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This study examines how the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme (TADP) assisted American war resisters who came to Canada in response to the Vietnam War. It illustrates how the TADP responded to political decisions in Canada and in the United States and adapted its strategies to meet the changing needs of war resisters who fled to Canada. The main sources of material used for this research were the TADP’s archival records, newspaper accounts and secondary literature. This study traces the organization’s origins in the Canadian New Left before looking at how TADP released the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada; a document that advised war resisters on how to successfully prepare for immigration. It will also explore how TADP provided immigration counselling, employment, housing services and emotional support to American war resisters. Some of the organization’s principal actors and its relationship with other Canadian aid organizations are also examined. As the number of draft resisters coming to Canada decreased during the war, the number of military resisters entering the country increased. This shift led to a change in the type of counselling the TADP provided, a reorientation that is also discussed here. As well, the unexpected numbers of African-Americans and women resisters who crossed the border presented a unique set of challenges to the TADP. Finally, this thesis examines the TADP’s attempts to aid American war resisters in Sweden, spread the word about the Canadian government’s liberalized immigration regulations in 1973, and address the issue of amnesty for resisters in America.

This study examines how the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme (TADP) assisted American war resisters who came to Canada in response to the Vietnam War. It illustrates how the TADP responded to political decisions in Canada and in the United States and adapted its strategies to meet the changing needs of war resisters who fled to Canada. The main sources of material used for this research were the TADP’s archival records, newspaper accounts and secondary literature. This study traces the organization’s origins in the Canadian New Left before looking at how TADP released the Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada; a document that advised war resisters on how to successfully prepare for immigration. It will also explore how TADP provided immigration counselling, employment, housing services and emotional support to American war resisters. Some of the organization’s principal actors and its relationship with other Canadian aid organizations are also examined. As the number of draft resisters coming to Canada decreased during the war, the number of military resisters entering the country increased. This shift led to a change in the type of counselling the TADP provided, a reorientation that is also discussed here. As well, the unexpected numbers of African-Americans and women resisters who crossed the border presented a unique set of challenges to the TADP. Finally, this thesis examines the TADP’s attempts to aid American war resisters in Sweden, spread the word about the Canadian government’s liberalized immigration regulations in 1973, and address the issue of amnesty for resisters in America.

This thesis explores what Telford Taylor called the “ethos of Nuremberg” and how it shaped antiwar resistance during the Vietnam War in the United States. The Vietnam War was a monumental event in the twentieth century and the conflict provided lawyers, academics, activists, and soldiers the ability to question the legality of the war through the prism of the Nuremberg Principles, the various international treaties and U.S. Constitutional law. As many legal scholars and historians have lamented, the Cold War destroyed hopes for the solidification of an international court empowered to preside over questions of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. In the absence of cooperation among the international community, the antiwar movements in the United States and around the world during the Vietnam War utilized these legal instruments to form what I call a war crimes movement from below. A significant component of this challenge was the notion that individual citizens – draft noncooperators, military resisters, tax resisters, and the like – had a responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles to resist an illegal war. In the numerous United States military interventions after World War II, none had been challenged as openly and aggressively as the war in Vietnam. As this thesis will demonstrate, the ideas that crystallized into action at Nuremberg played a major role in this resistance.