Nous avons vu jusqu’ici que la jurisprudence avait intégré au droit interne les règles coutumières du droit international sur les relations diplomatiques et que de plus, les autorités législatives tant provinciales que fédérales étaient venues compléter cette protection des immunités et privilèges sur des points particuliers. Or, le fait pour le Canada d’avoir ratifié la Convention de Vienne sur les agents diplomatiques et la Convention sur les agents consulaires transforme radicalement les données de la question puisque cela implique nécessairement l’intervention du pouvoir législatif pour assurer le respect de ces conventions.

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”.

The purpose of this paper is to describe from an historical point of view the main developments in the teaching of international law in Canadian law schools from the time when the subject was first taught, in the mid-nineteenth century, to the early years of the present decade.

The paper is divided into five parts, dealing respectively with the law schools of Quebec, the Maritime provinces, Ontario, the Prairie provinces, and the Pacific coast. A chronological account is given of the teaching of international law in each law school, describing first the teachers, their backgrounds, personalities, attitudes to international law and other interests, and, second, the courses taught, texts and casebooks used, and the importance placed on international law in the general curriculum, as indicated by the time devoted to it, whether it was elective or compulsory, and the year in which it was taught. For the most part, the discussion is restricted to the law schools in the various universities. Although it would be interesting to consider the parallel development of international law teaching in other disciplines, such as political science, the subject is so vast that some limit must be imposed on it.

In the late summer of 1969 the American tanker S.S. Manhattan traversed the fabled Northwest Passage through the waters of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. Its purpose was to determine the commercial feasibility of transporting crude oil via ice-breaking supertankers from the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to the eastern seaboard of the United States. In Canada the voyage of the Manhattan triggered a reaction of nationalism accompanied not only by flag waving but by a vehement demand for a definitive statement of Canadian sovereignty over the waters of the Arctic and particularly the Northwest Passage. The Liberal government under Prime Minister Trudeau found itself between the Scylla of public demands and the Charybdis of international law. In 1969 Canada claimed a three-mile territorial sea, which meant that the waters beyond that limit were high seas and beyond Canadian jurisdiction. Any claim to authority over Arctic waters might be quickly challenged in the World Court, and if proved to have no basis in international law the Canadian claim would be lost for good. The purpose of this paper is to determine the nature of Canada’s claim to the Arctic waters as disclosed by the Canadian government in its pronouncements and actions.

So much has been written about the Labour Conventions case that one hesitates to add to the flow of ink. But the bulk of these writings simply reflects the diametrically opposed views about the correctness of the decision on both technical and practical grounds. Most commentators from English Canada have bewailed the decision in this case that power to implement treaties in Canada is divided between the federal parliament and provincial legislatures according to the usual division of legislative power. On the other hand, French Canadians overwhelmingly support the decision. Recent literature has concentrated on techniques that can be employed to secure federal-provincial co-operation in effecting international action. Still, little notice has been taken of gradually evolving doctrine in the Supreme Court of Canada that should facilitate the exercise of Canada’s sovereign status in the international sphere, whatever the ultimate fate of the Labour Conventions case. The purpose of this article is to examine the nature of this evolution and to suggest possible paths for future developments.

On August 18, 1972, the International Court of Justice delivered its Judgment in the Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council (India v. Pakistan) in which:

(a) By thirteen votes to three, it rejected Pakistan’s objections on the question of its competence, and found that it had jurisdiction to entertain India’s appeal from a series of decisions of the ICAO Council which had found that the Council had jurisdiction to entertain the application and complaint made before the Council by Pakistan on March 3, 1971, the details of the application and complaint being given below.

(b) By fourteen votes to two, it held the ICAO Council to be competent to entertain the above-mentioned application and complaint.

Although the United Nations has undertaken more than a dozen peacekeeping operations, and Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim has affirmed that “peacekeeping constituted a principal, and perhaps the most vital, function of the UN,” there is no agreement on the definition of the political and jurisdical scope, or any uniform procedural basis, for such peacekeeping operations. As a matter of fact, the term peacekeeping does not even appear in the UN Charter.

Most commentators, however, draw a sharp distinction between peacekeeping operations undertaken pursuant to chapter VI of the Charter on pacific settlement of disputes and enforcement action authorized by the Security Council under chapter VII. As one Swedish diplomat explained, peacekeeping operations are essentially voluntary, undertaken at the request or with the consent of the country in whose territory an operation is to take place, and do not impose any obligation on member states in regard to personnel, equipment or logistics.

In the past years, the most important impetus for the renewed interest in the relationship between federal states and international law has come primarily from Canada. In Switzerland, the extent and significance of the external relations of the cantons is not a burning political problem. It seems, however, worthwhile to sketch the empirical state of these cantonal affairs, because there is, in this field, a constant feedback from comparative to international law, which makes a precise knowledge of the municipal law of the main federal states imperative. Questions concerning the treaty-making capacity and responsibility of member units in federal states should not be answered on the basis of dogmatic and a priori assertions, but rather on the basis of exact comparative studies.

The caracas meeting was only the first of three, or possibly four, sessions of the Third Law of the Sea Conference that will try to bridge the gap between the rambling six volume result of the Seabed Committee’s work and the concise articles of a new Law of the Sea Convention. The work at Caracas did not reach a stage at which it became possible to submit draft articles for the approval of the Conference. As a result, the final documents of the session made no commitment on any matters of substance. Such movement towards agreement as was achieved is therefore not binding, and is extremely vulnerable to changes of position by states in the six months preceding the next session in Geneva. Because of this, the emphasis of the present report will be more on the political process at Caracas than on the development of international law. My purpose is, first, to examine the new proposals on seabed issues and relate them to previously existing positions; second, to analyse the alignments behind the key positions; and third, to look at the other factors emerging as influences on the seabed negotiations.

La convention de 1973 sur la prévention de la pollution par les navires fut adoptée et signée à Londres par 64 états, le 3 novembre 1973. Cette convention est le fruit de nombreuses années de préparation au sein de l’Organisation Intergouvernementale Consultative de la Navigation Maritime; elle est de loin la plus complète et certainement la convention Internationale la plus importante qui ait été adoptée jusqu’à ce jour et qui ait pour but la protection du milieu marin.

Little or no attention was given to the development of international environmental law prior to the Stockholm Conference of 1972. Nor was it intended that the Conference should consider legal questions: it was to be merely a technical, scientific meeting. During preparations for it, however, a change in character occurred, and the Conference became a politically oriented endeavour designed to make policy decisions on global environmental problems. This change permitted the Twenty-seven Power Preparatory Committee responsible for the preparation for the Conference to concentrate on broad policy considerations. In this context, a real concern for the future of international environmental law was evident.

The Canadian Council on International Law held its third Annual Conference in Ottawa on October 18-19, 1974. The theme of the Conference was International Terrorism and three sessions were devoted to it. The first session on October 18 focused on a paper delivered by Professor Paul de Visscher of the University of Louvain, Belgium, entitled, “Le Terrorisme International: Ses Effets sur l’Ordre Juridique International.” The paper was commented upon by Professor L. C. Green of the University of Alberta, Professor Jordan J. Paust of the University of Houston, and Brigadier J. M. Simpson of the office of the Judge Advocate General. The afternoon session on October 18 dealt with International Terrorism and Civil Aviation. A paper was prepared and presented by Dr. Gerald L. Fitzgerald of the Department of Justice, with comments from Professor Alona Evans of Wellesley College, Mr. Lorne Clark of the Department of External Affairs, and Professor Ivan Vlasic of the Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University.