La liberté d’expression en 2010: une perspective tournée vers l’avenir

À notre époque, une société démocratique a nécessairement besoin des médias afin de développer une culture démocratique. La population généralise ses expériences, apprend ce qui se passe dans le monde et dans sa communauté ainsi qu’elle prend conscience que la parole de son gouvernement n’est pas toujours gage de vérité au travers des médias[1]. Ils sont donc une des pierres angulaires de la vie démocratique et malgré leurs défauts, il serait bien difficile de s’en passer puisqu’ils permettent à la population de participer aux débats sur l’élaboration des politiques du gouvernement[2]. Lors de sa première session, en 1946, l’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies a d’ailleurs tenu à rappeler l’importance de bâtir une société où la liberté d’expression est à l’avant-plan, déclarant dans la Résolution 59(1) que « la liberté de l’information est un droit fondamental de l’homme et la pierre de touche de toutes les libertés à la défense desquelles se consacrent les Nations Unies ». Afin de mieux comprendre le lien étroit unissant le droit à la liberté d’expression, les médias et le système démocratique dans notre société, il faut d’abord se pencher sur l’étendu de ce droit, le régime de protection dont il bénéficie en vertu du droit international des droits humains et les défis auxquels il sera amené à faire face dans notre société en constante évolution et au sein de laquelle l’internet et les technologies de l’information ne cessent…

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Culmination of the 2009-2010 Blogging Year

I am very please to announce that Legal Frontiers has been awarded the McGill Law Students Association Award for Clubs 2009-2010, for the group’s “outstanding contributions to the Faculty community through the organization of events and activities this year.” Congratulations the all the members of Legal Frontiers who made this year a success at the McGill Faculty of Law. I extend my full gratitude to all the contributors of Legal Frontier, whose writings constantly engaged our public readership: Brett, Daniel Haboucha, Larissa, Lee, Todd, Alexandra, Philip, Avidan, Yeniva, Jenna, Erin, Emily, and Silvia, Daniel King, and Andrew. Further, my gratitude to our coordinators, whose behind the scenes work served as the thread, which facilitated the seamless day-to-day running of the blog: Leo and James.

As the academic year comes to an end, it is time to the pass the reigns onto a new group of students. I am very pleased to announce that the 2010-2011 Contributor-in-Chief will be our own Yeniva Massaquoi. She will be assisted by the incoming Executive Contributor, Martin Hétu, who is newly joining the Legal Frontiers team. I am confident that under their leadership, Legal Frontiers will reach new heights in the coming year.

I also want to assure our valued readers that we will be continuing to blog throughout the summer months (May-August). Since many students have work and travel plans during the summer, our goal will be the post…

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Habitual Residence and the 1996 Hague Child Protection Convention

The Hague Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Cooperation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children (“the Convention”) entered into force on 1 January 2002.  Why the long name?  The drafters wanted to clarify the four aims of the Convention and thereby avoid confusion that would result from a shorter name.

With 19 Contracting Parties and 28 signatories so far, and more on the way, this multilateral treaty will likely play a major role in future cross-border parental responsibility cases.  This post examines the Convention’s purpose and functioning and, in particular, the habitual residence’s role in determining jurisdiction.

The Explanatory Report by Paul Lagarde provides detailed information about the Convention.  The Hague Conference on Private International Law’s 17^th Session set up a Special Commission to draft a treaty for the protection of children to update its 1961 predecessor and conform to the 1993 Convention on the Rights of the Child.  Completed during the 18^th Session in 1996, the Convention addresses a broader scope of parental responsibility issues than the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention.

Parental responsibility determinations begin with jurisdiction.  The Convention broadly defines parental responsibility as “parental authority, or any analogous relationship of authority determining the rights, powers and responsibilities of parents, guardians or other legal representatives in relation to the person or the property of the child” (see Art. 1, ¶ 2).

The key jurisdictional factor in these parental responsibility matters…

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Dean’s Welcome

À la faculté de droit de l’Université McGill, le droit s’écrit chaque jour sur une foule de supports : dissertations, courriels, notes de cours, textos, cahiers d’examen, articles scientifiques, conversations dans les corridors et petits billets manuscrits.  Chaque étudiant est un chercheur et un auteur en puissance, tout autant que les professeurs qui font carrière à la faculté.  The Legal Frontiers initiative builds on this extraordinary potential and offers a welcome venue for the otherwise ephemeral scholarship that emerges everyday within our walls.  The Faculty salutes with great pride the creation by McGill Law students of a new forum for serious debate on the most pressing issues of the day in international law and politics.  Students at McGill are invited to think about the world around them from a plurality of perspectives, and to imagine legal scholarship as a distinctive and powerful discourse within the humanities.  No doubt this blog will highlight the unique insight of these students, and the wisdom that arises from the dialog of cultures, traditions and commitments that they bring to life within their legal education in this Faculty.  J’offre mes félicitations aux étudiants et étudiantes en droit de la faculté de droit de l’Université McGill à l’occasion du lancement de ce blog,  qui fera désormais le pont entre la longue tradition d’excellence en droit international à McGill et la voix caractéristique d’une nouvelle génération d’auteurs et de…

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Official Launch of Legal Frontiers

I am pleased to welcome you all to Legal Frontiers. Legal Frontiers is a forum where McGill law students can develop and improve their research and writing skills while contributing to international legal discourse.

The goal of Legal Frontiers is to create a scholarly, social network where students interested in International law can identify key issues and challenges; test new theories; and draw attention to important causes, cases or alternative points of view. Having been inspired by a wide variety of legal blogs, we aspire to promote an emerging genre of writing, which we like to call “academic blogging”. We started this project because we believe that it is of the utmost importance to encourage students to actively engage with issues beyond the classroom, develop their own opinions, and learn how to clearly and effectively argue them.

This blog has been a work-in-progress for the past several months. The comments and support of several professors in the initial planning stages were particularly helpful; I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professors Frédéric Mégret, Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse, and Víctor Muñiz-Fraticelli.

This year, our blogging community includes 18 students from the Faculty. I invite you to read our entries from last semester and those that are forthcoming. For the remainder of the semester, entries will appear every weekday. I encourage you, the reader (and perhaps critic), to actively participate by commenting on our entries. Your opinions are just…

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