Law Commons^™

Constituting Bodies Into The Future: Toward A Relational Theory Of Intergenerational Justice, Jessica Eisen, Roxanne Mykitiuk, Dayna Scott

Dayna N. Scott

Questions of justice now unfurl on spatial and temporal scales at once global and microscopic, immediate and spanning through the ages. Legal and political concepts of causation and responsibility are complicated and reconfigured by our growing awareness of the intergenerational consequences of contemporary choices. In this context, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development ("Standing Committee") recently recommended that the Government of Canada create "an advocate for Canada's future generations."' The Standing Committee's report expressly cites growing transnational and international attention to the demands of "intergenerational equity''. noting that various jurisdictions have experimented with institutional committees …

The Abstract Subject Of The Climate Migrant: Displaced By The Rising Tides Of The Green Energy Economy, Dayna Scott, Adrian A. Smith

Dayna N. Scott

A controversial proposal to build the mammoth ‘Site C’ dam on the Peace River in northwestern Canada offers an opportunity to explore the intersections of climate and migration issues under debate in international environmental governance circles. Site C threatens to flood traditional fishing spots and traplines of Indigenous peoples in the name of the ‘green energy’ economy. We consider how people displaced by renewable energy projects justified as climate mitigation policies might constitute a different kind of ‘climate refugee’ in that they are ‘displaced without moving’ – the connections between the land and the people are severed to the extent …

“Sacrifice Zones” In The Green Energy Economy: Toward An Environmental Justice Framework, Dayna Scott, Adrian A. Smith

Dayna N. Scott

The environmental justice movement validates the grassroots struggles of residents of places which Steve Lerner refers to as “sacrifice zones”: low-income and racialized communities shouldering more than their fair share of environmental harms related to pollution, contamination, toxic waste, and heavy industry. On this account, disparities in wealth and power, often inscribed and re-inscribed through social processes of racialization, are understood to produce disparities in environmental burdens. Here, we attempt to understand how these dynamics are shifting in the green energy economy under settler colonial capitalism. We consider the possibility that the political economy of green energy contains its own …

These Chemicals Are Bad For Babies And Whales: Why Haven't They Been Banned In Canada?, Dayna Scott, Lara Tessaro

Dayna N. Scott

A federal agency in the United States took action last month to ban an entire class of toxic flame retardants from being added to a wide variety of consumer products, from baby toys to televisions. It’s a first for the U.S. — and it could be done in Canada too.

In its review of the science, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found there was “overwhelming” evidence that halogenated flame retardants, also known as organohalogens, present a “serious public health issue.” As a result, these flame retardants will be prohibited in all children’s products and toys (but not car seats), …

Law As Local Knowledge, Dayna Scott

Dayna N. Scott

This is a review of Earthly Politics: Local and Global in Environmental Governance Ed. Sheila Jasanoff and Marybeth Long Martello. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004.

Book Review: Living In A Contaminated World: Community Structures, Environmental Risks And Decision Frameworks, Dayna Scott

Dayna N. Scott

This is a book review of Living in a Contaminated World: Community Structures, Environmental Risks and Decision Frameworks. Ed. Ellen Omohundro. Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2004.

Investment Treaties And The Internal Vetting Of Regulatory Proposals: A Case Study From Canada, Gus Van Harten, Dayna Nadine Scott

Dayna N. Scott

In this paper, we report findings on whether trade and investment agreements that allow for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) contribute to regulatory chill. The study focused on whether ISDS contributed to changes in internal vetting of government decisions related to environmental protection in the province of Ontario, Canada. Our main source of information was confidential interviews with insiders, mostly current or former officials in ministries with an environmental or trade mandate. We aimed to advance understanding of litigation risk and government decision-making with a focus on ISDS.

Carbon Sinks Science And The Preservation Of Old Growth Forests Under The Kyoto Protocol, Dayna Scott

Dayna N. Scott

The structure of the mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol with respect to "carbon sinks," may be integrated so as to place incentives on national governments that counter recent progress made towards the preservation of old-growth forests. A focus on the element carbon fails to recognize values other than sequestration that standing forests can provide. For example, an approach that strictly seeks to increase the rate of fixation of atmospheric carbon will favour replacing old-growth forests with monocultural plantations of trees. The international community, in implementing these mechanisms, may frustrate other environmental initiatives such as the conservation of endangered species habitat …

Carbon Sinks Science And The Preservation Of Old Growth Forests Under The Kyoto Protocol, Dayna Scott

Dayna N. Scott

The structure of the mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol with respect to "carbon sinks," may be integrated so as to place incentives on national governments that counter recent progress made towards the preservation of old-growth forests. A focus on the element carbon fails to recognize values other than sequestration that standing forests can provide. For example, an approach that strictly seeks to increase the rate of fixation of atmospheric carbon will favour replacing old-growth forests with monocultural plantations of trees. The international community, in implementing these mechanisms, may frustrate other environmental initiatives such as the conservation of endangered species habitat …

Situating Sarnia: Unimagined Communities In The National Energy Debate, Dayna Scott

Dayna N. Scott

No abstract provided.

Body Polluted: Questions Of Scale, Gender, And Remedy, Dayna Nadine Scott

Dayna N. Scott

This Article offers a critique of tort remedies grounded in feminist theory of the body. It demonstrates how tort law is invested in a notion of an individuated legal subject, which fails to capture the critical interconnectedness of bodies in a social, political, historical, and colonial context. Taking the "injury" of endocrine disruption in a Canadian Aboriginal community as an example of a contemporary pollution harm, the analysis considers various torts on a conceptual level, and what they might offer the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in the way of remedies. In each case, what the tort can do depends on how …

Risky Pregnancy: Liability, Blame, And Insurance In The Governance Of Prenatal Harm, Roxanne Mykitiuk, Dayna Nadine Scott

Dayna N. Scott

Feminist theory has exposed the body of the pregnant woman as one that is continuously made into the object of analysis and regulation, and feminist scholars have sought to understand the evolving contestation over the boundary between the woman and the fetus: the life sometimes conceptualized as part of her and other times as carried with her. Together, they are "not-one-but-not-two". "Always marked by race, class and ability" as Johnson notes, "the pregnant body is sometimes celebrated, sometimes reviled", and, as we will argue, always judged.

Law's Slow Violence Workshop, Rob Nixon, Dayna Nadine Scott

Dayna N. Scott

Osgoode Hall Law School hosts "Law's Slow Violence Workshop" with Rob Nixon, Rachel Carson Professor of English from the University of Wisconsin. With a response from Professor Dayna Scott of Osgoode Hall Law School.

Confronting Chronic Pollution: A Socio-Legal Analysis Of Risk And Precaution, Dayna Nadine Scott

Dayna N. Scott

The central aim of this article is to demonstrate a socio-legal approach to risk and precaution using the example of chronic pollution. Drawing on ongoing empirical work with the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, which is tucked into Sarnia's "Chemical Valley," a secondary aim is to influence and shape how we understand the problem and confront the risks of chronic pollution. This article forwards the argument that the prevailing regulatory approach is incapable of capturing the essence of contemporary pollution harms, because those harms are increasingly linked to continuous, routine, low-dose exposures to contaminants that are within legally sanctioned limits. Community residents …

Nature/Culture Clash: The Transnational Trade In Gmos, Dayna Scott

Dayna N. Scott

This paper aims to offer a fresh perspective into what is at stake in the cross-cultural trade dispute over genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) by subjecting a particular discursive sample, the parties’ submissions to the WTO panel, to critical scrutiny. The first step involves a survey of the rhetorical strategies deployed by the parties’ in the presentation of their arguments to the Panel. Next, I embark on the task of ‘disassembling the double helix’. My use of the term ‘double helix’ in this analysis refers to the close coupling of scientific and legal discourses in the trade regime: science and law are …

Fossil Capitalism & The Implications Of The New Pipeline Proposals For Environmental Justice In Canada, Dayna Nadine Scott

Dayna N. Scott

Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Dayna Scott employs the concept of "networked infrastructures" drawn from the literature in critical geography to reveal the environmental justice implications of the coast-to-coast crude oil network that is currently being contemplated in Canada. Her talk was delivered on January 30, 2013 as part of the Osgoode Faculty Research Seminar Series.

Gender-Benders': Sex And Law In The Constitution Of Polluted Bodies, Dayna Nadine Scott

Dayna N. Scott

This paper explores how law might conceive of the injury or harm of endocrine disruption as it applies to an aboriginal community experiencing chronic chemical pollution. The effect of the pollution in this case is not only gendered, but gendering: it seems to be causing the ‘production’ of two girl babies for every boy born on the reserve. This presents an opening to interrogate how law is implicated in the constitution of not just gender but sex. The analysis takes an embodied turn, attempting to validate the real and material consequences of synthetic chemicals acting on bodies — but uncovers …