Christopher Black

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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer and political activist based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has been involved in high-profile human rights cases investigating alleged war crimes and defending those accused of these crimes in Rwanda (see Rwandan Genocide) and the former Yugoslavia.

1 Career
- 1.1 Relating to the Rwandan Genocide
- 1.2 Relating to the former Yugoslavia
2 Politics and other work
3 External links

[edit] Career

[edit] Relating to the Rwandan Genocide

Black has written several articles about the role of the ad hoc war crimes tribunals as instruments of US war policy and regarding the 1994 conflict in Rwanda, arguing that its standard interpretation as a genocide of the country's Tutsi population is misleading and fraudulent. He notes that the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front had been conducting a war of aggression from Uganda against Rwanda with U.S. and British support since 1990, and alleges that the RPF was responsible for the 1994 plane crash which killed the Hutu presidents of Burundi and Rwanda. Black also argues that many of the deaths which occurred in the resulting upheaval were perpetrated by RPF members, rather than by the extremist Hutu groups which have generally been held responsible for the country's descent into chaos.

Black is currently defending Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the former head of Rwanda's Gendarmerie or National Police Force, before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. He and other defence lawyers went on strike in early 2004, claiming that the tribunal was being used by the U.S. for political ends and that a fair hearing was impossible. He has been the subject of several death threats as a result of his work at the Rwanda tribunal and the subject of threats and intimidation from the current RPF Rwandan regime.

[edit] Relating to the former Yugoslavia

Black has also criticized the detainment of Slobodan Milošević at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. He has met with Milošević on many occasions, and claims that he is completely innocent of the charges raised against him. On one occasion, Black argued that Milošević had been consistently committed to a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia during his time in government.

Black has also argued that the leaders of NATO should themselves be brought before the tribunal for war crimes, and was one of a group of Canadian lawyers who laid war crimes charges against all Nato leaders and officers in 1999 for the bombing of Yugoslavia. He has described former tribunal chief prosecutor, and current head of the UN Human Rights Commission, Louise Arbour, as an unindicted war criminal, because of her cooperation with NATO leaders during the 1999 bombing of Serbia and because, as Chief Prosecutor at the Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal she stopped the investigation into the murder of the Hutu Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6th 1994 when their plane was shot down by anti-aircraft missiles after she learned that the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) were responsible.^{[citation needed]} He states she stopped the investigation on the orders of the USA. Black also helped to create the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM), is a vice-chair of that committee and is chair of its legal committee, although he does not have a formal role at Milošević's trial.

He has also assisted the legal team of Dr. Seselj, the head of the Serbian Radical Party, also held in detention by the ICTY.

[edit] Politics and other work

In addition to his legal career, Black helped establish the Unemployed Workers' Council in Toronto in 1996. He has also campaigned for political office as a candidate of the Communist Party of Canada and its provincial affiliate, the Communist Party of Canada - Ontario.

In 2003 he travelled to Beijing, China and The Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea with a team of American lawyers to meet with Korean lawyers in Pyonyang and subsequently co-authored a report on conditions in the DPRK. He states that the DPRK is a progressive, socialist country deserving the support of all progressive peoples around the world. He is also a member of the Committee To Defend the Cuba Five. He contributed a chapter on Central Africa and a chapter on North Korea in the Atlas Alternatif published by Les Temps des Cerises in Paris, 2006, a broad survey of the struggle against global imperialism since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He has been invited to speak on the ad hoc war crimes tribunals and international criminal law in Britain, Canada, the United States, Russia, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Germany, The Netherlands, and France and has been interviewed on the BBC, CBC, CNN, ABC and various other media regarding international law and justice. He is a member of the American Association of Jurists, and the National Lawyers Guild of America. He graduated from McMaster University, Hons B.A. Summa Cum Laude and Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, LL.B. and is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. He speaks English, French and Swahili.