John E. Read Medal
The John E. Read Medal is awarded by the CCIL to commemorate the life and work of John Erskine Read, O.C., Q.C., a distinguished Canadian lawyer and the only Canadian judge elected to the International Court of Justice.
The Read Medal is awarded to Canadians (including permanent residents of Canada), who have made a distinguished contribution in fostering the development, better understanding, or application of international law. The Read Medal is also awarded to other individuals who have made an outstanding contribution in fostering the development, better understanding, or application of international law in fields of special interest to Canada.
About John E. Read, O.C., Q.C.
John E. Read was the first recipient of the Medal awarded by the Canadian Council on International Law. He was a Rhodes Scholar and a Professor and Dean of Law at Dalhousie University in the 1920s. He served as the first Legal Advisor of the Department of External Affairs and rose to be Deputy UnderSecretary of State (1928-46). Professor Read was a major contributor to the doctrine of the divisibility of the Crown and seized on opportunities to extend Canada’s legal independence.
Professor Read was an expert in constitutional and international law and wrote “The Origins and Nature of the Law” (1955) and “The Rule of Law on the International Plane” (1961). He served as a Judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague (1946-58). In 1967, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his services in the profession of law".
Dean Ronald St. John Macdonald (right), then President of the CCIL, presents the inaugural John E. Read Medal to John E. Read (left) on October 13, 1972 during the First Annual Conference of the CCIL in Ottawa.
2026 Recipient
The Canadian Council on International Law (CCIL) was honoured to present the 2026 Read Medal Award to Mr. Paolo Solano at its 55th Annual Conference which was held October 29-30, 2026 in Ottawa.
Paolo Solano
Paolo Solano Tovar is a senior international lawyer with more than 25 years of experience at the interface of international trade and environmental law, including nearly two decades at the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) in Montréal. The CEC is a treaty-based intergovernmental institution established by Canada, Mexico, and the United States under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and continued under Chapter 24 of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) and the Environmental Cooperation Agreement. Since 2006, he has served in the CEC's Office of Legal Affairs, first as Legal Officer in the Submissions on Enforcement Matters (SEM) Unit and, since 2020, as Director of Legal Affairs of SEM. SEM is a treaty-based accountability mechanism established under Articles 14-15 of the NAAEC and continued under Articles 24.27–24.28 of CUSMA. The public and NGOs can make submissions to SEM asserting that a Party has failed to effectively enforce its environmental law. Each submission moves through a structured process: Secretariat review, government response, and, where warranted, a factual record. This process directly links public participation to enforcement and accountability.
Mr. Solano has made a distinguished contribution to international law and organizations in three main ways: through his sustained stewardship of SEM, through the interpretation and application of international law, and as a result of his diffusion and awareness-raising of international environmental law.
Over nearly two decades, Mr. Solano has helped direct, sustain, and modernize the SEM process (including determinations, notifications, and factual records) and advised the Council, Secretariat, and member governments on institutional, procedural, and substantive questions. He led SEM's legal transition from NAFTA/NAAEC to CUSMA, modernized internal legal policies, preserved the process's neutrality, and created the CEC Environmental Defenders Protocol, the first framework of its kind among trilateral environmental treaty organizations.
 CCIL Awards Presentation | L to R: CCIL President Charles-Emmanuel Côté, Committee Chair Valerie Oosterveld, 2026 Recipient Paolo Solano |
|---|