Canada has five unresolved maritime boundaries. This might seem like a high number, given that Canada has only three neighbours: the United States, Denmark (Greenland), and France (St. Pierre and Miquelon). This article explores why Canada has so many unresolved maritime boundaries. It does so through a comparison with Norway, which has settled all of its maritime boundaries, most notably in the Barents Sea with Russia. This comparison illuminates some of the factors that motivate or impede maritime boundary negotiations. It turns out that the status of each maritime boundary can only be explained on the basis of its own unique geographic, historic, political, and legal context. Canada’s unresolved maritime boundaries are the result of circumstances specific to each of them and not of a particular policy approach in Ottawa.

A recent and prominent American appeals court case has revived a controversial international law question: can a state compel a person on its territory to obtain and produce material that the person owns or controls, but which is stored on the territory of a foreign state? The case involved, United States v Microsoft, features electronic data stored offshore that was sought in the context of a criminal prosecution. It highlights the current legal complexity surrounding the cross-border gathering of electronic evidence, which has produced friction and divergent state practice. The author here contends that the problems involved are best understood — and potentially resolved — via an examination through the lens of the public international law of jurisdiction and, specifically, the prohibition of extraterritorial enforcement jurisdiction. An analysis of state practice reveals that unsanctioned cross-border evidence gathering is viewed by states as an intrusion on territorial sovereignty, engaging the prohibition, and that this view properly extends to the kind of state activity dealt with in the Microsoft Ireland case.

This article examines conditionalities in the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) in light of the European Communities – Conditions for the Granting of Tariff Preferences to Developing Countries (EC – Tariff Preferences) case at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The article largely undertakes this examination from the point of view of developing countries. It mainly examines the issue of discrimination in conditionalities since this was the principal question raised in the EC – Tariff Preferences case and makes suggestions regarding the regulation of conditionalities. In doing so, the article follows two trajectories: first, it makes suggestions for the WTO panels and Appellate Body, and, second, it makes suggestions for GSP donors, by analyzing the new European GSP + Scheme and by drawing inspiration from conditionalities in the loans granted by the World Bank.

For the first time since the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada is in an armed conflict with an insurgency that has actively recruited Canadians and directed them to use or promote violence against Canada. In the result, the Canadian government may ask its soldiers to target and kill fellow Canadians abroad or to assist allies in doing so. This situation raises a host of novel legal issues, including the question of “targeted killing.” This matter arose for the United Kingdom in 2015 when it directed the use of military force against several Britons believed to be plotting a terrorist attack against the United Kingdom from abroad. This incident sparked a report from the British Parliament highlighting legal dilemmas. This article does the same for Canada by focusing on the main legal implications surrounding a targeted killing by the Canadian government of a Canadian citizen abroad. This exercise shows that a Canadian policy of targeted killing would oblige Canada to make choices on several weighty legal matters. First, the article discusses the Canadian public law rules that apply when the Canadian Armed Forces deploy in armed conflicts overseas. It then analyzes international law governing state uses of military force, including the regulation of the use of force (jus ad bellum) and the law of armed conflict (jus in bello). It also examines an alternative body of international law: that governing peacetime uses of lethal force by states. The article concludes by weaving together these areas of law into a single set of legal questions that would necessarily need to be addressed prior to the targeted killing of a Canadian abroad.

Ethnic cleansing is now a reality rooted in international relations. Confronted with this phenomenon in recent years, the international community has attempted to capture it in positive law. However, various efforts to prohibit and punish the practice under international law have taken shortcuts, further confusing an already complex topic. The aim of this critical reflection is to contribute to a legal understanding of ethnic cleansing by adopting a comprehensible and teleological approach that addresses the true objects and purposes of the practice. The goal of such an approach is to encourage international legal scholars to open a new chapter in the study of international crimes, one in which the autonomous status of ethnic cleansing is firmly established in positive international law.

This article is set against the backdrop of the inability of Canadian courts to hear civil cases brought by victims of the operations of Canadian mining corporations in developing countries where accountability mechanisms are weak. The article examines the legal framework for extraterritorial criminal prosecution in Canada with a view to seeing how corporate criminal prosecution could fill the accountability gap and contribute to the promotion of the accountability of Canadian mining corporations involved in human and environmental rights abuses in developing countries. The article argues that extraterritorial criminal prosecution holds prospects for success in Canada, if only the Canadian government is willing to utilize it. The real and substantial link test, the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act, and several sections of the Criminal Code provide sufficient jurisdictional bases for such prosecution. The amendments to the doctrine of corporate criminal liability that were made in Canada in 2003 bolster the criminal jurisdictional strength of Canadian courts. Lastly, there are no compelling international comity concerns to discourage the Canadian government from utilizing the criminal justice process to contribute to the global fight against corporate impunity in human and environmental rights abuses. This article seeks to contribute to the knowledge of the powers at the disposal of the Canadian government to do so.

Corporations have taken on an expansive role in the global community with transnational operations, extensive resources, power and influence, and significant environmental and human rights impacts. While corporate social responsibility (CSR) has developed standards and practices aimed at addressing the social responsibility of corporations, its legal effect, if any, is unclear. In part, this can be linked to the lack of status and direct accountability for corporations in international law. This article seeks to carve out a space for corporations in which the realities of their power and impact can be acknowledged, addressed, and managed. It suggests that this can be accomplished through the recognition of corporate customary international law. This corporate customary international law would apply the well-developed law-creation processes of traditional state-based customary international law to businesses. Employing CSR as a practical example, the article suggests that not only is corporate customary international law a theoretical possibility, but its elements can already be seen in the development of CSR. Ultimately, this article aims to show how customary international law, which is an existing tool of international law formation, can be used to bridge the gap between the traditional and contemporary international systems and increase opportunities for businesses to fulfil ethical and legal obligations and to be held accountable for environmental and human rights harms.

The Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union is the first treaty to specify new rules governing the identity and tenure of arbitral members and provide a more extensive review function through a two-tiered investment tribunal system (ITS). CETA signals a shift towards a more public and judicialized system, akin to that of many national legal systems and the World Trade Organization. The ITS creates a permanent first instance tribunal and an appeal tribunal (featuring a pre-elected roster of tribunal members), which is competent to review the tribunal’s decisions for errors of law and fact, as well as on the grounds of Article 52 of the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (ICSID Convention) — making it a novel one-stop-appellate-shop. This treaty comment assesses the operation of, and reasons for, key provisions of CETA’s Investment Chapter and examines the extent to which it addresses points of criticism and lessons learned from the experience of arbitrating under the North American Free Trade Agreement and other open-textured treaties. The analysis draws analogies to, and distinctions from, other treaties and relevant jurisprudence that have influenced the negotiators. Among CETA’s most striking features are its purported modification of existing arbitral rules (ICSID Convention, ICSID Additional Facility Rules, and UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules) and its removal of disputing party involvement in the selection of the tribunal in favour of a roster appointed ex ante by the state parties, which results in a considerable amount of the investor’s autonomy being stripped away. While these and other issues must be further analyzed and balanced in the context of present discussions regarding the creation of a multilateral investment tribunal, CETA nevertheless contains significant procedural and substantive innovations and stands as a guide for future treaty negotiations and reforms of investor–state dispute settlement.

The devastating 2014–16 West African Ebola outbreak challenged the authority of the World Health Organization (WHO) to enforce the legally binding International Health Regulations (IHR) that govern pandemic responses. Under Article 43 of the IHR, states parties can only implement additional health measures beyond the WHO’s recommendations if public health rationales or scientific evidence justify such measures. Yet at least fifty-eight states parties enacted additional health measures, mainly travel restrictions to or from Ebola-affected countries. This article explains why Canada’s visa restrictions targeting Ebola-affected countries failed to meet the IHR’s requirements and therefore violated international law. Specifically, Canada’s response went against public health authorities’ consensus views, the best available scientific evidence on disease transmission, and the WHO’s recommendations. In light of its traditional role as a global health champion, Canada must lead by example and abide by international law, including the IHR, instead of picking and choosing which rules to follow and thereby encouraging other countries to do the same.