What sorrow! Our friend and co-fighter, professor Michael Mandel, has died.
He championed, incessantly, for the rights of small nations in face of aggression from the big powers.
His book, How America gets away with murder: Illegal wars, Collateral Damage and Crimes Against Humanity, is a testimony to his vast knowledge and understanding of international law and his commitment to Speak Truth to Power. In ’99 he initiated an international effort by fellow lawyers to have leaders of NATO countries — including our won — charged with war crimes for attacking Yugoslavia without any legal or moral justification.
He was a key member of our Ad Hoc Committee to Stop Canada’s Participation in the War on Yugoslavia, which David Orchard initiated, and he travelled far and wide across the country with us when we spoke against the war (which was supported by all the parties in the House of Commons, as has been the case with the bombing of Libya and ongoing attacks on Syria!)
Most recently, while quite ill, he wrote a tough critique of Lloyd Axworthy’s and Alan Rock’s proposal for a “Kosovo solution” for Syria, “UN cannot foster peace when US sidesteps it for war: On the illegitimate ‘Kosovo model’ for Military intervention”: http://www.globalresearch.ca/un-cannot-foster-peace-when-us-sidesteps-it-for-war/5347262
Michael Mandel’s recent publications on Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/michael-mandel
Michael died on October 27th. While very ill for the last months, he was determined to stay alive until his son’s Bar Mitzwah on the 20th, and was able to participate fully in it.
Marjaleena Repo
Michael Mandel, who died Oct. 27, 2013 at the age of 65, was a member of Osgoode’s faculty for 39 years. He taught Criminal Law, International Criminal Law, The Law of War, and Legal Politics. His primary scholarly interests were in the law of war, and international criminal law. Among his many published works are The Charter of Rights and the Legalization of Politics in Canada (Thompson Education Publishers, 1989, 1994; French edition, 1996), How America Gets Away With Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage and Crimes Against Humanity (Pluto Press, 2004, Italian and German editions, 2005) and The Unbearable Flexibility of the Statuto Albertino (CLUEB Bologna, 2006). Recent articles include “Aggressors’ Rights: The Doctrine of ‘Equality between Belligerents’ and the Legacy of Nuremberg” (2011), 24 Leiden Journal of International Law 627, and “Israel and Palestine: Three Questions for International Law” Dartmouth Law Journal (2011) 9: 101.
Professor Mandel had also taught in the Native Law Program at the University of Saskatchewan, in the Political Science Department at McMaster University, and in the Criminology Department at the University of Toronto. In addition, he taught and lectured at several of Italy’s major universities: Bologna (where he ran an exchange program for law students from 1995-2001), Torino, Trento, Padova, Napoli, Calabria, and the European University Institute in Florence where he was a Jean Monnet Fellow in 1990-91. In 1998 he was a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Professor Mandel was a founding member of Lawyers Against the War and frequently commented in the mass media on issues of war and peace.
Osgoode College
