CCIL Winter Meeting 2027 - Call for Proposals
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The Canadian Council on International Law (CCIL), in partnership with the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law (UNB Law), invites proposals for papers or panels in relation to the theme of the CCIL’s inaugural Winter Meeting: Atlantic Canada and International Law: From Regional Perspectives to Global Contributions.
Atlantic Canada has a profound, if often under-recognized, relationship with international law. The region produced John Peters Humphrey of Hampton, New Brunswick — the Canadian drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — and John E. Read of Halifax, Nova Scotia — the only Canadian ever elected to a permanent seat of the International Court of Justice. The St. Croix River, forming the international boundary between New Brunswick and Maine since the 1794 Jay Treaty, was the subject of the first modern international arbitration. Even the UNB Fredericton Campus was the forum for the Newfoundland – Nova Scotia maritime boundary arbitration – an arbitration which applied international law and was presided over by former Justice La Forest of the Supreme Court of Canada and Cambridge Whewell Professor of International Law James Crawford. Today, Atlantic Canada sits on major ocean shipping lanes, sustains internationally regulated fisheries and coastal industries, is home to Indigenous nations with transboundary rights, is the seat of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization in Halifax is acutely exposed to the legal consequences of climate change, and trade wars, and shares land and maritime borders with the United States and European states. These histories, legacies, and relationships have made critical and lasting contributions to public international law as practiced in both Canada and around the globe.
Despite these contributions and live contemporary issues, the region's distinct perspective remains underrepresented in national and international legal discourse — a gap which speaks to broader conceptual silences in international legal discourse on sub-national perspectives on international law. This meeting will thus celebrate the legacies of international law in Atlantic Canada through papers, panels and keynotes that engage with contemporary international legal issues of pressing and practical concern to the region. It aims to do so in a concrete manner, with practice-oriented relevance.
Meeting Date: March 11-13, 2027
Meeting Location: University of New Brunswick, Faculty of Law,
Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Deadline to submit: October 22, 2026
For a full description of the Call for Proposals, download the detailed Call for Proposals below.
