SDF Annual Conference 2009


International Security Challenges and the Law:
Constraining or Enabling Effective Policy?

October 2, 2009 | Old City Hall | Ottawa

How does the law influence and shape Canada's response to some of its most serious international security challenges? Is the law a help or a hindrance to effective international security and military policy?

The 2009 annual conference of the Security and Defence Forum (SDF) Centres brought together three distinguished international legal specialists and representatives of Canada's leading Centres of Expertise on security and defence issues to address the intersection of law and security policy in the specific areas of counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-insurgency.

The conference was organized and hosted by the Centre for Security and Defence Studies (CSDS) of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) at Carleton University. The conference opened with a private dinner for representatives of the SDF centres and invited guests, and an address by David Sanger, New York Times Chief Washington Correspondent and author of The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power.

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Conference Program


International Security Challenges and the Law:
Constraining or Enabling Effective Policy?
The 2009 Annual Conference of the Security and Defence Forum Centres

08.00-0.900 Registration
09.00-09.15 Welcome and Opening Remarks
  • Chris Penny, Deputy Director, Centre for Security and Defence Studies (CSDS),
    Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University
09.15-10.45 Panel 1: LAW and COUNTER-INSURGENCY
MARCO SASSÒLI, Université de Genève

Commentators:
  • Or Arthur Honig, University of Calgary | Centre for Military and Strategic Studies (CMSS)
  • BGen Denis Thompson, Canadian Forces
  • Marie-Joelle Zahar, Université de Montréal | Research Group on International Security (REGIS)

Moderator: Jonathan Paquin, Université Laval | Programme paix et sécurité internationals (PSI)

10.45-11.00 Break
11.00-12.30 Panel 2: LAW and COUNTER-TERRORISM
RUTH WEDGWOOD, SAIS, Johns Hopkins University

Commentators:
  • Jane Boulden, Royal Military College of Canada | Queen's Centre for International Relations (QCIR)
  • Gavin Cameron, University of Calgary | Centre for Military and Strategic Studies (CMSS)
  • Margaret Purdy, University of British Columbia | Centre of International Relations (CIR)

Moderator: Alistair Edgar, Wilfrid Laurier University | Laurier Centre for Military Strategic
and Disarmament Studies (LCMSDS)

12.30-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.30 Panel 3: LAW and COUNTER-PROLIFERATION
MARY ELLEN O'CONNELL, University of Notre Dame

Commentators:
  • Claude LeBlanc, Director, Arms and Proliferation Control, Department of National Defence
  • David Mutimer, York University | Centre for International and Security Studies (YCISS)
  • Julian Schofield, Concordia University | Centre d'études des politiques étrangères et de sécurité (CEPES)

Moderator: James Fergusson, University of Manitoba | Centre for Defence and Security Studies (CDSS)

15.30-15.45 Closing Remarks
  • David Mendeloff, Director, Centre for Security and Defence Studies (CSDS),
    Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University
15.45-17.00 Reception

Speaker Biographies


Panel 1: Law and counter-insurgency

Marco Sassòli
Professor of International Law,
Université de Genève, Switzerland

Marco Sassòli is professor of international law at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. From 2001-2003, Marco Sassòli was professor of international law at the Université du Québec à Montreal, where he remains associate professor. He is also associate professor at the Université de Laval. He chairs the board of Geneva Call, an NGO with the objective to engage armed non-State actors to adhere to humanitarian norms. He is also Vice-Chair of the board of the International Council of Human Rights Policy.

From 1985-1997 he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at the headquarters, as deputy head of its legal division, and in the field, as legal adviser of the ICRC delegation in Israel and the Occupied Territories, as head of the ICRC delegations in Jordan and Syria and as protection coordinator for the former Yugoslavia. Later, he has served as first secretary-general of the Swiss Fund for Needy Victims of the Holocaust/Shoah and as registrar at the Swiss Supreme Court.

Panel 2: Law and counter-terrorism

Ruth Wedgwood
Edward B. Burling Professor of International Law and Diplomacy,
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies,
The Johns Hopkins University

Ruth Wedgwood is the director of the international law program at the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. She is also a senior fellow and director of the project on international organizations and law at the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as the U.S. member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

She has served on numerous prestigious committees and boards, including the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on International Law; as vice-president of the American Society of International Law; chairman of the Council on International Affairs of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; a member of the policy advisory group of the United Nations Association; an expert consultant on the Hart-Rudman Commission on National Security in the 21st Century and as an independent expert for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Panel 3: Law and counter-proliferation

Mary Ellen O'Connell
Robert & Marion Short Chair in Law and Professor of International Dispute Resolution,
Kroc Institute,
University of Notre Dame

Mary Ellen O’Connell joined the faculty at Notre Dame as the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law in 2005. Prior to that, Professor O’Connell was the William B. Saxbe Designated Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law of Ohio State University and has taught at Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington; at The Bologna Center of The Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Bologna, Italy; and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; and the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

She is the author of The Power and Purpose of International Law (Oxford 2008), three casebooks, four edited collections, and more than sixty articles and book chapters. Professor O’Connell has been active in the American Society of International Law, the German Society of International Law, the International Institute for Humanitarian Law, the International Law Association, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Additional Information


Conference Venue

The conference was held at Old City Hall, 111 Sussex Drive, Ottawa in Victoria Hall. The Old City Hall Building is located along Sussex Drive on Green Island, at the junction of the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers above the Rideau Falls.

About the Security and Defence Forum (SDF) Centres and Annual Conference

The Security and Defence Forum (SDF) centres are twelve independent Centres of Expertise in Canadian and international security and defence issues, supported through grants from the Security and Defence Forum program at the Department of National Defence. The twelve SDF centres include more than 700 faculty, researchers, students and staff from fourteen universities across Canada. The annual SDF conference is intended to highlight centre research activities and to foster interaction among SDF centres and the broader Canadian security and defence community.

Contact and Further Information

Principle contact for the conference is John Cadham (), CSDS Doctoral Research Fellow.