I have collected here a number of links to resources of use to lawyers and others interested in the reception of public international legal norms into Canadian law.
The links are arranged under the following headings:
- Treaties and treaty information
- Custom
- Decisions of international courts and tribunals
- Selected Canadian cases
- Other resources
- Secondary sources
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Treaties and treaty information
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The federal government's treaty information web site. This is not a complete collection of Canadian treaties, but it's the best available online at present.
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A collection of binding and non-binding international agreements maintained by the Quebec international relations ministry. Not terribly easy to use, but there is a fair bit of information here.
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A wealth of information on UN treaties in a great variety of fields.
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European treaties and treaty information.
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SICE--the Organization of American State's Foreign Trade Information System--centralizes information on trade policy in the Americas. This page provides links to a number of Canadian trade treaties.
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Treaties and treaty information of the Hague Conference on the international protection of children, family and property relations, international legal co-operation, and international commercial and finance law.
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A terrific resource with up-to-date information on UN human rights treaties, including accession information, views of UN treaty bodies and more. You can search by state, which is especially useful.
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A UNHCR web site billed as the leading source of information necessary for taking quality decisions on refugee status. Includes the leading treaties, the Handbook and much more.
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Canadian Heritage maintains this site, which contains most Canadian reports to UN treaty bodies under the leading human rights treaties. Also included are the treaty bodies' reports on Canada's implementation of these treaties.
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While Canada has finally adopted the practice of producing explanatory memoranda to accompany treaties, it has maddeningly refused to post them online. The UK memoranda can therefore offer useful summaries of the nature and purpose of leading treaties.
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An indispensable reference.
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Custom
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A research guide from NYU's Hauser Global Law School program
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Another research guide, this one from UC Berkeley
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Decisions of international courts and tribunals
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ICJ decisions from 1946.
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Information on disputed cases with links to decisions.
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Judgments of the Tribunal.
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Link to the HUDOC database of ECHR case-law.
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Oxford University Press collection of arbitral awards in the field of international investment law.
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An impressive site by Prof. Andrew Newcombe (UVic) collecting publicly available investment treaty awards.
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Arbitral decisions concerning Canada and other NAFTA parties.
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An impressive web site billed as the only internationally based effort to address all existing international courts and tribunals.
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Selected Canadian cases
Regrettably, many leading cases remain unavailable online, particularly judgments of the Privy Council and older Supreme Court of Canada decisions. This list is necessarily limited to recent or available judgments.-
This case seems to establish that the presumption of conformity applies to the Charter just as it does to the rest of Canadian law.
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The main holding of this decision (concerning the application of the Charter abroad) is problematic in many ways, but the dicta on the presumption of conformity and the incorporation of custom are very important.
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A remarkable application and illustration of the presumption of conformity.
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Illuminating decision on the justiciability of treaties
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A strong statement about both the elements of international criminal offence and Canada's commitment to international law.
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Probably less important from a reception law perspective than it seemed in 1999, but still an important case.
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Important decision on the so-called "ambiguity requirement" and the presumption of conformity with international law.
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Dickson CJ's dissent, particularly on the role of international human rights law in Charter interpretation, is seminal--if at points contradictory.
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A leading, if often overlooked, application of the incorporation doctrine.
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Other resources
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All states parties to UN human rights treaties submit a core document for use by treaty monitoring bodies. Canada's document contains a number of illuminating statements about the role of international law in Canadian law, including the Charter.
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The federal government's new (2008) policy on tabling treaties in Parliament
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The International Law Commission's articles on state responsibility
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A useful research tool prepared by the American Society of International Law.
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A collection of searchable case-law, treaties, declarations and other material from WorldLii.
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Secondary sources
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Shameless self-promotion.
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An article I contributed for a book since published by Cambridge University Press (see the Books section of this site).
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A blog related to the excellent Canadian international law text by Currie, Forcese & Oosterveld
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My review of Canadian case-law, published annually in the Canadian Yearbook of International Law.
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