On July 25, 2024, Professor Ben Saul, who is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights While Countering Terrorism, released a document entitled "Human Rights Assessment of the Draft United Nations Cybercrime Convention." The latest draft for the proposed global cybercrime convention emerged from... Continue reading

Canada's federal government recently released its budget for 2024, and contained within it is a package of measures and mechanisms of interest to readers of this blog -- including changes to Canada's anti-money laundering and terrorism financing legislation. Some of it relates to previously-announced items like the creation of a... Continue reading

I am delighted to belatedly announce the publication of my new edited collection, Transnational & Cross-Border Criminal Law: Canadian Perspectives (Irwin, 2023). I was lucky enough to assemble a team of specialist authors -- academics, Crowns, defence counsel, Justice Canada lawyers, civil society experts, even a military lawyer -- to... Continue reading

I am very pleased to announce the publication of Volume 2, Issue 1 of Transnational Criminal Law Review, a fully-peer reviewed open-access journal of which I am co-editor. This newest publication is a special issue on the proposal for the founding of an International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC), a matter on... Continue reading

Earlier this month, the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights issued its long-awaited report, Reforming Canada's Extradition System. Technically speaking, the report was the result of a couple of weeks of hearings that were held by the Committee earlier this year. However, it is safe... Continue reading

This week I had the privilege of attending a conference entitled "Measuring Grand Corruption and Reducing Its Power," held by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in Cambridge, MA. The conference brought together anti-corruption experts from a variety of disciplines and countries, for intense 2.5-day deliberations on best measures... Continue reading

The federal government (via the Dept of Finance) has just released Canada's Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Regime Strategy 2023-2026. It is a reasonably brief survey of the current legal frameworks under which this "regime" operates, with some information about the current state of play domestically and internationally. It sets... Continue reading

I recently came across (by way of this article on White & Case's website) a new report from the FATF, entitled "Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Art and Antiquities Market." It is a 40-page report (plus appendices) that appears to give a solid overview of this often-obscure topic,... Continue reading

I'm very pleased to announce the publication of Volume 1, issue 2 of Transnational Criminal Law Review, a fully peer-reviewed open access journal of which I am co-editor. We have a great lineup of material this issue: Roger Clark, "The Concept of International Criminal Law and Its Relationship With Transnational... Continue reading

I am a faculty member of the Law & Technology Institute at the Schulich School of Law. The Institute has recently started up a LinkedIn blog and I am pleased to be the author of the first blog post. It is entitled "When Cybercrime Spills Over Borders, Can Canada Respond?"... Continue reading

UPDATE: you can read our first issue, here: https://ojs.uwindsor.ca/index.php/nlj/issue/current I am very pleased to be one of the founding co-editors of a brand-new, open-access and fully-peer reviewed journal, the Transnational Criminal Law Review. Please see our launch announcement, below! ----------------------------------------------------- The Founding Board of Editors are pleased to announce the... Continue reading

As has been widely reported, the Commission of Inquiry Into Money Laundering in British Columbia, led by BC Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen, has released its long-awaited report into the scope and significant issues relating to money laundering in this Canadian province. As readers will know, this is the latest... Continue reading

Today the Supreme Court of Canada issued its decision in R. v. Bissonnette, which was a constitutional challenge to a section of Canada's Criminal Code that allowed for the imposition of "stacked" life sentences. The mandatory sentence for first degree murder in Canada is life without a possibility of parole... Continue reading

The British Columbia Court of Appeal recently issued its decision in Graham v. Canada (Minister of Justice), yet another step in the long-running story of the mysterious and tragic death of Anna Mae (Pictou) Aquash, an Indigenous Canadian woman who was murdered in South Dakota in 1975. It is a... Continue reading

A couple of years ago I posted about a wonderful conference that I attended in Hannover, Germany, entitled "Histories of Transnational Criminal Law." The conference was organized by Profs. Neil Boister, Sabine Gless and Florian Jeßberger, and featured an all-star cast of academics who work in this field. I'm very... Continue reading

In October, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released its 4th Enhanced Follow-Up Report & Technical Compliance Re-Rating for Canada. The FATF, as readers will know, is the organization that has set the international "gold standard" for states' anti-money laundering structures, and its system of regular mutual evaluation (i.e. AML... Continue reading

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently rendered a decision in the long-running case of R. v. Barra, a prosecution under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act involving several people accused (and, in one earlier case, Karigar, convicted) of bribing various public officials in India. This particular decision sent the... Continue reading

NOTE: this piece originally appeared as an editorial in the Chronicle Herald on June 8, 2021. Since then, I have contacted Nova Scotia MPs Andy Fillmore (Halifax), Geoff Regan (Halifax West) and Jaime Battiste (Sydney-Victoria), as well as the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice and Public Safety, and asked why... Continue reading

I recently received a question from a friend about whether Canada permits accused persons to appear at their trial via video conferencing, when they are located in a foreign state. I did a spot of research (i.e. I emailed a bunch of friends who are criminal law practitioners). The most... Continue reading

In the recent case of R. v. Canfield, the Alberta Court of Appeal gave the decision that some Canadian criminal defence lawyers and those who follow our search and seizure jurisprudence have been waiting for: the limitless, warrantless search of electronic devices by CBSA officials at the border is unconstitutional,... Continue reading

This post is re-printed from The Conversation, under the terms of a Creative Commons license. The original can be found here. The Conversation is a great platform where academics are able to publish publicly-digestible reflections from their research and contribute to public discourse. Many thanks to my editor on this... Continue reading

I am delighted to announce that the 3rd edition of our book, International & Transnational Criminal Law, was published in January 2020. The publisher's blurb is below, and the book can be ordered here. Speaking of the publisher, Joseph and I are very grateful to Jeff Miller and his fabulous... Continue reading

(this article originally appeared in The Lawyer's Daily, 18 October 2019 issue (paywalled). I also did a radio interview on this subject on 22 October 2019) As I write this, cities all across Canada are gearing up for the second round of “climate strikes,” mass protests against climate change that... Continue reading

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a conference entitled "Histories of Transnational Criminal Law," which was organized and convened in Hannover, Germany by Prof. Neil Boister of the University of Canterbury, Prof. Florian Jeßberger of the University of Hamburg, and Prof. Sabine Gless of the University... Continue reading

As has been widely reported, the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls recently released its Final Report. It was accompanied by an explosive Supplementary Report that provides a legal argument (hereafter the "Genocide Argument" or "Argument") that in its dealings with its Indigenous peoples Canada is... Continue reading