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Experts alert: 10th Anniversary of 9/11

Published: 17 August 2011

For coverage related to the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, we offer the following experts in the areas of law, psychology, religion and political science. To arrange an interview, please contact Tamarah Feder, McGill Media Relations Office at tamarah.feder [at] mcgill.ca or tel: 514-398-6754.

Professor Frédéric Mégret

Canada Research Chair on the Law of Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill Faculty of Law

Expertise: Public international law, international protection of human rights, international criminal law, the laws of war, international relations.

Relevant articles: Terrorism and Human Rights: A Decade of Canadian Practices (2011): Almost a decade after 9/11, this paper seeks to assess the broad implications of the resurgence of fears about terrorism on the practice of human rights in Canada. It analyzes that impact from the point of view of an increased national security apparatus, modifications to the judicial process, and terrorism's role in framing human rights issues in a transnational light.

Online:

Languages: English/French

Professor François Crépeau

Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Professor in Public International Law, McGill Faculty of Law and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants

Expertise: public international law, international human rights law, international migration and refugee law, international minorities law, rule of law and security policies

Relevant articles:

Anti-Terrorism Measures and Refugee Law Challenges in Canada - Canada’s security policies have had an impact on refugee protection. Canadian judges use international law principles in refugee issues, and ensure constitutional human rights protection to “everyone,” including refugees and asylum-seekers. Canada has expanded the refugee definition to persons at threat of torture, according to the United Nations Convention against Torture. But, on recent security issues, Canada has had difficulty to reconcile international law and domestic law, in terms of human rights guarantees. Return to torture has been technically rendered possible by the Supreme Court of Canada, as a matter of constitutional interpretation. One particular mechanism, the “security certificate,” has been intensely scrutinized by courts and found wanting in many cases. The secrecy surrounding the information on which the certificate is based has been criticized, as have been the ex parte proceedings, the indefiniteness of the detention, the limitations on the role of the “special advocate,” and so forth. Judges have felt increasingly irritated by the intrusion of security intelligence in judicial proceedings. Canada is (now more than before) reluctant to submit to international human rights scrutiny on migration and security issues, arguing that it relates to territorial sovereignty.

The Stranger and the Right to Justice in Canada after the Events of September 11/(El Extranjero y el Derecho a la Justicia en Canadá tras el 11 de Septiembre) (Spanish) :

After the events of September 11, the fear of terrorism led to the adoption of new anti-terrorist measures (elimination of appeals available to foreigners, reduction of legal aid, increased powers of detention, easier use of security certificates). But in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, only the right to vote and be elected, the right to enter and remain in the country and the minority language educational rights specifically protect citizens. The protection of Canadian citizens cannot be based on the denial of foreigner's rights. The same rights are at stake: the violation of a foreigner's rights is a violation of citizen's rights.

Online:

Languages: English/French

Professor Arvind Sharma

Birks Professor of Comparative Religion, McGill Faculty of Religious Studies

Expertise: Comparative Religion, Indian Philosophy and Ethics, Hinduism (Classical and North India). Hosting second international conference on World’s Religions after 9/11 September 7, 2011 with the Dalai Lama, et al. Six volumes came out of the first conference in 2006. More info:

Online:

Languages: English

Professor Stephen M. Saideman

Canada Research Chair in International Security and Ethnic Conflict, McGill Department of Political Science

Expertise: Was working in the Pentagon on 9/11, has been writing on NATO and Afghanistan. More here:

Online:

Languages: English

Professor Alain Brunet

McGill Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine Researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute

Expertise: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, assessment, peritraumatic responses, early interventions, neurobiological correlates, neuroimaging, Internet, psychophysiology. Associate Editor of the Journal of Traumatic Stress. JTS is preparing a special issue on 9/11:

Online:

Languages: English/French

Professor Philip Oxhorn

McGill Faculty of Political Science, Founding Director Institute for the Study of International Development

Expertise: Impact of 9/11 on hemispheric relations, particular for U.S.-Latin America, but also Canada-L.A., relations; implications for the relations between citizens ("us") and non-citizens ("the other"), multiculturalism and democracy; the need to distinguish between radical minorities and the mainstream – why the "class of civilizations" perspective is mistaken and threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Languages: English

Professor Catherine Lu

McGill Faculty of Political Science

Expertise: humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect doctrine, ethics of the use of force, human rights, tragedy

Relevant publications: Just and Unjust Interventions in World Politics: Public and Private: Contemporary scenes of politically induced humanitarian catastrophe have prompted calls for the international community to intervene in defence of our common humanity, yet intervention continues to be a contested practice in a world of states. Tapping insights and controversies from feminist political theory, Lu argues that contemporary debates about the ethics of intervention in world politics are disciplined by competing models of the public/private distinction, a valuable organizing construct for interrogating the agency and responsibilities of different agents, the proper structure of their relationship with each other, and the legitimacy of current interventionary practices. This 2011 paperback edition includes a new afterword focusing on the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, and the ethical and political challenges it poses to diverse public and private agents engaged in interventions for purposes of human protection. This includes states and the United Nations, private military and security companies, and the international humanitarian aid regime.

Online:

Languages: English

Professor Rex Brynen

Faculty of Political Science

Expertise: the Middle East, impact of 9/11 on international relations, counterterrorism, the current state of Al-Qaida

Online: /politicalscience/faculty/brynen/

Languages: English

Professor Harold Waller

Faculty of Political Science

Expertise: Domestic U.S. politics and U.S. foreign policy, and the impact of 9/11 on both.

Languages: English

Professor Tom Velk

McGill Department of Economics

Expertise: monetary and political economist, American affairs and history

Languages: English

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