Yvon Dandurand

Canadians are concerned and puzzled by recent events, the new trade war with our American neighbours, and the bogus claims about fentanyl trafficking upon which the American threats and demands were ostensibly based. The real issue here may be that Canada, in the absence of an organized crime and drug control strategy, is rudderless. Canada’s lack of a drug policy, especially a law enforcement strategy, became painfully obvious as our leaders struggled and hurried to respond to the pressure exercised by President Trump. Some of the border protection measures that were adopted were improvised while others were long overdue. But will any of that make a difference? After all, in the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking, drug interdiction at the border is only a tiny part of a comprehensive enforcement strategy.

The question of how these piecemeal initiatives might fit within the broader context of a balanced anti-drug policy is not being addressed. How can we judge the value of these tactical initiatives in the absence of clear strategic objectives? Moreover, the long-term impacts of some of them does not appear to have been sufficiently considered. For example, agreeing to designate some cartels as terrorist groups may have deep implications that most people do not yet quite understand.

In my view what should be a major concern for Canadians is the unacknowledged major departure from our commitment to a human security approach, and the slippage back to a failed state security approach to the drug problem and the control of the organized crime groups involved.

In 1994 UNDP’s Human Development Report presented the new concept of “human security” as part of its proposal for the 1995 World Sumit for Social Development. The report proposed that we move away from a nation state concept of security to one that was human oriented. It implied a demilitarization of many security issues. The human security concept also required reconsideration of the traditional view of international relations, moving towards a new multidimensional approach to the political economy of international relations as being a global one. In ensuring human security, the most important objective is to find out what the individuals and the populations need and respond to such needs.

As I was reading Lloyd Axworthy’s recent book[1], “My life in Politics”, I was reminded of the work the ICCLR did as early as 1999 to promote a human security approach to responding to the drug problem. At the time, Mr. Axworthy who was Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister had launched an initiative to create a Foreign Ministers Dialogue Group on Drugs in the context of the Second Summit of the Americas, in April 1998 in Santiago. The purpose of the Dialogue Group was to offer foreign ministers an opportunity to consider the links between the region’s drug-related problems and the broader human security needs and concerns of the peoples of the Americas. Canada was bravely taking the lead.

In preparation for a first meeting of the Dialogue Group, Mr. Axworthy requested that the ICCLR and its partners organize a meeting of government and civil society to discuss how current anti-drug policies and activities in the region could be enhanced by a thorough consideration of how they related to the pursuit of the broader policy objective of promoting human security in the Americas.

The report we produced, Drugs and Human Security in the Americas[2], is more than 25 years old but given recent developments it is perhaps more relevant than ever before. Its main premise was that a focus on human security, as it related to the problem of illicit drugs, could bring the fundamental objectives behind existing drug control initiatives into a clearer focus. As human security is a matter of deep concern to all segments of civil society, it could provide a clear objective around which civil society actors could mobilize themselves throughout the hemisphere. The idea was to promote a renewed discussion of the links to be made between domestic and foreign policies as they related to various threats to human security.

The report made a long list of recommendations based on that approach. Building on the Anti-drug Strategy of the Hemisphere (OAS/CICAD) and a commitment to a balanced approach towards the drug problem, it explored new avenues for expressing a spirit of cooperation and enhancing efforts to address the serious harm caused by drug consumption and trafficking. Vivienne Chin and I later tried to demonstrate how the human security framework could also apply to the fight against transnational organized crime and terrorism.[3]

I am not recalling these foreign policy efforts out of nostalgia. It is simply that many of us feel that whatever progress had been accomplished in promoting a rule-based order and greater international cooperation is vanishing rapidly. Is it simply, as my wise colleague Allan Castle recently reminded me, that “in matters of justice reform and fairness, there is no linear progress, and our work is more like building sandcastles while waiting for the next ocean wave to come”? Or, as Mr. Axworthy suggests, could be because “(t)here is a distinct lack of understanding of the importance of our national interest of being an active agent in shoring up rules, norms, and laws internationally. We benefit from a world of stability, cooperation, and protection” (p. 269).

As Stewart Patrick rightly noted, “weak international cooperation is a choice, not an inevitability.”[4] However, to the extent that international criminal justice coop­eration is failing, it does so because of the states’ ambivalence and diminishing commitment to a multilateral, rule of law-based cooperation regime.

Rebooting International Cooperation in Criminal Matters

As Jessica Jahn and I wrote a few years ago[5], some of the main fault lines in the current international criminal justice regime have not only been obvious for a long time, but they are quickly wid­ening. International criminal justice cooperation is on very shaky ground. In an increasingly fragmented world where most issues become a reason for con­tention among states, the stable interstate relationships that are needed for all forms of cooperation are lacking.

Because it is essentially political and dependent on so many other complex factors, international criminal justice cooperation is perpetually in an unstable state. International cooperation is enabled by multilateral treaties, bilateral agree­ments, and national laws, but such instruments are not ends in themselves as partnerships invariably depend on sustained relationships of mutual recogni­tion, trust, and reciprocity. Our relationship with our American ally is now being tested. Cooperation, like trust, can be built, earned or won, but it cannot be coerced. Coerced cooperation is rarely accompanied by reciprocity, and it only leads to resentment and resistance.

The principle of good faith is a fundamental canon of general international law.[6] It underlies all forms of international cooperation and, more generally, relationships between states in the execution of their treaty obligations. Even at the best of times, various practical, legal, and political factors can hamper international criminal justice cooperation. However, the worst one is when one of the parties is seemingly acting in bad faith.

Similarly, the principle of reciprocity which has always been a building block of interna­tional cooperation in criminal matters is being redefined in an ad-hoc and transactional manner, often without reference to a broader normative framework or previous binding commitments. What is the point of signing a cooperation agreement with someone who has already demonstrated that they have no intention of honouring it?

A deconsolida­tion of the rule of law and a suffocation of international criminal justice cooperation are more than a theoretical possibility. Many states increasingly prefer informal approaches to cooperation that reaffirm their sovereignty but are not necessarily tethered to the rule of law and human rights. The weakening of multilateral cooperation regimes is certainly not unique to the criminal justice sector and its fight against transnational crime. However, the precariousness of the present situation and the social, human, and economic costs resulting from the shortcomings of the current interna­tional cooperation regime need to be taken very seriously.

Canada once played a significant role on the international stage by promoting a human security approach to some of the big issues of the time (e.g., the Ottawa Treaty – Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention; crimes against humanity and the development of the Rome Statute). It may be able to take the lead and help like minded countries renew their cooperation against transnational crime and drug trafficking, avoid the militarization of these issues, and commit to the fundamental components and objectives of human security which include economic, food, environment, personal, community, political and health security.

[1] Lloyd Axworthy. My Life in Politics. Toronto, Sutherland House, 2024.

[2] ICCLR, ILANUD, FOCAL, Nathanson Centre, Drugs and Human Security in the Americas: Conclusions of a Working Meeting of Experts, San José, Costa Rica, March 28-30, 1999. https://icclr.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Drugs-and-Human-Security-in-the-Americas_ICCLR_ILANUD_FOCAL_Nathanson-Centre_1999.pdf?x73914.

[3] Yvon Dandurand and Vivienne Chin, Human Security Objectives and the Fight against Organized Crime and Terrorism. In Okubo, S. & Shelley, L., Human Security, Transnational Crime and Human Trafficking. London, Routledge, 2011.

[4] Stewart Patrick, “When the System Fails: COVID-19 and the Costs of Global Dysfunction,” Foreign Affairs 99, no. 4 (2020, July-August): 40–50.

[5] Yvon Dandurand and Jessica Jahn, The Future of International Criminal Justice Cooperation: A Retreat from the Rule of Law? In Redo, S. (Ed.), The Rule of Law in Retreat. Lexington Books, 2022, 209-243.

[6]  Helen McDermott, “The Structure of International Cooperation in the Transfer of Suspects. Extradite or Abduct?” International Criminal Law Review 15, no 2 (2015): 254–297.

Photo by Ravi Patel on Unsplash.