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International Recognition in the SupremeCourt of Canada’s QuébecReference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Daniel Turp  and
Gibran van Ert
Daniel Turp
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
Gibran van Ert
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

In its August 1998 reference, Reference Re Secession ofQuébec, the Supreme Court of Canada discussed thetopic of the international recognition of Québec.The authors argue that the Court is incorrect in itssuggestion that recognition is a precondition forstatehood, confusing legal and political factors. Inthe authors’ view, the introduction of the conceptof international recognition by the Court is anattempt to provide a sanction against unilateralsecession and to back up the Court’s view that thereis an obligation to negotiate any departure byQuébec. The result, the authors consider, isunsatisfying for it leads the Court into legal errorand political conjecture.

Sommaire

Sommaire

Dans le renvoi d’août 1998, Renvoi relatif à lasécession du Québec, la Cour suprême duCanada s’est penchée sur la question de lareconnaissance internationale du Québec. Selon lesauteurs, la Cour a eu tort de suggérer que lareconnaissance représente un préalable àl’indépendance, mélant ainsi les facteurs de naturejuridique et politique. En introduisant le conceptde reconnaissance internationale, la Cour, de l’avisdes auteurs, a tenté de condamner indirectement leprocessus de sécession unilatérale et d’appuyer saprémisse que des négociations doivent précéder lasécession du Québec. Il en a résulté, selon lesauteurs, une suite d’erreurs juridiques et deconjectures politiques.

Type
Notes and Comments / Notes etcommentaires
Information
Canadian Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international , Volume 36 , 1998 , pp. 335 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © The Canadian Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international 1998 

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References

1 Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217 [hereinafter Reference and quoted by paragraph].

2 Hogg, Peter, “The Secession Reference: The Duty to Negotiate,” unpublished paper presented to the 1998 Constitutional Cases conference, Osgoode Hall Law School (Apr. 16, 1999) at 5.Google Scholar

3 Reference, supra note 1 at paras. 32 and 52.

4 Ibid., para. 69.

5 Ibid., para. 84.

6 Ibid, para. 88.

7 Ibid., para. 90.

8 Ibid., para. 87.

9 Ibid., para. 87. This approves the longstanding Québec sovereignist argument that, legally, the government of Québec need not wait until it has won a refer-endum in order to initiate negotiations for Québec’s withdrawal from Confederation.

10 Ibid., para. 87. Note that this statement is subject to the Court’s references to a “clear majority” and a “clear question,” which we do not propose to address here.

11 Ibid., para. 69.

12 Ibid., para. 87.

13 Ibid., para. 95.

14 On recognition, see generally Verhoeven, J., La reconnaissance internationale dans la pratique contemporaine (Paris: Pedone, 1975)Google Scholar and Verhoeven, J., “La reconnaissance internationale: déclin et renouveau” (1993) 33 Annuaire français de droit international 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 The Arbitration Commission established by the International Conference on Yugoslavia gave strong support to the declaratory theory in its Opinion No. 1, in which it declared that “the existence or disappearance of the state is a question of fact” and that “the effects of recognition by other states are purely declaratory”: (1993) 92 I.L.R. at 162, 165.

16 Pellet, Alain and Daillier, Patrick, Droit international public 534 (5th ed., Paris: LGDJ, 1994).Google Scholar There is, however, an obligation upon states not to recognize new states created by the illegal use of force: ibid., 537.

17 Reference, supra note 1 at para. 103.

18 On these criteria, see Crawford, James, The; Creation of States in International Law ch. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979).Google Scholar

19 At para. 143, (Reference, supra note 1), the Court observes that “[t]he process of recognition, once considered to be an exercise of pure sovereign discretion, has come to be associated with legal norms.” The opinion cites, but does not quote from, the European Community Declaration on the Guidelines on the Recognition of New States in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, [igg2] 31 I.L.M. 1485 at 1487. The EC guidelines are arguably political, rather than legal, norms. In any case they include no mention of legitimacy.

20 Reference, supra note 1 at para. 106.

21 Ibid. See also a similar statement at para. 155.

22 Crawford, supra note 18 at 74, 23.

23 Reference, supra note 1 at para. 142.

24 Ibid., para. 143.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid., para. 110.

27 Ibid., para. 144.

28 Ibid., para. 146.

29 Crawford, supra note 18 at 249.

30 Reference, supra note 1 at para. 103.

31 Cairns, Alain C., “The Quebec Secession Reference: The Constitutional Obligation to Negotiate” (1998) 10 Constitutional Forum 6 at 8.Google Scholar

32 Reference, supra note 1 at para. 26.

33 Ibid.., para. 28.