Course or Seminar Category: International Comparative and Transnational Law

Public International Law

Public International Law is the system of law relating to inter-state relations, the functioning of international institutions, the relations of such bodies with each other, and their relations with States, individuals, groups and other entities. It seeks an understanding of certain rules of law relating to individuals and non-State entities. This course is intended as an introduction to the norms, rules and practices of international law that are recognized as being binding obligations on sovereign states in their mutual relationships.

Topics will be covered from among the following: sources of international law; subjects of international law (States and non-State actors; self-determination; individuals; international organizations); rights and duties of States; recognition of States and governments and legal effects thereof; state responsibility for international delinquencies; international law applying processes in domestic legal systems; state and diplomatic immunities from suit in foreign courts; the United Nations Charter and limitations on the use of force and international dispute settlement.

Refugee Law

Refugee protection is in a perpetual state of crisis, both domestically and abroad. Many refugee law practitioners and scholars argue that states are retrenching from their duty to provide refugees with the protection to which they are entitled under international law. At the same time, some government actors, media figures and civil society groups contend that existing refugee determination processes are excessively generous and are subject to widespread “abuse” by economically motivated migrants. Still others suggest that refugee protection regimes either distract from or help reinforce a deeper problematic: control over migration that serves to entrench global disparities in income, wealth and security.

This course offers students an opportunity to engage critically with these and other debates over refugee law at the level of theory, policy and practice. This critical engagement will occur through a collaborative examination of refugee law instruments, institutions and jurisprudence in international and domestic forums, with a heavy emphasis on Canada.

The course will be offered through online modules, lectures and class discussions. The course will also include several weeks of student-led teaching in the second half of the term. There will be two written assignments. The course requires consistent and active student participation throughout the term, including participation in evaluated group work. There is no final exam or final paper. The course, including all evaluated work, will be complete by November 29.

Note that the course will be offered in a hybrid remote/in-person format (hyflex). Students can attend classes either on campus or remotely via Zoom.

Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law

The principal aim of this section of the course is to develop critical understanding of those parts of Canadian constitutional law that pertain specifically to Indigenous peoples. Topics will include the notions of sovereignty and self-determination, relevant British imperial law, the honour of the Crown and the enforceable Crown obligations to which it gives rise, federal and provincial legislative authority, section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, Aboriginal rights and title, treaties and treaty rights, and Indigenous self-government (statutory and constitutional). The plan is for one class session, late in the term, to feature Toronto lawyers who represent or advise Indigenous clients, discussing practice-related issues.

The course will also acknowledge the reality, the coherence and the efficacy of Indigenous law. Early in the term, an Indigenous law scholar will spend one class session introducing the students to an Indigenous legal order. But Indigenous law will figure somewhat less prominently in this section of the course than it does in some other sections, because the instructor, who is not Indigenous, has neither authority nor permission to pronounce on matters internal to any Indigenous legal order. Students whose primary interest is in Indigenous law may prefer another section of this course, or may wish to supplement this course with a companion course whose specific focus is Indigenous law.

This course satisfies the prerequisite requirement for the Intensive Program in Aboriginal Lands, Resources and Governments. It may also be useful background for advanced seminars about Indigenous Peoples and the Law.

Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law

This substantive law course will explore the interactions between Canadian common law and Indigenous law, primarily Anishinaabe law. The content will be viewed through the lens of Indigenous worldviews. Topics will include, but are not limited to: Indigenous sources of law; historical context and constitutional framework re: Indigenous Peoples; Aboriginal Rights, Title and the Doctrine of Discovery; treaties; resource rights and consultation; and the Indian Act and Identity. The course will be presented from a practitioner’s perspective working within Anishinaabe communities, with attention to practical intersections between the various topics. This course fulfills the prerequisite requirements for the Intensive Program in Indigenous Lands, Resources and Governments.

International Business Transactions

Course will cover the payment and financing of international business transactions with particular attention to the sale of goods. With various degrees of emphasis, coverage will consist of:

● Brief introduction to basic conflict of laws rules governing international commercial transactions
● Introduction to international commercial banking (deposit taking, bank and customer relationship, foreign currency and cross-border payment obligations and bank deposits; correspondent banking; foreign currency risks);
● International payments by wire;
● Principal aspects of the law governing documentary sales in international trade: delivery, passage of property and risk);
● From paper to Electronic and functional equivalence of electronic documents.
● Selected aspect pertaining to negotiable instruments as payment and credit instruments in international trade; and
● Payment and financing international trade transactions: documentary collections and letters of credit (and related banking instruments).

Course is appropriate to both second and third year students—there are neither prerequisites nor co-requisites.

While the focus of the course is payment and financing of international trade, this may be the only course offered on the JD level introducing students to the foundations of banking law needed for both domestic and international business transactions. It may also be the only course introducing students to transport documents (such as bills of lading) and their use in international transactions as well as the law that governs international transactions.

At the instructor’s discretion final mark may be adjusted by half a mark (or in extreme cases full mark) that may be taken away or added for class participation (including attendance — as well as leading class discussion as assigned in advance). Classes will be recorded – per the usual policy of the Law School.

International Commercial Arbitration

As the preferred means of resolving international commercial disputes, arbitration embodies the pursuit of excellence in dispute resolution. This new course examines the theory and practice of international commercial arbitration from its foundation in the New York Convention and the parties’ agreement to the way that procedural fairness is achieved across the legal traditions. It considers the arbitral process from delivery of the notice of arbitration through constitution of the tribunal and design of the arbitral process on to the hearing, the award and recourse against it. Through a combination of lectures and discussions, guest presentations, and exercises based on mock scenarios, students will gain insight into a growing area of practice in Canada that is critical to the functioning of the world economy.

International Criminal Law

Ending impunity for those responsible for atrocity crimes – such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression – is one of the goals of international criminal law (ICL). The course aims to provide students with a program oriented to the practice of ICL, underpinned by a strong framework of ICL doctrine and theory. Both substantive ICL (e.g., elements of crime, modes of liability) and procedural ICL (e.g., admissibility of evidence, victim/witness protective measures) will be discussed and debated. They will be studied alongside the policy, geopolitical and ethical considerations of ICL, such as during the creation of new international courts/tribunals (arguably new legal systems) and the conduct of international investigations. The course will consider how ICL relates to and interacts with international humanitarian law (also known as the law of war or the law of armed conflict), international human rights law and public international law.

Four of the key features of the course include the following:
1. Examining, analyzing and applying ICL to contemporaneous and ongoing situations.

2. Surveying, comparing and evaluating the past and ongoing evolution of ICL, which is a relatively new field of law. As part of studying this evolution, students will view it through the lenses of:
(i) Institutions from the International Military Tribunals at Nuremburg and for the Far East, to the ad hoc and permanent tribunals/courts established in the 1990s and 2000s (e.g., International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, International Criminal Court), to the recent accountability mechanisms (e.g., UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL);
(ii) Crimes such as the four ‘core crimes’ (i.e., war crimes, crimes against humanity, aggression and genocide), terrorism (as considered and applied at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon), and the recently proposed crime of ecocide, and
(iii) Types of individuals and entities accused of atrocity crimes, such as natural persons, corporations and States.

3. Identifying, understanding and incorporating new technologies and techniques in building ICL cases (e.g., investigator or prosecutor roles) and responding to such cases (e.g., defence counsel or legal representative of victims roles), such as open-source videos and photos from social media, satellite imagery, mobile phone call data records and remote video-link interviews.

4. Viewing, analyzing and critiquing ICL through the perspectives of victims, accused, investigative bodies, prosecution offices, defence entities/counsel, victims’ legal representatives, civil society, judges, affected States and third-party States.

Law & Social Change: Indigenous Law Camp

This course includes both academic and in-field elements. All students in this course are required to attend Osgoode’s Anishinaabe Law Camp at Rama First Nation from September 12th – 15th (inclusive). Students will be depart via bus from Osgoode on September 12th to Rama First Nation and return on September 15th. Attendance at the Law Camp is mandatory, as it is included in the total course hours. Students must also attend the pre-Law Camp mandatory meeting at Osgoode.

The course will include weekly classes prior to and following Law Camp as well as an enhanced Law Camp schedule. The course is of interest to students looking to attend Anishinaabe Law Camp, as well as engage more deeply with Indigenous legal orders.

There are no prerequisites beyond 1L courses. Of note: Anishinaabe Law Camp will include Osgoode students who have applied to attend without credit. However, those enrolled in this course will attend Law Camp for credit with additional classes pre- and post-Law Camp and additional time during Law Camp. Students in this course will be automatically enrolled in Anishinaabe Law Camp. However, once it is available online, students in this class must also complete the Anishinaabe Law Camp application.

Comparative Law

As legal practice becomes more global, law students need to prepare themselves for careers that increasingly require knowledge of more than one legal system. This course provides students with an opportunity to familiarize themselves with comparative law’s methodologies for the study of diverse legal traditions. The basic aims, traditions, methods and achievements of comparative law will be taken up while focusing on particular legal jurisdictions and regions. Given the global influence of both the common law system and the civil law system of continental Europe, the course will begin with a general introduction to the history, institutions and methodologies of the civil law. The common law tradition will also be examined through the prism of comparative analysis so that its historical contingencies and idiosyncratic configurations become illuminated from an external point of view. The course will also investigate several non-Western legal systems, introducing students to their distinct institutions, histories and motifs. The mutual influences, not always balanced, between Western and non-Western legal traditions, will also be explored. The proclivity of the discipline of comparative law to define itself in predominantly Euro-American terms will be critically examined. Readings on the institutions and doctrines of legal traditions will be complemented with materials on the most significant social, economic, and political factors that shape legal cultures.

As with any study of international, foreign, or comparative law, some knowledge of a language other than English is useful, but is not required for the course.

Conflict of Laws

In a world of cross-border communication, trade and travel, crossborder disputes arise in every field of private law. A good understanding of the subject is vital for most careers in legal practice and scholarship and it provides an important foundation for the study of other international law subjects. Once based on arcane principles and complex doctrines, the conflict of laws has changed dramatically over the years to facilitate the flow of products, wealth and skills across borders and to ensure that disputes with connections to other provinces and countries are resolved fairly.

This course provides a solid grounding on the basic questions of whether a court has authority to decide a dispute and whether it should exercise that authority; what effect the court should give to the judgments of courts in other provinces or countries; and which law a court should apply to determine the issues in dispute. Also considered are the particular rules that have been developed for key areas of private law.

The rules applied by Canadian common law courts are compared with the rules applied in other common law countries — the United States, Québec, and Europe. This course also addresses the special rules that apply in federal and regional systems.