If the name Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab doesn’t ring a bell, you might know him better as the “Christmas Day bomber”. On December 25, Abdulmutallab managed to avoid the “rigorous” airline security in Amsterdam and boarded Flight 253 heading to Detroit with explosives strapped to his underwear. As Flight 253 began its descent towards Detroit, Abdulmutallab [...]

In light of what is going on across the pond these days, it behooves us to pay attention to what happens where you fail to separate state and religion. Though to be honest, when your head of state also serves as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, such an exercise might be somewhat difficult. [...]

In September, Abousfian Abdelrazik filed a civil suit against federal government officials seeking damages for the violation of his s. 6 Charter rights. In a June decision, Zinn J. of the Federal Court, in ordering the federal government to effect Mr. Abdelrazik’s return home after he had lived in the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum for [...]

TheCourt.ca is pleased to present this piece from John H. Currie, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, commenting on Canada v. Khadr, 2008 SCC 28. Our past discussion on the 2008 Khadr decision can be found here. On May 23, 2008, the Supreme Court released a judgment addressing the applicability of [...]

On September 18, the Superior Court of Quebec released its decision in the novel and intriguing case of Bil’in (Village Council) v. Green Park International Ltd., 2009 QCCS 4151. The plaintiffs sought to claim against a Quebec corporation and its sole director for participating in war crimes allegedly committed in the West Bank. However, Superior [...]

Editorial Note: This post is the first of a series on the Supreme Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal’s jurisprudence on the application of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to conduct outside Canada. The series will emphasize these courts’ broader understandings (or misunderstandings) of the reception of international law by Canadian [...]

As my colleague James Gotowiec rightly points out, the reasoning of the trial judge in Prime Minister et al v. Omar Khadr, 2009 FC 405, upheld by the majority of the Federal Court of Appeal, is weak and unconvincing. The ratio of the trial judgment can be described as follows: although Khadr is in US [...]

On April 13, 2006, the Federal Court of Australia released its judgment in the case Australian Communications and Media Authority v. Clarity1 Pty Ltd [2006] FCA 410. This decision is an important step in the fight against spam in Australia, being the first successful prosecution by the regulator, Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), for [...]

Former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour has been selected as the next President and CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG). Founded in 1995, the ICG is one of the world’s leading non-partisan think tanks on deadly international conflict. It provides governments and intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank with field-based [...]

Last Friday, the SCC delivered their decision in Teck Cominco Metals v. Lloyd’s Underwriter’s, 2009 SCC 11. The private international law decision dealt with Teck Cominco’s attempt to have proceedings in British Columbia stayed because of an assertion of jurisdiction over the same matter in a U.S. Court. In a unanimous decision penned by McLachlin [...]