BLOGS

Canada Must Protect Activists-in-Exile Against Transnational Repression

Par : John Packer and Ghuna Bdiwi

Many struggles for justice, peace, or well-being incur the pushback of the state. When the state is authoritarian and unconstrained (or unconcerned) by the rule of law, ‘pushback’ can be severe and even lethal. Not surprisingly, many dissidents or activists seek safety in exile. It was assumed that, once abroad, activists would be able to live safely. However, this is not the case. 

New Challenges Threaten Zimbabwean Democracy

Par : Farai Chipato

Zimbabwe has been gripped by political controversy over the past six weeks, as opposition parties and activists objected to the passing of two bills amending the country’s constitution, threatening to erode Zimbabwe’s ailing democracy further. The bills pushed through several changes, including removing age limits for judges and an extension of presidential powers to appoint members of the judiciary and vice presidents.

The Right Family: The Personal is Geopolitical

Par : Rita Abrahamsen

In the wake of Mr. Biden’s election victory, the foreign policy commentariat is brimming with optimism.  With a committed internationalist in the White House and a woman as Vice-President, the world stage seems set for a return to happier times.

Selling Human Rights Due Diligence in Canada

Par : David Hughes

On 29 November, Swiss voters gathered for a referendum. They affirmed that the country’s constitution should be amended to impose human rights due diligence (HRDD) requirements on multinational firms headquartered in Switzerland. The proposed amendment, which would require companies to proactively manage the adverse human rights impacts of their business activity, ultimately failed.

The Rise of African Philanthropy and International Development

Par : Farai Chipato

There is a significant change taking place across the global south, as international development agencies are taking a less prominent role in promoting development and democracy.

The Ties that Bind? The Increasing Complexity and Indeterminacy of Inter-Governmental Organizations

Par : John Packer

The State-based system of international governance that evolved from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is struggling in the face of contemporary realities.  Today, developments in technology permit instantaneous movement of capital and information, quick movement of goods, and the simultaneous presence of persons – whether as State agents, commercial actors, or private individuals – in different territories and time-zones. 

ARTICLES EXAMINÉS PAR LES PAIRS

Canada and the African Union: towards a shared agenda

Revue canadienne des études africaines

Par : Rita Abrahamsen & Barbra Chimhandamba

À la suite de l’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Russie, les puissances mondiales se bousculent non seulement pour exploiter les ressources abondantes de l’Afrique, mais aussi pour attirer son attention politique. Dans ce nouvel environnement géopolitique marqué par l’accroissement des tensions, le Canada élabore son tout premier cadre d’engagement en Afrique. À la lumière de cette situation, nous soutenons que l’Union africaine (UA) doit être au cœur de la stratégie d’engagement du Canada. La capacité du Canada à s’engager bilatéralement avec 54 pays est inévitablement limitée. Dans le même temps, l’UA s’exprime de plus en plus d’une voix plus forte et plus unie sur la scène internationale, cherchant à positionner l’Afrique comme un partenaire mondial influent. Beaucoup des principes fondateurs et normes directrices de l’UA soutiennent un ordre multilatéral fondé sur des règles, et le Canada et l’organisation peuvent trouver un terrain d’entente en cherchant non seulement à renforcer, mais aussi à éventuellement améliorer et réformer ce que l’on appelle communément l’ordre international libéral fondé sur des règles.

L’UNION AFRICAINE, LE PANAFRICANISME ET LE (DIS)ORDRE LIBÉRAL INTERNATIONAL : PASSÉ, PRÉSENT ET FUTUR

Global Studies Quarterly – Volume 3, numéro 3, juillet 2023

Introduction par : Rita Abrahamsen, Barbra Chimhandamba et Farai Chipato

Longtemps considérée comme périphérique aux affaires internationales et à la discipline des relations internationales (RI), l’Afrique est de plus en plus au centre de la politique mondiale et des débats académiques. Les puissances mondiales se disputent l’influence économique, politique et stratégique sur le continent, tandis que l’Afrique elle-même est devenue un acteur de plus en plus puissant et confiant sur la scène mondiale. Cela est dû en grande partie au leadership de l’Union africaine (UA) qui, depuis sa création il y a vingt ans, s’est lancée dans un programme ambitieux inspiré par le panafricanisme, cherchant à créer une Afrique qui soit un « acteur mondial fort, uni et influent ». À l’occasion du vingtième anniversaire de l’UA, cet article et le Forum spécial situent l’UA dans le cadre des récents débats en RI sur les agences non occidentales et les contributions du Sud à la politique mondiale. En se concentrant sur le rôle de l’UA et de l’idéologie panafricaine dans le façonnement de l’Afrique et de ses engagements internationaux, nous soutenons qu’une analyse de l’UA et de l’influence du panafricanisme est cruciale pour comprendre les actions et les positions de l’Afrique dans les affaires mondiales contemporaines. Nous concluons que la rivalité géopolitique accrue à la suite de l’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Russie menace de saper deux aspects essentiels du rôle de l’UA dans le développement de l’Afrique.

La politique mondiale de l’identité africaine : Le panafricanisme et le défi de l’afropolitanisme

Par : Farai Chipato

Cet article profite du 20e anniversaire de la fondation de l’Union africaine (UA) pour examiner le rôle de la race et de l’identité dans le panafricanisme, du point de vue des relations internationales (RI). Le panafricanisme a joué un rôle crucial dans la décolonisation du continent africain et reste la base idéologique de l’UA, qui dirige les questions de gouvernance continentale. Le document examine le développement du panafricanisme et les idées fondamentales de race, de modernité et d’identité qui restent des éléments importants de certaines souches de l’idéologie. Il examine ensuite la relation entre ces idées et la montée du nativisme, en montrant comment les conceptions essentialistes de l’identité africaine peuvent justifier la violence et l’autoritarisme. Enfin, l’article met en scène un engagement entre le panafricanisme et l’afropolitanisme, en examinant les façons dont les approches afropolitaines fournissent une critique importante des formes nativistes du panafricanisme, tout en offrant des façons plus productives de s’engager dans l’identité africaine. Ceci est important à la fois pour les débats théoriques sur l’identité dans la RI et pour l’avenir de l’UA, en tant que foyer institutionnel du panafricanisme. L’argument prend au sérieux le panafricanisme et l’afropolitanisme en tant qu’approches de la RI, en se concentrant sur les façons dont l’Afrique et les idéologies africaines peuvent être considérées comme centrales à la fois pour la formation de la pensée politique moderne et pour conceptualiser l’avenir de la politique internationale et de l’ordre mondial.

Resorting to the International Court of Justice to Hold the Syrian Government Accountable for Violating Its Obligations Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture

Hikama – The Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies

Par : Ghuna Bdiwi

Dr. Bdiwi wrote an article titled  “Resorting to the International Court of Justice to Hold the Syrian Government Accountable for Violating Its Obligations Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture” for Hikama- the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies (published in March 2022). The article examines the joint decision of Canada and the Netherlands to invoke the responsibility of the Syrian government for breaches of its international obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Inhuman, Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). It argues that the decision is a momentous step for at least three reasons. First, it keeps the pressure on the Syrian government and reminds it that its egregious human rights violations are not forgotten. Second, it may spur or compel the Syrian government to take the necessary measures, such as adopting constitutional and legislative reforms consistent with its obligations under the CAT and to hold accountable perpetrators of acts of torture as stipulated in the relevant CAT provisions. Third, the Canada and the Netherlands’ process is veto-proof, i.e., not subject to veto by the Syrian government’s allies holding veto power and therefore has the chance to do more to open the regime’s human rights record during the decade-long civil war to external scrutiny.

The article was submitted in English and Arabic but published in Arabic.

Thickening Autocracy in a Non-Democratic State: Changing Demographics in Syria to Maintain Authority

Arab Law Quarterly

Par : Ghuna Bdiwi

Dr. Ghuna Bdiwi wrote the article “Thickening Autocracy in a Non-Democratic State: Changing Demographics in Syria to Maintain Authority” for the journal Arab Law Quarterly and it was published in June 2022. The article analyses several authoritarian practices in Syria since 1971 and demonstrates that, since the 2011 uprising, its authoritarian regime has successfully remained resilient instead of collapsing. The post-2011 Syrian Government under Al-Assad is no longer the Ba`thist government of old, albeit still autocratic. Instead it is adept at adapting to hostile changing political environments. Al-Assad’s regime no longer relies on Ba’ath Party loyalty and appearances of legitimacy both during and after the war. Instead it depends more on social re-engineering to sustain its political and economic power. The Syria example demonstrates that, when threatened, authoritarian regimes may thicken the layers of their autocratic rule to sustain their grip on power, even changing the composition of its citizenry to create a new population to rule. The author demonstrates how the Syrian Government has used urban planning, housing, and property laws to re-engineer its demographics so that friendly foreign nationals will receive permanent citizenship and displace indigenous citizens.

Performative citizenship and the politics of scale: Local, national and global citizenships in Zimbabwe

Political Geography

Par : Farai Chipato

This paper explores the interaction between different scales of governance and performative citizenship, understood as acts by citizens that claim new political rights and reshape the political arena. Performance allows citizens to creatively transform the meanings and functions of citizenship during struggles over rights. The paper focuses on a series of examples in Zimbabwe, which highlight the entanglement of different scales of citizenship and the ways that the acts of citizenship both challenge and sustain these relationships. This is examined through a framework that combines theories of performative citizenship with concepts from human geography that examine scales of governance. The argument draws out the implications of these dynamics in relation to conflicts over customary citizenship in rural Zimbabwe, the issue of dual citizenship among white Zimbabweans and the exercise of citizenship rights by non-Zimbabweans. It highlights both the ways citizens have harnessed the creative potential of acts of citizenship which address multiple scales, and the constraints that scalar hierarchies put on citizen action. The examples demonstrate that new forms of political rights can be produced across scales, but that opportunities for creative acts of citizenship are unevenly distributed due to these scalar hierarchies, which are produced by postcolonial legacies.

Of Tactics, Illegal Occupation and the Boundaries of Legal Capability: A Reply to Ardi Imseis

European Journal of International Law

Par : David Hughes

This contribution engages with Ardi Imseis’s article ‘Negotiating the Illegal: On the United Nations and the Illegal Occupation of Palestine, 1967–2020’. In reply, I contemplate whether an occupation’s legal status can or should affect the requirement that an occupying power must withdraw from the territory that it controls. I consider Imseis’s claim that it is necessary to declare that an occupation has become illegal to move beyond the tension that exists between the requirements of state responsibility and a political preference for negotiations. I question the effectiveness of Imseis’s proposed approach, argue that the duty to terminate an occupation is a positive legal duty that exists regardless of an occupation’s legal status and suggest that the negotiation process cannot be completely uncoupled from the withdrawal requirement. In conclusion, I suggest that grounding calls to terminate occupation in the principle of temporality and the international consensus prohibiting the acquisition of territory by force better reflects international law’s capacity to contribute to an occupation’s termination.