Foreword

• Author: William A. Schabas
• Pages: 19-23

xix

FOR E WOR D

This book is an innovation as far as Canadian legal practitioners, schol-

ars, and l aw students are concerned. Academics from France, for ex-

ample, h ave for many year s published lengthy manuals covering t he

f‌ield of Droit inter national pénal, but I cannot think of a country from

the common law tr adition with any thing sim ilar. The Americans have

their case books, containing lengthy excerpts from judgments and

hypotheticals for classroom discussion, but nothing along the lines of

a comprehensive monograph.

Nothing could seem more appropriate today, g iven Can ada’s pro-

found, and in some ways, pioneering role in the related disciplines that

Robert Currie accurately disting uishes with the labels “international

criminal law” and “transnational criminal law.” In recent times, Canada

has been very much at the forefront, but this wa s not always the case.

Although essentia lly idiosyncrat ic developments concerning inter-

national criminal prosecution d ate back to the Middle Ages, there was

nothing resembling the f‌ield as it now exists until the Pari s Peace Con-

ference of 1919. Ambitious plans to prosecute war criminals for the

ancestors of what we now call genocide, crimes against humanity, and

aggression were set out in the post-war treaties, but t hese pl ans were

never properly implemented. Nothi ng sig nif‌icant is known about the

Canadian position in t his area. Our countr y was pre sent at Versailles,

but f‌ledgling Canadian diplomats were still to some extent operating in

the shadow of the British Empire. International crimina l law must have

been a remote concern to them.