High-Risk Human Rights Work for Whistleblowers & Impacts on International Protections for Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Political Activists

Tue 19 November 2024

Lucia Windsor Room

ABSTRACT: Robert Tibbo's legal work as a barrister in Hong Kong (2005-2023) for society’s most vulnerable involved fighting both criminalization of the asylum-seeking community in Hong Kong and a legal framework often leading to indenture and servitude of foreign domestic workers. Eventually his work extended to extradition cases involving political activists and whistleblowers including American whistleblower Edward Snowden, the 7 refugees who sheltered Mr. Snowden (“Tibbo Refugees”), and Xiao Hui – a Chinese executive associated with Australia’s largest-ever case of insider trading. While the case of Mr. Snowden, a former CIA agent and NSA employee who exposed the US Government and Five-Eves electronic mass surveillance, has received much attention, what happened to the Tibbo refugees—and to Robert Tibbo himself— has received far less attention.

Mr Tibbo will discuss the legal and non-legal realities he and his clients faced in both Hong Kong when Mr. Snowden was present and thereafter. Such realities involved exile from Hong Kong from November 2017 with the assistance of Lawyers Without Borders Canada and the Officers from the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong as well as years-long struggle to secure international protection for the Tibbo refugees in Montreal, Quebec. He will also discuss his legal work in Canada acting for clients in both provincial and federal jurisdictions.