I guess it would be contemplated that the European Union would abide by international trade or World Trade Organization rules and not conduct an illegal ban of seals, but our contemplation doesn't seem to be having much effect on them because of what Canada--your government and my government--feels is an illegal trade ban on seals. And I don't think we should expect any different behaviour from the European Union or any other NAFO member state, for that matter, if this prescribed rule of law, the NAFO revised convention, specifically provides them with a method of objecting, fishing unilaterally and fishing unilaterally until such a time as the ad hoc panel reports--which you say is four to six months--and then availing themselves of all the tools and options available under article XV.
Now, article XIV, paragraph 2 specifically tells me, and everybody else in this room, that the objection procedure is still very much there and that any country that objects--any NAFO member state, any contracting party that objects--does not have to play by the NAFO rules; it is written right into the revised convention.
Article XV tells me that they have a whole host of tools available to them to keep the objection going. In fact, we heard testimony this morning--you may have been present at the foreign affairs committee--that one example of exactly this procedure was the Gulf of Maine circumstance, where Canada and the U.S. agreed to send it to the UNCLOS procedure, which is the International Court of Justice, which is exactly what is being prescribed here, and the matter took three years to resolve before that binding decision came down.
The interesting thing about this is that decisions are reached in NAFO on an annual basis. How can this be binding in a timely way, given that factual reality?