Board Member Spotlight: Maryam Abdelaal

Name: Maryam Abdelaal

Occupation: Law Student, uOttawa Faculty of Law (currently) and Judicial Law Clerk, Federal Court (as of August 2026).

Predominant practice area: As a judicial law clerk, I will work on files within the Federal Court’s jurisdiction, including intellectual property law, environmental law, as well as refugee and immigration law.

What have been the most interesting developments in international law or your area of international law?

"Something I've been drawn to through my studies is the question of how international law

plays out in domestic legal contexts, and environmental law has become a particularly

compelling lens for that. In working on a paper in class, I've looked at how international

climate agreements like the Paris Agreement can function as normative frameworks in

domestic courts. Litigants have begun invoking it not as a directly enforceable instrument, but as an interpretive anchor for establishing the standard of care owed by fossil fuel companies. Cases like Milieudefensie v Shell seem to reflect a broader shift worth paying attention to where international climate obligations are quietly permeating tort and corporate law in ways that blur the line between soft international commitment and concrete legal accountability. What I find most interesting is how courts appear to be constructing that normative bridge independently, and whether the Paris Agreement might be evolving into something beyond what it was intended to be."