International and Foreign Legal Research
| Author | Ted Tjaden |
| Profession | Faculty of Law and Faculty of Information Sciences University of Toronto |
| Pages | 133-157 |
CHAPTER
7
INTERNATIONAL
AND
FOREIGN
LEGAL
RESEARCH
In
today's world, most Canadian lawyers will regularly
be
exposed
to
some aspect
of
international
or
foreign
law. Despite
its
growing impor-
tance,
however, many Canadian lawyers
may
lack
the
confidence
to
know that they
are
undertaking international
or
foreign
law
research
competently
and
thoroughly.
The
goal
of
this chapter
is to
introduce
international
and
foreign
legal research
and to
provide
a
good overview
of
relevant print
and
online resources
for
effectively
conducting inter-
national
and
foreign
legal
research.1
Material
in
this chapter
is
divided
into
the
following sections:
A.
The
importance
of
international
and
foreign
law
B.
Tips
for
conducting international
and
foreign
legal research
C.
Print
and
online
secondary
sources
of
international
law
D.
Print
and
online primary sources
of
international
law
E.
Researching
the
domestic laws
of
foreign
countries
E
Sample problems
and
suggested approaches
1
This
chapter incorporates,
with
permission,
material
from
Ted
Tjaden, "The Best
Online
Sources
for
International
and
Foreign Law"
in
Bonnie
Fish,
ed.,
You've
Got the
Whole
World
in
Your
Hands:
Using
the
Internet
to
Expand
the
Boundaries
of
Legal
Research (Toronto: Ontario
Bar
Association, 2004).
133
134
LEGAL
RESEARCH
AND
WRITING
A.
THE
IMPORTANCE
OF
INTERNATIONAL
AND
FOREIGN
LAW
Canadian
courts
are
increasingly looking
to
international treaties
and
conventions
as an
indication
of
standards
and
norms that should
be
applied
in
interpreting
and
applying Charter standards
in the
Canadi-
an
context. There
are
numerous
incidences
of
this
occurring.
In
Baker
v.
Canada
(Minister
of
Citizenship
and
Immigration),2
for
example,
Madam
Justice
LHeureux-Dube
wrote that "the values reflected
in
international
human rights
law may
help inform
the
contextual
approach
to
statutory interpretation
and
judicial
review,"3
even where,
as in
that decision,
the
Canadian Parliament
had not yet
implemented
the
Convention being considered. Likewise,
in
Suresh
v.
Canada
(Min-
ister
of
Citizenship
and
Immigration)
,4
the
Supreme Court
of
Canada
looked
to
international treaties dealing
with
the
prohibition
of
deport-
ing
persons
to
countries that allow torture
in
assessing whether
the
government
was
justified
in
deporting
a Sri
Lankan
refugee
to his
home
country where
he
might
be
tortured:
International
treaty
norms
are
not,
strictly
speaking,
binding
in
Cana-
da
unless
they
have
been
incorporated
into
Canadian
law by
enact-
ment.
However,
in
seeking
the
meaning
of the
Canadian
Constitution,
the
courts
may be
informed
by
international
law.
Our
concern
is not
with
Canada's
international
obligations
qua
obliga-
tions;
rather,
our
concern
is
with
the
principles
of
fundamental jus-
tice.
We
look
to
international
law as
evidence
of
these
principles
and
not as
controlling
in
itself.5
Likewise,
with
the
increase
in
global business
and
trade,
all
lawyers
will increasingly
be
required
to
have some familiarity with internation-
al
and
foreign law, regardless
of
their area
of
practice. This
can
range
from
international trade
issues
governed
by the
World Trade Organiza-
tion (WTO)
or the
North American
Free
Trade
Agreement
(NAFTA),
international intellectual property laws governed
by
World Intellectual
Property
Organization
(WIPO)
conventions, international environ-
mental treaties,
and
international
child
abduction conventions,
to
name
but a few
examples. Recent literature
in
Canada
and
abroad
is
2
[1999] 2S.C.R. 817.
3
Ibid.
1
70.
4
3.
5
Ibid.
1 60.
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