Michael Byers is aCanadianlegal scholar andnon-fictionauthor.
Byers was educated at theUniversity of Saskatchewan, where he received hisBA (honours) with majors in English literature and political studies. He then studied law atMcGill University, achieving hisLLB andBCL degrees in 1992. He completed his studies atUniversity of Cambridge, where he received hisPhD ininternational law. Before becoming a professor ofpolitical science atUniversity of British Columbia in 2004, he was a research fellow from 1996 until 1999 atUniversity of Oxford, and from 1999 until 2004, he was a professor of law and the director ofCanadian Studies atDuke University..
Since 2004, he has held theCanada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at theUniversity of British Columbia inVancouver, British Columbia.[1] From 2017 to 2019, he was concurrently appointed to the Brenda and David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies at UBC.[2] Byers has also taught as a visiting professor at the universities ofTel Aviv,Cape Town,Nord (Norway) andNovosibirsk (Russia). During the 2021-2022 academic year, he was a Senior Global Fellow at theUniversity of St Andrews.[3] In 2023, Byers was a Fellow of the Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe“The International Rule of Law - Rise or Decline?” of theFreie Universität Berlin,Humboldt Universität zu Berlin,Universität Potsdam andWissenschaftszentrum Berlin. In 2024, he was a Visiting Professor at theGeneva Graduate Institute.
Byers serves as chair of the board of theSalt Spring Forum, a charitable organization that organizes an annual speakers’ series onSalt Spring Island, BC. Past guests includeNoam Chomsky,Louise Arbour,Conrad Black,Andrew Coyne,Amy Goodman,Chantal Hebert,Naomi Klein,Bill McKibben,David Suzuki,Jon Kimura Parker,Carol Off,Joe Clark, andRachel Notely.
In February 2004, as Director of Duke University's Center for Canadian Studies, Byers hostedJack Layton inDurham, North Carolina.[4] Later, after Byers’ return to Canada, he began to advise Layton on Canadian defence and foreign policy, most notably with regards to Canada's role in thewar in Afghanistan.
On July 2, 2008, Byers announced that he was seeking theNew Democratic Party nomination for the federal riding ofVancouver Centre, a seat held byLiberal Party of Canada incumbentHedy Fry since 1993, in thenext Canadian federal election.[5] Byers had not previously sought elected office and the Liberal Party had tried to attract him as a candidate, with Liberal leaderStéphane Dion inviting him for a beer in spring 2008.[6]
Byers received much attention because he was considered by many to be a "star" candidate for the NDP.[7]
During the campaign, Byers was sharply critical of theHarper government's supposed militarization of the Arctic; he also advocated a negotiation with theTaliban inAfghanistan. At a candidates' debate at the end of September 2008, Byers made the controversial statement that the Alberta tar sands needed to be shut down "to address the global climate crisis". The Liberal andGreen candidates claimed that this position contradicted the official NDP platform, while Byers believed that it was covered by already passed legislation calling on Canada to reducecarbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.[8]
After the national NDP campaign faltered, Fry won reelection with 19,423 votes (34.4% of the popular vote). Byers ran third, with 12,043 votes (21.3%).
In 2010, Byers advised Conservative Foreign MinisterLawrence Cannon on Canada's Arctic Foreign Policy Statement.[9][10] In May 2017, Cannon announced that he would be starting a PhD under Byers' supervision at UBC.[11]
After Jack Layton's death in August 2011, Byers supportedTom Mulcair's successful campaign for theleadership of the federal NDP.
His books includeCustom, Power and the Power of Rules (Cambridge University Press 1999),The Role of Law in International Politics (Oxford University Press 2000),US Hegemony and the Foundations of International Law (Cambridge University Press 2003),War Law (Atlantic Books and, in Canada,Douglas & McIntyre, 2005), andIntent for a Nation: What Is Canada For? (Douglas & McIntyre 2007) (playing againstGeorge Grant'sLament for a Nation). In 2009, he wroteWho Owns the Arctic? (Douglas & McIntyre 2009), which was shorted for theDonner Prize for the best Canadian book on public policy. Four years later, hisInternational Law and the Arctic (Cambridge University Press 2013) won the Donner Prize.
In 2023, Byers and astrophysicistAaron Boley co-authoredWho Owns Outer Space? International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space The book was published “open access” byCambridge University Press.
Who Owns Outer Space? International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space was awarded the $60,000 Donner Prize for the best public policy book by a Canadian. This made Byers only the second person to win the Donner Prize twice, with the other beingTom Courchene.
The American Society of International Law awarded the book its 2023 Certificate of Merit in a Specialized Area of International Law.
Byers is a regular contributor toThe Globe and Mail. His articles have also been published in international newspapers, including theWashington Post,Wall Street Journal,Times of London,Independent on Sunday,The Guardian, andLondon Review of Books.
His political positions include the following:
In November 2009, Byers suggested that theLiberal Party of Canada and theNew Democratic Party (NDP) "should agree to not run candidates against each other in the next campaign" in electoral ridings in order to prevent theConservative Party of Canada from forming another minority government.[12] However, critics pointed out that his reasoning is based on the assumption that Liberal voters who are denied the ability to vote for a Liberal candidate would automatically vote for a NDP candidate, and that many might instead vote for the Conservatives (or simply not vote at all).[13] NDP MPNathan Cullen made the same argument as Byers in his 2011–12 campaign for the federal NDP leadership.[14]
Byers was a vocal opponent of theHarper government's proposed purchase ofLockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jets.
In July 2010, he wrote:[15]
The F-35 is a stealth fighter designed to penetrate radar defences on the first day of a war. It's the sort of plane you would use to create 'shock and awe' inBaghdad orTehran. Unless Canada is planning on being the sharp end of the American spear, we don't need stealth technology. The F-35 is designed for short takeoff and landing, with two of the three versions destined for aircraft carriers. Canada, of course, doesn't have aircraft carriers. And all that stealth technology and short takeoff and landing capacity comes at a cost. In addition to the price tag of about $135 million per plane, the F-35 has a relatively short range. This makes it an odd choice for a large, sparsely populated country.
In June 2014, he returned to the subject, comparing the 1960-era LockheedCF-104 Starfighter and the F-35 Lightning. Both single engine planes are strike aircraft as opposed to air-superiority fighters and are poorly suited for dog-fighting. The single engine makes both vulnerable to failure: 110 of the 239 CF-104 Starfighters crashed before they were replaced by theCF-18s; one quarter of those crashes were attributed to bird strikes. Furthermore, the F-35 Lightning will be equipped with 24 million lines of computer code, making it vulnerable toEMP warfare.[16]
And in March 2025, he argued,[17] in the context of Donald Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st state, that Canada should not acquire F-35s—because the US would always retain some control over the heavily computerized planes.
Byers has written extensively on issues ofArctic sovereignty.
In 2007 Byers was critical of the Harper government's change of plans for building new ice-strengthened patrol ships.[18] The previous year, the Harper government had announced plans to build three heavy-duty icebreakers, but in 2007, the Harper government revised the plan to build six to eight dual use vessels, which would only be capable of operations in one metre of first-yearsea ice.
Byers agreed with a 2010 report prepared for theSenate of Canada thatCanadian Coast Guard vessels patrolling the Arctic should be armed, stating, the "quiet authority of a deck-mounted gun" is not a provocation.[19]
On December 28, 2011, theToronto Star published an article by Byers entitled "Russia pulling ahead in the Arctic".[20] In that article he noted that Canada andRussia have taken identical positions as to whether they exercise sovereignty over theNorthwest Passage andNorthern Sea Route. Byers also quoted aleaked US diplomatic cable that reported thatPrime Minister of CanadaStephen Harper believed that relations with Russia in the Arctic were good and would not lead to war.
Also on December 28, 2011,Al Jazeera published an article by Byers entitled "The dragon looks north", aboutChina's recent exploration efforts in the Arctic.[21] He suggested China didn't need to challenge the sovereignty of coastal countries in the Arctic because those countries were open to foreign investment and trade and saw the benefits of Chinese capital and Chinese markets.
In 2017, Byers published an article in the journalInternational Relations entitled"Crises and International Cooperation: An Arctic Case Study".
Byers was involved in the 1998–1999extradition case concerning formerChilean military rulerAugusto Pinochet in the BritishHouse of Lords, working withIan Brownlie QC and members of a legal team representingAmnesty International and other human rights organizations. One of Byers' roles was to speak with the British and international media. He also wrote about the Pinochet case in theTimes of London,[22] theLondon Review of Books,[23] theBritish Yearbook of International Law,[24] and theDuke Journal of Comparative and International Law.[25]
Byers has been involved in the issue of Afghan detainees since January 2002, when he wrote the first widely read op-ed article aboutGuantanamo Bay detention camp, which was published inThe Guardian newspaper.[26] In September 2005, Byers wrote an article inThe Globe and Mail newspaper questioning the legality of Canadian troops transferring Afghan detainees to US custody.[27] When Canada and Afghanistan entered into a transfer agreement[28] three months later, Byers questioned the legality of that agreement, and detainee transfers made under it, before Parliamentary committees,[29] in a press conference withAmir Attaran,[30] and through two open letters to the Prosecutor of theInternational Criminal Court co-authored withWilliam Schabas.[31] In June 2016, Byers and Schabas called on the new Canadian government to open war crimes investigations.[32]
Byers served as principal investigator of theClimate Justice Project, aSSHRC-funded Community-University Research Alliance between theUniversity of British Columbia and theBritish Columbia office of theCanadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The $1.6 million project examined the nexus between climate change policy and social justice, with British Columbia serving as a case study for these issues of global consequence.
In 2017, Byers co-authored a lengthy article on"The Internationalization of Climate Damages Litigation” in theWashington Journal of Environmental Law and Policy. Byers has also written about climate change for the Globe and Mail, including a highly personal 2023 essay,[33] and a 2025 warning[34] of the severe consequences for Canada of theInternational Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on Climate Change.
Byers began working on space issues in 2007 when Canada's largest space company, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), now a part ofMaxar Technologies, wished to sell itself to a US arms manufacturer. MDA is a world leader in synthetic aperture radar satellites such asRadarsat-2, which can produce high resolution images at night and through clouds. Byers appeared before Parliamentary committees and wrote articles in the Globe and Mail and (together withScott Brison) in the National Post.[35] The Harper government ultimately blocked the sale, based on the importance of the satellites for Arctic security.[36]
Byers has written a number of op-ed articles on space issues, including a piece in theWashington Post entitled"Elon Musk, President of Mars?" and pieces in theGlobe and Mail onspace debris,asteroid mining,space tourism,solar storms, andplanetary defence. In 2017, Byers and his teenage son Cameron published an article in the journalPolar Record entitled"Toxic Splash: Russian rocket stages dropped in Arctic waters raise health, environmental and legal concerns".
Since 2018, Byers has been collaborating with UBC astrophysicistAaron Boley. Together, they established theOuter Space Institute (now a permanent observer at theUnited Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space); published articles on space mining in Science,[37] satellite megaconstellations in Scientific Reports,[38] uncontrolled rocket body reentries in Nature Astronomy,[39] and airspace closures due to rocket body reentries in Scientific Reports;[40] and organizedinternational open letters on space mining,kinetic anti-satellite weapon testing, anduncontrolled rocket body reentries. In 2023, they co-authoredWho Owns Outer Space? International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space The book was published “open access” byCambridge University Press
Byers wrote several op-ed articles for the Globe and Mail newspaper that resulted in his being added to Russia’s sanctions list. On March 3, 2022, just ten days after theinvasion of Ukraine, he assessed early reports of the Russian military’s actions against the rules of international humanitarian law to ask whether President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.[41] In November 2022, he wrote about how the targeting of power plants and transformers across Ukrainian territory likely amounted to a crime against humanity because it deliberately put millions of civilians at risk of hypothermia, contaminated water supplies, and delays in medical care and emergency response.[42] In March 2023, he wrote about how an arrest warrant for Putin, issued by the International Criminal Court, would likely cause China to hold back on the provision of weapons and other support.[43]
In January 2023, Byers called upon Canada to provide some of its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.[44] Eight tanks were subsequently provided.[45][46] Along with Aaron Boley, Byers also wrote two articles about why cooperation with Russia on the International Space Station continued.[47][48] In June 2023, he wrote about the breach of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River as a potential war crime.[49]
Byers was a visiting professor at Tel Aviv University in 2004, teaching a course on the laws of war. He wrote about the experience in his 2005 book War Law. Byers has written on Israel and Palestine for the Globe and Mail on five occasions, in 2006,[50] 2009,[51] 2023,[52] 2024,[53] and 2025.[54] He also wrote a longer essay[55] about teaching the Gaza War at UBC. Byers ended the 2023 article with a quote from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “We democracies distinguish ourselves from terrorists by striving for a different standard – even when it’s difficult – and holding ourselves to account when we fall short.”
Byers is married to Katharine Byers (née Edmunds) who he met at Oxford University in 1996. They have two adult children.
Byers was an accomplished middle-distance runner in his youth, representing Canada at the Junior (<19) and Espoir (<23) levels before a serious injury prompted him to focus on academics. He was a member of a University of Saskatchewan team that won the Canadian university indoor athletics championships, an “All Canadian” at cross country (representing McGill University), and a “Blue” and Varsity Match champion at Cambridge University.
| 2008 Canadian federal election:Vancouver Centre | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| Liberal | Hedy Fry | 19,506 | 34.50 | −9.37 | $80,974 | |||
| Conservative | Lorne Mayencourt | 14,188 | 25.09 | +4.73 | $91,239 | |||
| New Democratic | Michael Byers | 12,047 | 21.31 | −7.34 | $85,957 | |||
| Green | Adriane Carr | 10,354 | 18.31 | +12.43 | $82,713 | |||
| Libertarian | John Clarke | 340 | 0.60 | +0.07 | $0 | |||
| Marxist–Leninist | Michael Hill | 94 | 0.16 | |||||
| Total valid votes/expense limit | 56,529 | 100.0 | $94,404 | |||||
| Liberalhold | Swing | −7.05 | ||||||
Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia, has advocated purchasing two heavy icebreakers and putting more money into mapping Canada's northern continental shelf in support of future territorial claims.
And Michael Byers, a University of British Columbia expert on international law, said the "quiet authority of a deck-mounted gun" is a reasonable show of force in the Arctic, and does not constitute a provocation to foreign countries or "preparing for war with the Russians." All coast guard icebreakers, he said, should be "multi-purpose vessels" that not only perform navigational assistance, conduct scientific research and provide search-and-rescue services, but also bring both the symbolic and practical might of a "light machine gun" to the job of enforcing Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic. He added that sending two ships worth millions of dollars to deal with an Arctic security breach — an unarmed coast guard icebreaker, for example, and an armed Canadian Forces vessel — defies logic given the vastness of the Canadian Arctic and the evident efficiency of sending a single, armed vessel with a full range of capabilities.
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