration seems so desperate to score a victory on the judicial battleground of the military commissions. That its target is Omar Khadr, a child soldier at the time of the alleged offenses, makes the spectacle all the more pathetic to the observer, and tragic for Khadr.
Jeffrey Simpson blames protectionism for opposition to U.S. and Canadian free trade agreements (FTAs) with Colombia. This ignores the real reason that groups concerned with workers' rights oppose the Colombian FTAs at this time: widespread anti-union violence, impunity, and the influence of paramilitary death squads.
The Pentagon, seemingly all too aware of what a debacle its military commissions have been, has come with a new tactic to prevent groups like mine, Human Rights Watch, from doing our jobs as watchdogs: Restrict our access to the press and handpick a new crop of observers.
At the upcoming Group of Eight summit, leaders of the world's richest countries will reaffirm their desire to promote democracy and development on the world's poorest continent. But at the same time, they risk undermining those ideals by welcoming Nigeria's fraudulently elected president into their midst as a partner. Unless the G8 countries use the occasion of the summit to speak out on Nigeria, they risk doing real damage to their own goals in Nigeria and across the continent.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is right to insist that Canada should not sell out human rights in order to promote trade and investment with China. Now he has an opportunity to show he is serious — when he meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Vietnam.
"I'm scared," says Krishna as we sit in his modest home in a London suburb. I did not expect to hear that from a man who fought for the rebel Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka for more than 10 years, and participated in some of the fiercest battles of that country's civil war.
Selvamani, a Tamil girl living in eastern Sri Lanka was only 15 when rebel forces began pressuring her to join them. "First they sent letters, then they began visiting my house," she said. "They told my family, `Each house has to turn over one child. If you don't agree, we will take a child anyway.'"
Prime Minister Paul Martin should use his trip to Sudan to advance his stated quest to define a new, more activist, international role for Canada, Georgette Gagnon argues in The Globe and Mail.