Certainly.
With respect to the issue of whether without a treaty we require states to subject themselves to our jurisdiction, the simple answer is that in many respects, we've already accepted that this is not the case. As I stated, the idea of absolute immunity does not exist in Canadian law. We are simply engaged in a process of line drawing here. So to take the perspective that all foreign states must necessarily submit to Canadian jurisdiction or else our courts have nothing to say about them is, with respect, a position that has already been ruled out by the current State Immunity Act.
With respect to what happens in the private sphere in the context of issues such as genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, and war crimes, again, we don't have a perfectly clear answer. As I stated, we are presently litigating the Kazemi case. There are various specific points in the Kazemi instance that make it very clear that we have a possibility of exercising jurisdiction over Iran, absent consent from Iran in that case.
More generally, I'll simply add to that the fact that consent to jurisdiction is not necessarily the point of departure when it comes to these crimes or the object of these lawsuits. Whether a given foreign state is going to openly subject itself to the courts of this country is a question that's going to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. What I think Bill C-483 does head on is tell foreign states that we will not accept their impunity in deliberately turning their backs to our justice system. We will not accept their statement that they are not at all subject to our courts in these contexts. Whether or not that foreign state, in its domestic law or in its domestic interactions, takes a position of refusing to submit to our courts, we, as the Canadian people and as the Canadian government, will be taking the position that when it comes to these serious crimes, we do not accept an answer of impunity. I think that's the principled stand Bill C-483 takes.