This comparative legal analysis evaluates the issue of terrorism and how it has been dealt with respectively by the United States and Israeli Supreme Courts. Since the events of 9/11, combating terrorism has become one of the primary concerns of the US government while it is a matter that has pervaded Israeli policy since its birth as a nation-state. The analysis is centered on examining how each state‘s Supreme Court has confronted the issue with the Israeli Supreme Court using a ―Business as Usual‖ model and the US taking an ―Emergency Powers‖ approach. It is argued that terrorism is an ongoing issue that cannot be justified as an emergency and the US Court would do better in adopting Israel‘s method of adjudication in these matters. It is also suggested that the US could learn from Israel‘s policy towards torture as the US policy has largely been cruel and unsuccessful.

Canadian Trusts and Panamanian Foundations of Private Interest are generally utilized as juridical vehicles through which a creator can designate a person to hold and administer property for the benefit and enjoyment of a beneficiary. Given the similarity of application of both vehicles, and taking into consideration that they emanate from separate juridical and judicial systems, it is pertinent to analytically compare them. As can be expected, there is a significant number of aspects through which Foundations of Private Interest and a Trusts can be compared. The following comparative analysis will be centered around three aspects: Asset ownership, creation mechanisms and the requirement of properly identifying beneficiaries. Preceding the aforementioned comparative analysis, a presentation and description of both legal vehicles will be provided in order to make the comparative analysis comprehensible and hopefully useful.

This paper explores parental alienation in custody and access litigation in Ontario, examining how parental alienation has been defined by various scholars, arguing in favour of the relevance of the term, and identifying a core definition which can be utilized in court. This paper also evaluates how Ontario courts have dealt with parental alienation claims to date, and identifies areas of weakness. Specifically, identification of, and response to, parental alienation is poor in cases where there are elements suggestive of both alienation and estrangement. Additionally, cases are not generally dealt with in a timely manner. Finally, this paper considers the possible benefits of youth acting as parties in parental alienation cases.

Canadian citizens’ inability to access courts has been a subject of controversy for decades. Despite widespread evidence that Canada’s legal aid system is faltering, governments continue to be unwilling to commit the resources necessary to remedy the problem. In this thesis, the author argues that people’s inability to access courts and obtain legal representation not only has implications for their rights and interests, but may also undermine judicial independence. Judicial independence, the author claims, is best understood as a variable bundle of rights, guarantees and powers conferred on courts and judges that preserves and enhances their abilities to adjudicate impartially, maintain a constitutional distribution of powers and uphold the rule of law. Since people’s inability to access courts can impair the judiciary’s ability to preserve these values, judicial independence is undermined. The author claims that it is possible to correct problems of inaccessibility by appointing state-funded counsel in appropriate circumstances.

This Note asserts that natural disaster-affected populations have a right to call on the international community to protect basic subsistence interests where their sovereign government is unable or unwilling to do so in the wake of a catastrophic natural disaster. First, this Note situates the right to international humanitarian assistance following a natural disaster as a legitimate right under modern international human rights law, using the normative framework set out by renowned political theorist Charles Beitz. This Note then illustrates how the international humanitarian law doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect provides a clear and coherent way to operationalize the right to post-natural disaster humanitarian assistance, by providing a previously-determined structure for a definitive, yet circumstantially-flexible, determination of first- and second-level responsibilities for eligible international actors to take action in defence of this right.

This paper examines two different theories in relation to the optimal modes of public deliberation about constitutional values and the public good in the context of democratic pluralism: Rawlsian Public Reason and Nedelsky’s Enlarged Mentality. I challenge Rawlsian public reason’s claim to epistemic abstinence, autonomy and its claim to reflect a political conception of justice by examining certain contradictory aspects of its theoretical rendition. I argue that significant aspects of the picture of democracy that Rawlsian public reason reflects are unempirical. I argue that Rawlsian public reason’s concept of bracketing moral and religious argumentation from public deliberation is unjustifiable, unattainable and derogates from Canadian constitutional values. I proffer that Nedelsky’s enlarged mentality is preferable as it is more realistic and consonant with Canadian constitutional values. I argue that Nedelsky’s enlarged mentality is facilitative of genuine and meaningful dialogic exchange in spite of difference whilst managing the risk of democratic instability.

The concepts of sovereignty and legal personality in Islamic Law and Western Law are fundamentally different. Under Islamic law sovereignty belongs to Allah and the ruler is the agent of the Ummah. His function is to implement, rather than make the law. Western law assigns sovereignty to the state. The state has complete monopoly over the law making process, giving validity to which under Islamic law was the domain of the doctrinal schools. Furthermore, the birth of the nation-state has changed the structure in which traditional Islamic law operated which has now been forcefully restricted in its scope. The concept of ‘asabiyya is different from the concept of nation. The former is a natural phenomenon while the latter has been imposed upon the Ummah. If certain changes are made to the way that the modern state operates, it can function as an administrative tool that serves the Ummah.

The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive ("AIFMD"), adopted by the European Union on 11 November 2010, has introduced a harmonized set of rules for alternative investment funds (“AIFs”) in Europe. This thesis discusses potential financial risks for the AIFs industry arising from the European regulatory reform, which started before the current financial crisis, and compares relevant European, Canadian and US rules governing AIFs. This comparative analysis is based on four main criteria: i) registration and authorization requirements, ii) general financial transparency requirements, iii) capital requirements, and iv) remuneration restrictions. The analysis of AIFs regulatory reform in Europe leads to three main conclusions. First, the AIFMD requirements are much stricter than analogue regimes in Canada and the United States. Second, as a consequence of this regulation, European AIFs may be in disadvantage. Third, the complexity of the present European institutional framework is not able to fully implement the European regulatory reform.

This thesis is an attempt to consider some of the challenges facing the regime of international commercial arbitration (ICA) in the contemporary global economy. It examines the governance mechanism of the regime of ICA in a globalizing economy. The thesis seeks to analyze the process of harmonization of the law of ICA with particular reference to availability of interim measures from court. In particular, the analytical focus is on how the globalizing economy affects the requirement of “court-ordered interim measures” in the arbitration process and how international arbitral regime attempts to cope with such changing demand of the globalizing economy. The thesis emphasizes the importance of harmonizing the national laws on the above-mentioned issue through ratifying international conventions as opposed to formulation of non-mandatory UNCITRAL Model Law.

The International Commission on Intervention on State Sovereignty was established with the intent of articulating more robust guidelines on how the international community should respond to humanitarian crises. In 2001, the Commission released its official report in which it proposed the creation of new concept called the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). R2P sought to make nations more willing to address humanitarian crises. This thesis examines how the concept of R2P has the potential of impacting state behaviour. Through examining its normative evolution and current impact on state behaviour, this thesis argues that while the concept clearly has led to an increase political will to react, it is occasionally limited by the surrounding political realities.