Amissi Manirabona
Mr. Amissi Melchiade Manirabona holds an LL.M. in international economic law from the Université de Montréal Faculty of Law. During summer 2009, he submitted his doctoral thesis dealing with the extraterritorial applicability of Canadian criminal law to environmental crimes occurred abroad. In general, Manirabona’s current research interests include the implementation of international law in domestic laws, international criminal law, national and international environmental criminal law, corporate criminal law, business law and human rights, corporate social responsibility in a global context and sustainable development law.
Mr Manirabona is also Aisenstadt Fellow at Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law at McGill-University where he is doing research on mechanisms to enhance the domestic implementation of international treaties. He is also an Associate Fellow at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) at the McGill-University. He teaches international environmental criminal law at the International and European Environmental Law program offered by the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales at Université de Montréal (CERIUM).
Amissi Manirabona has successfully defended his doctoral thesis on 29 january 2010 at Université de Montréal. The thesis deals with Canada’s approach to international environmental criminal law.
Here’s the abstract:
Due to trade liberalization, multinational enterprises (MNEs) are overwhelmingly engaged in developing countries’ industries. Unfortunately, many of those MNEs pay scant attention to environmental preservation. Yet, almost all developing countries lack effective rules designed to protect the environment from polluting activities operated by MNEs. In the absence of any incentive, it is impossible for MNEs to avoid environmentally harmful operations. As economic agents, MNEs are not willing to adopt environmental protection costs without any legislation compelling them to do so. The profit maximization rationale underlying corporate policy leaves little room for incurring environmental preservation costs and only voluntary measures are applied in the management of polluting operations.
As a general principle, the regulation of MNEs’ conduct falls upon the State whose territory is directly harmed by polluting operations. However, the lack of resources of developing countries as well as the financial influence of MNEs has weakened environmental protection regulation in many states. The preservation of the environment from polluting activities of MNEs has also undermined by the lack of political will of developing countries which is increased by the corruption phenomenon. Despite the large number of international treaties and conventions designed to protect the environment from pollutant threats, those international instruments cannot directly apply to MNEs as they are non-state actors. Hence, developed countries, under whose law many MNEs are incorporated, are required to fill this gap in regulating their MNEs’ activities abroad.
This dissertation suggests the examination of juridical mechanisms by which environmental crimes which take place in developing countries may trigger criminal prosecution in Canada. Given the absence of Canadian regulation dealing explicitly with extraterritorial criminal conduct of MNEs, this research seeks to provide a new approach to existing law in order to deal with transnational environmental crimes, bearing in mind that environmental protection has emerged as a fundamental value in Canadian society. Nowadays, the values represented by environmental protection entail the shift of the traditional territoriality principle since worldwide economic activities have brought transnational threats of global concern. Therefore, we hold that Canada would be entitled to extend its competence so as to assert jurisdiction over environmental crimes occurred abroad during operations conducted by Canadian citizens. The need to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction to environmental crimes committed within foreign sovereignty becomes more pressing if those crimes reach the same level of gravity as international crimes.
Congratulations to Amissi!
COMPLETED PUBLICATIONS
«Le droit pénal des organisations face à l’internationalisation de la conduite criminelle : Le cas de la société Anvil Mining Ltd au Congo » (2009) 13 : 3 Canadian Criminal Law Review 217-246.
«Extension de la convention d’arbitrage aux non-signataires en arbitrage impliquant les sociétés en groupement» (2008) 38 Revue de Droit de l’Université de Sherbrooke 741-776.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
«Les crimes contre l’environnement commis par les sociétés canadiennes à l’étranger: Pourquoi le droit canadien devrait-il recevoir une application extraterritoriale» (2009) Lex-Electronica [Affiche ]
La problématique du consentement à l’arbitrage multipartite au sein des groupements de sociétés, Mémoire de maîtrise, Faculté de droit, Université de Montréal, 2006
PRESENTATIONS
La responsabilité sociale pour les sociétés multinationales, Centre for the Law of Business and International Trade, Faculty of law, Université de Montréal, march 2009.
Les crimes contre l’environnement commis par les sociétés canadiennes à l’étranger: Pourquoi le droit canadien devrait-il recevoir une application extraterritoriale?, Poster, CRDP’s Colloquium on CSR and the Environment, Université de Montréal, October 27th- 28th 2008.
Le droit pénal canadien face aux crimes environnementaux commis à l’étranger par les sociétés canadiennes, Presentation at the 4th Annual Conference of the Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights (CLAIHR), University of Ottawa, Febrary 2008.
COMMUNICATIONS WITH MEDIAS
2009 (july 1st).
Interview with Raymond Desmarteau, Tam Tam, Radio Canada International, on the applicability of international criminal law on large-scale environmental crimes.
2009 ( July 2nd).
Interview for «Planète Terre», CERIUM’s radio program on Radio Ville-Marie on the reality of international environmental criminal law.