After US President Joe Biden took office, some believed he would take a different path from that of his predecessor and that the Trump years were over. However, one of President Biden’s first moves was to strengthen American protectionism by heightening the United States’s “Buy America” and “Buy American” requirements. With this, the American government procurement market started to close off even more, and Canadian suppliers, in turn, grew worried. Given the United States’s international procurement commitments and the specificity of the Buy American Act and the Buy America Policy, this article explores the pathways to favourable treatment of Canadian suppliers in keeping with applicable international trade rules.

This article deals with the implementation, at the national level, of European human rights protection standards as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). It discusses the principles of interpretation of the ECHR by the ECtHR, the interaction and mutual dialogue between the ECtHR and national courts, and the approach of the latter to interpretation and application of the case law of the ECtHR. Using the concrete examples of France and the Czech Republic as case studies, it is shown to what extent and how European constitutional courts take into account and apply the letter of the Convention and its interpretation by the ECtHR.

La Notion de Passage inoffensif constitue l’un des principes les plus anciens du droit de la mer.

Actuellement confronté avec la menace croissante de la pollution maritime, ce principe se trouve fortement contesté dans un mouvement général de défense orchestré par les Etats côtiers. Parmi ceuxci se trouve le Canada, qui s’est fait récemment le champion de leur cause.

In sharp contrast to the high hopes raised by the reconstitution of the International Court of Justice in 1946, its subsequent record has been somewhat less than inspiring; and its impact as an organ for the settlement of disputes has been anything but spectacular. Established as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, it broods at The Hague in idle splendour, waiting hopefully for the occasional suit to be taken before it. Despite the hopes, the promise and the optimism, recourse to adjudication is exceptional, infrequent, and limited to disputes of minor importance.

Writings on the Court are suffused with lamentations over the chasm between the idealized aspirations of its founders and its actual performance. From the depths, however, the call is heard; the vision of the jurists becomes the burden of the reformers — the burden of recasting the machinery of world order. Political theorists, lawyers and institutional reformers are all prepared to shoulder the burden, and each considers it his duty to add to the literature on the Court yet another “epilogue for the improvement….”

The Nigerian situation of 1967-70 and the India-Pakistan conflict of 1971 should ensure that we do not ignore lightly the need for an adequate international response in cases of man-made disasters. The latter, in particular, involved serious international complications. Since March 1971, when the flow of Pakistani refugees from East Pakistan into India began, the Indian government called for international help to stem the tide, to feed the hungry hordes, and to make possible their return home. As time passed and the help did not come, to some it seemed almost a matter of simple economics — it was cheaper to go to war than to continue caring for the refugees. Granted the history of confrontation between the two sides, it is clear that the primary catalyst for the war of 1971 was the plight of these refugees. This danger of serious conflict resulting from humanitarian need is one of the main reasons for the increasing attention being paid to the problems of international humanitarian relief in cases of man-made disasters.

The Advisory Opinion handed down by the World Court on July 20, 1962, concerning Certain Expenses of the United Nations has become a political cause célèbre in so far as the majority judicial position in it was backed up by the Western-sponsored action, in terms of Article 19 of the United Nations Charter, to deprive the Soviet Union and France of their vote in the General Assembly. The Advisory Opinion of the World Court has, however, its own intrinsic interest in terms of juristic method and of basic Soviet and Western differences in scientific approach to law. In his dissenting, judicial opinion in that case, the then President of the Court, the Polish jurist, Judge Winiarski, formulated principles of interpretation which reveal, very dramatically, the basic doctrinal differences between Soviet bloc and Western jurists as to the nature and character of the Charter. As President Winiarski commented:

The Charter has set forth the purposes of the United Nations in very wide, and for that reason too indefinite, terms. But… it does not follow, far from it, that the Organisation is entitled to seek to achieve those purposes by no matter what means. The fact that an organ of the United Nations is seeking to achieve one of those purposes does not suffice to render its action lawful. The Charter, a multilateral treaty which was the result of prolonged and laborious negotiations, carefully created organs and determined their competence and means of action.

Writing on the principle of self-determination, J. H. W. Verzijl, the renowned Dutch jurist, has stated: “It is inherently impossible for it to form a universal basis of concrete rights and obligations under international law and accordingly it invariably presents itself in practice as a scarcely veiled instance of measuring with two measures.” The danger of applying a “double standard” is one which can hardly be dismissed even by those who, unlike Verzijl, regard the principle of self-determination as an established legal right and not merely a political principle. It is a danger that is most pronounced in relation to the key issue in self-determination: the identification of the unit constituting the “self.” No less susceptible of the application of a “double standard,” however, are questions regarding the methods of determining the wishes of a preidentified “self”.

This article addresses the problems related to the use of the Internet in Canada in an international context. Does international law allow Canada to regulate the Internet and its actors even if they are located abroad? Under the constitution, which level of government has the authority to do so? In which circumstances have the courts in Québec and in the common law provinces personal jurisdiction over persons using the Internet in an international context and which law do these courts apply? When are Canadian courts prepared to recognize and enforce foreign judgments involving the Internet and its actors? The author deals with these questions and is of the opinion that in most situations the federal Parliament has the jurisdiction to prescribe and the Canadian courts have the jurisdiction to adjudicate with respect to the Internet and its actors in an international context without violating international law. However, to avoid conflicts of jurisdiction, it would be better to adopt an international convention covering the various aspects of the Internet.

The purpose of this article is to show how legal norms are evolving in an activity newly opened for man by very recent and farreaching technological developments.

The 1963 Radio Regulations of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) define a “broadcasting satellite service” as “a space service in which signals transmitted or retransmitted by space stations, or transmitted by reflection from objects in orbit around the Earth, are intended for direct reception by the general public.” Direct satellite broadcasting thus refers to the transmission of messages directly to the houses or communities of the general public via artificial space satellites. While such a system does not exist at present, it is expected that it will be feasible within less than a decade.

The basic fact of Québec as a coastal entity creates interesting questions when considering the implications of its independence. A historical survey of its maritime boundaries further confirms the importance of maritime boundaries for an independent Québec. The author examines Québec's possible claims in the light of recent international law cases and conventions. He also explores the application of various methods of maritime boundary delimitation on (Québec and Canada. Finally, the author explores the possibility of joint sovereignty in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the application of the condominium concept to Canada and Québec.

The decision of the ICAO Council on April 1, 1968, to convene a meeting of an ICAO legal subcommittee on the revision of the Warsaw Convention is the latest in a series of moves to shore up this 40-year-old Convention which has been tottering on its foundation since late 1965-early 1966 when the United States of America threatened to denounce it. The purpose of this note is to examine briefly the main problems discussed in relation to the revision of the Warsaw Convention since the unsuccessful Special ICAO Meeting held in February 1966 to consider the Warsaw passenger limits, and to indicate the lines along which further exploration of these problems has been made.

On March 26, 2002, an ad hoc arbitration tribunal determined the line of delimitation dividing the respective offshore areas of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the province of Nova Scotia. In making its decision, the tribunal, which was established by the federal minister of natural resources, applied the principles of international law governing maritime boundary delimitation and, pursuant to its terms of reference, treated the two provinces as if they were states subject to the same rights and obligations as the government of Canada. The tribunal had issued a Wrst decision in May 2001, ruling that the delimitation line had not already been established by agreement between the provinces, as Nova Scotia had contended. The tribunal’s decision on the boundary line is Wnal and binding on the two provinces. It awards to Newfoundland and Labrador the greater part of the offshore area that had been in dispute. The tribunal’s decision marked the end of the uncertainty created by the provincial disagreement and paved the way for the commencement of hydrocarbon exploration in the formerly disputed area.

The Case of the Polish art treasures in Canada presents two important issues: the question of immunity of a foreign state’s public movable property and the question of state responsibility for such property.

Removal from Poland and Entry into Canada

In 1940 the Canadian government permitted the duty free entry into Canada, as property of the Polish state, of a number of cases and trunks containing Polish art treasures which had been removed from the museum at the Wawel Royal Castle in Cracow before invading German armies could seize them. The treasures were stored in the Records Storage Building at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, on the clear understanding that Canada was to assume no responsibility for their safekeeping. At no time was an inventory of the treasures given to the Canadian government.

Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provides for suits by foreign investors from the NAFTA Parties against one of the other Parties. The author reviews this provision and discusses its possible ambit in light of the decisions so far rendered. The author considers that, properly interpreted, Chapter 11 will provide an extraordinary means of redress and will not open the floodgates to all kinds of claims that second-guess legitimate governmental legislative activity or policymaking.