(Ottawa) Canada launched the Declaration on Arbitrary Detention while languishing in a Chinese jail. Now free, Michael Kovrig will be at the United Nations next week to participate in a meeting which will be co-hosted by Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly.
“His presence demonstrates the fact that he believes in the initiative,” summarizes Minister Joly in an interview. He also believes that his experience should be shared so that people around the world are more aware of the use of hostage diplomacy.
The former diplomat, who spent more than three years in arbitrary detention in China, will share this forum with journalist Jason Rezaian, incarcerated for “espionage” at the infamous Evin prison in Tehran, and lawyer Amal Clooney , who notably represented the journalist Maria Ressa.
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Michael Kovrig
The dialogue will be co-hosted by Minister Joly and her American counterpart, Antony Blinken, and will be held next Wednesday in the premises of Canada’s representation at the United Nations. Canada’s chief diplomat will spend the week in New York, but it is this event that she considers “the most important.”
Some 71 UN member states have so far joined the initiative launched in February 2021, when the “two Michaels” were captives of the Xi Jinping regime. Canada then “realized that there was no basis in international law on this issue,” explains Ms.me Joly.
The goal of next Wednesday’s meeting, she adds, is as much to “put emphasis on this issue and present different perspectives, particularly (those) of people who have experienced it” as “to increase the different deterrent mechanisms.
“Strength in numbers”
The wording of the declaration does not identify any country, but we obviously think of the usual suspects: China, Russia, and even Iran. They are also not signatories, and therefore do not undertake not to practice arbitrary detention in the context of diplomatic relations between States.
But strength in numbers counts, argues Mélanie Joly: “What that does is that from the moment you have a country which is the victim of this, whose citizens are arbitrarily detained, that country can go back to all the other signatories for their support. And that creates a coalition force.”
The geopolitical context is not unrelated to the increase in the number of cases, the rivalry between great powers eclipsing multilateral cooperation – and “the conditions are ripe for the practice to continue”, we read in a report from the Soufan Center co-authored by Michael Kovrig’s former wife, Vina Najibullah.
“The issue of hostage-taking by States requires constant attention”, not just when “high-profile cases arise”, is also written in the document co-signed by the researcher, who worked behind the scenes to negotiate the release of the “two Michaels”, and who will also be in New York.
Coming back to Minister Joly, she will discuss the events during her presence at the UN headquarters: one on human rights and justice in Sudan, one on the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan, and a meeting on the crisis in Haiti, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
