SOME INTERNATIONAL LAW PROBLEMS OF INTEREST TO CANADA AND TO CANADIAN LAWYERS

Abstract

Despite its venerable lineage, the Roman, civil and common law parentage of its method, doctrines and scholarship, and a record of enforcement in most matters as creditable as municipal or domestic law, the Law of Nations evokes in the laity and the greater legal profession an image that is at once nebulous, esoteric and ineffectual. But it has greater import for the lawyer because, apart from the potential of a fee, the rules of international law frequently impinge upon clients’ concerns. Thus, suggests Maxwell Cohen, many practitioners, particularly in the larger centres, may find international law rules increasingly germane to their practice. Indeed, if the lawyer of this generation is to be both citizen and practitioner on a level expected by the community, he or she must surely take into account the framework of international law in order to better understand the country’s interests and the client’s concerns.