Foreign Affairs committee  Good afternoon, Chairman Levitt and distinguished members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be with all of you again here today. Last month my public interest law firm published this report: “The Kremlin's Political Prisoners: Advancing a Political Agenda By Crushing Dissent”.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it will be in the same way you debate every kind of issue you face. “Gross human rights abuses” is a generic term. It doesn't have a precise legal definition. Again we're talking about engaging in such activities as extrajudicial killing or torture or other very serious offences that 98% of offences are not going to fall under.

Foreign Affairs committee  Given that I was proposing some specific changes or suggestions for specific changes, let me take the first crack at it. I was talking about two separate things. The first relates to SEMA and your existing authorities that you have there, which are either engaging through the UN, when the UN puts the sanctions, or engaging with this much higher threshold of language, such as “imminent threat” or “major conflict”, etc.

Foreign Affairs committee  There's a substantial gap between the commitments of the international community and their implementation and practice. I previously published a book, The Responsibility to Protect, on the obligation of all states to prevent mass atrocity crimes, so I didn't chose those four sets of crimes that I mentioned in my proposed language by accident.

Foreign Affairs committee  Regarding FACFOA, Canada took an important step forward in adopting the law just a few years ago. My only observation, again from the outside in, is that it's a little strange, as I read it as an outsider, to say that you can only take actions to freeze the funds of corrupt foreign government or former government officials or their families in cases where the government in question has specifically asked the Government of Canada to impose such actions.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. Your Special Economic Measures Act and your United Nations Act basically look at Canada imposing, as I've read it...and again, this is plain language, as I'm not a Canadian barred lawyer. The focus is on country situations that are of immense concern to Canada. One set of reasons that Canada can be concerned is that the United Nations has already imposed sanctions.

Foreign Affairs committee  I've had the opportunity to work with Canadian governments of various political stripes over many years, and have found Canada to be an outspoken and strong advocate on international human rights regardless of which government is in power. Obviously, there are different perspectives, I'm sure on that, but that has been my own experience working in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Council on human rights issues, at the UN in New York, and other multilateral fora, including the OAS as well.

Foreign Affairs committee  Briefly, I'm obviously not an expert on how you organize yourselves in Canada on these questions, but I associate myself, of course, with Mr. Kramer's observations about the United States. I will say that although monitoring and detecting is critically important and enforcement is important, I wouldn't underestimate the power as I described in my testimony of ensuring that you have the authorities and are exercising the authorities to actually render these kinds of sanctions publicly.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thanks so much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm pleased to be able to testify before the standing committee in your comprehensive review of the Special Economic Measures Act and the Freezing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act. I'll discuss my perspective on each of those laws in turn.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Let me just add briefly, having the Canadian ambassador to Venezuela try to observe the trial—technically it's open, but there are only four seats for observers—even showing up sends a message to the Government of Venezuela; ensuring that in every conversation any of you have with anybody where the conversation on Venezuela comes up, that you ask about the situation of political prisoners; for all of you on the committee to seek a meeting, even as a whole committee, with the new Venezuelan ambassador to Canada to say you would like to talk about issues of concern, and to speak with one voice to that new ambassador about what's going on.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would just mention that while we're not tracking all of them, we also have countless parliamentarians from various parliaments and from all different kinds of political parties all over the world who are issuing their own statements of support and concern or who are calling for the release of Leopoldo.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would note that Lilian—you may not believe this, and I was even surprised—is, of course, a force to be reckoned with on the ground. More interestingly, she has 1.4 million Twitter followers, which is more than pretty much any parliamentarian and anyone in your government has. Leopoldo himself has about 3.4 million.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Just briefly, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that his rights under articles 19, 20, and 21, and 14 of the ICCPR were violated, basically all of the rights that I've just described, and it was very clear and unequivocal. What's interesting about the Government of Venezuela rejecting the decision and saying that it was violating their sovereignty is that they actually chose voluntarily to participate in the case.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Our domestic lawyer, Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, has said clearly and unequivocally to us that the case outcome is already predetermined and that there is not even a small light shining through to suggest that right now there is any hope of anything other than a conviction and a very lengthy prison term for Leopoldo López.