On the Side of the Angels: Canada and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights by Andrew S. Thompson
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702018795178 |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Author | Jennifer Tunnicliffe |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
that would allow the international community to declare success and go home by
2011’’ (94–95). This is based on their observation that various studies existed at
that time concluding that the problems in Afghanistan were such that the goals of
the 2006 Afghan Compact could not be achieved by 2011, and that Canadian MPs
knew this and therefore should not have supported an arbitrary mission end date.
The idea that a significant fraction of MPs had any knowledge of these studies, let
alone the terms of the Afghan Compact, seems a little naı
¨ve. One big problem we
have in Canadian foreign and defence policy is a congenital lack of interest or
knowledge among the vast majority of MPs in all political parties—and that
wilful ignorance extended in spades to Canada’s Afghanistan missions.
Boucher and Nossal’s account of discussions between Liberal foreign affairs
critic Bob Rae and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, which they claim led to
some kind of tacit agreement between the Liberals and Conservatives for a
Canadian training mission in Afghanistan post-2011, could also be on firmer
ground. The authors’ account is based entirely on newspaper sources.
This relates to the main weakness of this book. The Politics of War is chiefly
concerned with deciphering and criticizing the motives of politicians in their deci-
sions and public statements in connection with Canada’s military involvement in
Afghanistan. Fair enough, there is good reason to do so—but in so doing,
the authors would have been well advised to speak to the principals in the deci-
sion-making chain over the thirteen-year time frame under examination, and assess
their sides of the stories. This amounts to a significant number of people: some
three prime ministers; eight foreign ministers; seven ministers of national defence;
four chiefs of defence staff; a couple dozen deputy ministers and senior privy
council office and prime minister’s office staff; numerous opposition leaders and
foreign affairs and national defence opposition critics—all of whom are alive and
most of whom are retired, meaning they can now go on the record. Rounding out
the research in this way is essential if the aim is to achieve a sophisticated under-
standing of government decisions and political motives on something as complex
and politically charged as Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.
Despite this shortcoming, The Politics of War is an important contribution to
the store of knowledge on a war Canadians should not forget and need to know
more about.
Andrew S. Thompson
On the Side of the Angels: Canada and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
Vancouver & Toronto: UBC Press, 2017. 212 pp. C$29.95 (paper)
ISBN: 978-0-77483-504-6
Reviewed by: Jennifer Tunnicliffe (jetunnic@uwaterloo.ca), University of Waterloo
There has been an increase over the past two decades in the number of monographs
and articles on the history of human rights. Recent historical writings in the inter-
national field centre around debates over the origins of ‘human rights’ as a concept,
494 International Journal 73(3)
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