Using International Law in Canadian Courts

A complete account of how public international law is received into the law of Canada. Now more than ever, practitioners need to know how they can use human rights treaties, trade agreements, declarations of international bodies, rules of customary international law and other international legal materials in their work. Drawing on authorities ranging from 18th-century English case law to contemporary Charter jurisprudence, van Ert aims to show litigants and judges how international law may - and may not - be used in Canadian courts. No familiarity with international law is required; van Ert begins with an introduction to the international legal system and goes on to elucidate such difficult questions as the relevance of treaties to judicial decision-making, the place of custom in Canadian law, and the role of international human rights norms in Charter analysis. The approach is practical and the analysis driven by case law. Yet van Ert's exhaustive treatment of the constitutional, statutory and common-law rules of Anglo-Canadian reception law will also interest academics and students.