In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there are growing efforts to weaponize international criminal justice and human rights. Considering the wide ranging calls for the indictment of Russian political and military leaders by the ICC, it is important to remember where these international criminal courts came from, writes publisher and author Robin Philpot.

The inhuman manner in which the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) treats Rwandans who have been acquitted or who have been freed after serving their sentences obliges us to reexamine totally the body created by the UN Security Council in late 1994. How has this come to pass? Has the UN created its own system of judicial apartheid?

A serious injustice is occurring under our noses. Canada is part of it and has the key to a rapid solution. It is the case of former Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Jérôme Bicamumpaka, who was acquitted of all charges by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 2011. So why is Canada refusing to allow him to reunite with his family?

Tommy Douglas was right to denounce the internment of Japanese Canadians under the War Measures Act in 1940. He was also dead right to denounce the act again in 1970, following two politically-motivated kidnappings by the Front de libération du Québec. 50 years on, the time has come for the Government of Canada to recognize this injustice and apologize.

The worst aspect of the Quebec’s Charter debate is the smug, self-righteous, paternalist, finger wagging of English Canada and the English media in Quebec. Canadians don’t realize that they live in a glass house and throwing stones can be dangerous. Self-examination and self-criticism might show that English Canada is a major part of the problem.