Overseas Affairs Minister Anita Anand spoke Tuesday with the Canadian decide dealing with American sanctions over her work at a global tribunal — however didn’t publicly condemn Washington’s resolution.
On Aug. 20, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced sanctions on Worldwide Prison Court docket judges — together with Kimberly Prost, who was sanctioned over her work on a case involving American troops in Afghanistan.
France instantly condemned the transfer as an assault on neutral justice. Ottawa had no rapid response, which drew criticism from advocates every week later.
On Tuesday, Anand wrote on social media that she spoke with Prost and stated ICC judges do “important work.”
Judges “are entrusted to be goal and neutral within the dispensation of their duties. I’ve the utmost confidence in Decide Prost’s capability to have achieved, and to proceed to do, simply that,” she wrote.
Her assertion supplied no criticism of the U.S. for sanctioning Prost.
Anand’s workplace stated final week that she raised issues concerning the resolution to sanction Prost when she met in Washington with Rubio the day after he introduced that step.
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Former overseas affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy stated final month the Carney authorities was “abandoning” the world courtroom it helped to discovered, and demonstrating conditional help for the rules-based worldwide order it always talks about.
He stated Ottawa’s resolution to not push again publicly on the sanctions urged that public servants who do work that irritates the U.S. might face private penalties.
Mark Kersten, a College of the Fraser Valley professor who specializes within the ICC, referred to as on Ottawa to implement a blocking order which might bar Canadian companies from imposing American sanctions that would restrict Prost’s entry to issues like banks and airways.
He stated Anand’s assertion Tuesday got here late and may have stated extra.
“Canada should converse out towards those that threaten our judges and diplomats and be clear about how we are going to shield them,” he stated in response to Anand’s message on the platform X.
He stated the assertion “weirdly pretends the assaults on the ICC and Decide Prost don’t exist, or don’t come from the regime down south.”
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