About a year ago I introduced a private member's bill, Bill C-483, which was to provide a remedy for victims of the most heinous of crimes--war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide--to give them a civil remedy against foreign governments and their officials who perpetrated these atrocities. Right now the State Immunity Act immunizes these foreign governments and officials from any suit, although there are commercial exceptions. In other words, if there's been a breach of contract, you can sue, but if you've been a victim of genocide, you can't. We had someone from each of the parties support it on introduction.
To sum it up, there was a case that just came down, the Kazemi case, which was a suit brought against the Government of Iran. I can crudely summarize it by saying that the court felt that for the most part, it's Parliament that should deal with this. Jayne Stoyles, executive director of the Canadian Centre for International Justice, asked me if we might consider hearing her and a law professor expert who would come before us and make submissions on that issue, with the hope that maybe the government would take over this private member's bill or a variation thereof, in light of the fact that courts have now turned the case over to Parliament. The private member's bill is there, and we have this anomalous legal situation in which you could sue for breach of contract, as I said, but not for being a victim of the most heinous of crimes.
Two witnesses would come before us. One would be Jayne Stoyles, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for International Justice. The other would be, I believe, a law professor from the University of Ottawa.