Introduction

• Author: Gib van Ert
• Pages: 1-12

 Introduction

Canada’s achievement of independence in international af‌fairs is a fact

to which Canadian l aw is still reconciling itself. For decades after the

inception of confederation in , and i n the centuries of embryonic

development before that, international relations and the laws that gov-

ern them were no concern of ours. e origin al inhabitants of t hese

lands were, of course, unaware of European conceptions of the law of

nations, though pa rallels existed in their own lega l traditions. e ar-

rival of the colonists did not add much to the stock of internat ional

legal thinking here, for the newcomers mostly ig nored the precepts

of their ow n international laws or, when they did turn t heir minds to

the matter, invoked suc h internat ional l aw doctr ines as occupation

and prescription to their own advantage. Some recognition of the na-

tion-to-nation context of a boriginal-colonial relations can be seen in

the use of the internationa l law term “treaty” to describe agreements

between the indigenous and newcomer populations. Yet as British con-

trol of these lands sol idif‌ied, any suggestion of aborig inal sovereignty,

as that concept was understood in international law, was loudly de-

nied or quietly ignored. A lso rejected for a time were the occasional

colonial cl aims to self-government, partly for fear th at if the imperial

authorities ceded control of the colonies’ domestic a f‌fairs they would

eventually have to grant externa l independence, too. Such fears proved

well-founded. In , Canada f‌inally gained full statehood under inter-

national law. Yet centuries of relative isolation from inter national law

left the Canadian bench and bar unprepared for the duties of statehood

which C anada had now assumed. As late as , one senses incredu-

lity in the banal declaration of the Supreme Court of Ca nada in the

