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Accountability or Imperialism? From Terrorism to Territorial Torts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 June 2025

Aslı Ü. Bâli ,
Mary Catherine Malin ,
Craig Scott ,
Obiora Okafor  and
Diane Wood
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Panel
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Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting , Volume 118 , 2024 , pp. 3 - 14
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of International Law

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Footnotes

This panel was convened at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 3, 2024, by the moderator, Aslı Ü. Bâli, who introduced the panelists: Mary Catherine Malin, Craig Scott, Obiora Okafor, and Diane Wood.

References

1 Zarei v. Iran, 2021 ONSC 3377; Zarei v. Iran, 2021 ONSC 8569 [compendiously, hereinafter Zarei].

2 Alleged Violations of State Immunities (Iran v. Can.), Application Instituting Proceedings Before the International Court of Justice (June 27, 2023), at https://www.icj-cij.org/case/189 [hereinafter, Iran v. Canada].

3 Aerial Incident of 8 January 2020 (Can., Swed., Ukr., and UK v. Iran), Application Instituting Proceedings Before the International Court of Justice (July 4, 2023), at https://www.icj-cij.org/case/190 [hereinafter, Canada et al. v. Iran]; Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation, Concluded at Montreal Sept. 23, 1971, 974 UNTS 178, 24 UST 564 [hereinafter Montreal Convention].

4 Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, SC 2012, c. 1, s. 2 [hereinafter, JVTA].

5 Criminal Code, RSC, 1985, c. C-46.

6 State Immunity Act, RSC, 1985, c. S-18 [hereinafter, SIA].

7 Ralph Goodale, Flight 752: The Long Road to Transparency, Accountability and Justice, Report of the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, Government of Canada (Dec. 2020), at https://www.international.gc.ca/gac-amc/assets/pdfs/publications/flight-vol-ps752/flight-vol-ps752-en.pdf; Agnes Callamard, Letter to the Islamic Republic of Iran from the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Dec. 24, 2020, REFERENCE: AL IRN 28/2020, at https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=25795.

8 Smith v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 2023 ONSC 4420 [hereinafter, Smith].

9 Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act, SC 1991, c. 41.

10 Tracy v. Iran (Information and Security), 2017 ONCA 549. The various U.S. judgments included awards against Iran-supported entities like Hezbollah in Lebanon, some of which were found not to be enforceable due to the events having occurred prior to 1985.

11 Zarei v. Iran (Islamic Republic of), 2023 ONCA 713.

12 Zarei v. Iran, 2024 CanLII 48152 (SCC) (Judgment on Application for Leave to Appeal), at https://canlii.ca/t/k4wgv.

13 The central case cited by Iran in its favor in its institution of proceedings is the ICJ Germany v. Italy judgment of 2012, released in virtually the same month as the JVTA and SIA amendments were legislated: Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Ger. v. It.: Greece intervening), 2012 ICJ Rep. 99 (Feb. 3), at https://www.icj-cij.org/case/143. This dispute continues in Questions of Jurisdictional Immunities of the State and Measures of Constraint Against State-Owned Property (Ger. v. It.), Application Instituting Proceedings Before the International Court of Justice (Apr. 29, 2022), at https://www.icj-cij.org/case/183.

14 Professor Okafor thanks Adaora Nwajiaku for her excellent research assistance.

15 On the principle itself, see Phillip M. Saunders et al., Kindred's International Law: Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied in Canada 384 (9th ed. 2019), and Case Concerning the Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Dem. Rep. Congo v. Belg.), Judgment, 2002 ICJ Rep. 3 (Feb. 14). On the commercial exceptions to the principle, see Philippine Admiral (Owners) v. Wallem Shipping (Hong Kong) Ltd. [1977] AC 373, [1976] 2 WLR 214, [1976] 1 All ER 78, [1976] 1 Lloyd's Rep 234; Trendtex Trading Corporation v. Central Bank of Nigeria [1977] 2 WLR 356; Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba, 425 U.S. 682 (1976); and Marble Islands v. I Congreso del Partido. [1981] 3 W.L.R. 328. On the “terrorism exception” in the United States, see Letelier v. Republic of Chile, 488 F. Supp. 665 (D.D.C. 1980); and Usoyan v. Republic of Turkey, 438 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2020). On a similar exception in Canadian law, see Alleged Violations of State Immunities (Iran v. Can.), at https://www.icj-cij.org/case/189. On the exceptions under UK law relating to causing death or personal injury in that country, see Al-Masarir v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [2022] EWHC 2199 (QB)

16 See generally The Handbook of Law and Society (Austin Sarat & Patricia Ewick eds., 2015).

17 For detailed explanations of the nature of TWAIL scholarship, see Makau Mutua, What is TWAIL?, 94 ASIL Proc. 31 (2000); Chmni, B.S., Customary International Law: A Third World Perspective, 112 AJIL 1 (2018)Google Scholar; Attar, Mohsen Al, TWAIL: A Paradox Within a Paradox, 22 Int'l Cmty. L. Rev. 191(2019)Google Scholar; Gathii, James Thuo, Alternative and Critical: The Contribution of Research and Scholarship on Developing Countries to International Legal Theory, 41 Harv. Int'l L.J. 263 (2000)Google Scholar; Mickelson, Karin, Rhetoric and Rage: Third World Voices in International Legal Discourse, 16 Wis. Int'l L.J. 353 (1998)Google Scholar; Okafor, Obiora Chinedu, Critical Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL): Theory, Methodology, or Both?, 10 Int'l Cmty. L. Rev. 371 (2008)Google Scholar; Okafor, Obiora Chinedu, Newness, Imperialism, and International Legal Reform in Our Time: A TWAIL Perspective, 43 Osgoode Hall L.J. 171, 174–80 (2003)Google Scholar; Obiora Chinedu Okafor, Marxian Embraces (and De-couplings) in Upendra Baxi's Human Rights Scholarship: A Case Study, in International Law on the Left 257 (Susan Marks ed., 2008)

18 Saunders et al., supra note 15.

19 See Y. Ortega, Trans[cultura]linguación: An Intercultural Approach to the Revitalization of Indigenous Languages, in Handbook of Research on Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Perspectives on Language and Literacy Development 216 (A.K. Salmon & A. Clavijo-Olarte eds., 2022); see also Phillipe Sands, The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain's Colonial Legacy (2022); Okafor, Obiora Chinedu, The Last Colony? Coloniality and the Legitimacy Crisis in International Legal Praxis, 38 Temple Int'l & Comp. L.J. 25 (2024)Google Scholar.

20 Id.

21 Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (2005); Gathii, James T., Imperialism, Colonialism and International Law, 54 Buff. L. Rev. 1013 (2007)Google Scholar; Natarajan, Usha, A Third World Approach to Debating the Legality of the Iraq War, 9 Int'l Cmty. L. Rev. 405(2007)Google Scholar; Okafor, Obiora C., Re-Conceiving “Third World” Legitimate Governance Struggles in Our Time: Emergent Imperatives for Rights Activism 6 Buff. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 1 (2000)Google Scholar.

22 Chimni makes this broad point convincingly in his work on jurisdiction. See Bhupinder S. Chimni, The International Law of Jurisdiction: A TWAIL Perspective, 35 Leiden J. Int'l L. 29 (2022).

23 Cedric Ryngaert, Jurisdiction in International Law 231 (2015); id. at 49.

24 Chimni, supra note 22, at 48–50.