Law Commons^™

The Super Panel Doctrine

UBC Law Review

No abstract provided.

New Puzzles In International Tax Agreements, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

The G7’s “global minimum tax” accord—followed by a new version of the OECD’s “Two Pillar Solution” and its endorsement by the G20—is accepted by many as evidence for international tax cooperation. But recent policy discussions offer no answer to a basic question: What can countries cooperate to achieve? This Article shows that the answers provided by proponents of the new international tax agreement are alarmingly ad hoc, misleading, and incoherent. Scholarship on corporate taxation has also long failed to identify potentials for international cooperation. The more successful international agreements purport to be, therefore, the more puzzling they become. I …

What Does China Want From International Tax Reform?, Wei Cui

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In this article, the author examines China’s possible response to recent global efforts to reach consensus on international tax reform — particularly, a minimum corporate tax rate.

Will The New Global Tax Agreement Benefit The World?, Wei Cui

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The world has been abuzz lately with news of major global agreements within reach to reform international taxation. Countries in the G-7, G-20, and the even more impressive “Inclusive Framework”—a group of 139 countries convened by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—appear to be joining hands to end corporate tax competition and multinationals’ tax avoidance. Though many warn that the path to ultimate accord is arduous and depends on details, the declared goals of these efforts command broad public support.

Making Regulation Robust In The Innovation Era, Cristie Ford

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The next few years in regulatory history will be pivotal.

On one hand, we are witnessing renewed interest in robust state action in the economy and society. Battered by a poorly managed global pandemic and the undeniable persistence of racism and discrimination; terrified about the consequences of climate change; having suffered through years of political tumult and populist anger following a disastrous financial crisis; and having recognized once again that there is more to a person’s value than their economic productivity – it seems clear that over recent decades, public policy swung too far away from the humane, collective, and …

Cle Working Paper No.2/2021--Defending Nature Against Rodenticides, Marie Turcott

Centre for Law and the Environment

Anticoagulant rodenticides (i.e., rat poisons) are highly toxic compounds that have been recognized for decades to have devastating effects on wildlife species and the wider ecosystem. In this paper, I argue that the continued use of anticoagulant rodenticides is entirely inconsistent with the provincial and federal governments' obligations to citizens and the environment under their respective pesticide legislation, and that the governments' failure to fulfill these obligations is due in part to the refusal to acknowledge rights of nature. I provide an overview of the current statutory and regulatory framework for pesticides in Canada and examine the practical effects of …

Nos Disparus - W. Wesley Pue, Douglas C. Harris

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In April 2019, the Allard School of Law lost one of its most enthusiastic, innovative and generous scholars when Professor W. Wesley Pue passed away after liv- ing courageously with cancer for four years. His con- tributions to the law school and the University of British Columbia over 25 years of dedicated service were many and his impact profound.

Cle Working Paper No.1/2021--Grassroots And Litigation-Based Approaches To Advancing Indigenous Rights: Lessons From Extractive Industry Resistance In Mesoamerica, Justin Wiebe

Centre for Law and the Environment

Indigenous peoples are frequently recognized as excellent stewards of their traditional territories. These territories, which often exhibit extraordinary levels of biodiversity, face disproportionate and growing threats from extractive industry. In opposing these threats, Indigenous peoples increasingly rely on internationally-defined Indigenous rights, including those set out in UNDRIP and ILO Convention 169. It is uncertain, however, how these rights are most effectively advanced. In this paper, I tease out strategies — both grassroots-based and litigation-based — that show promise in this regard. Drawing on Waorani resistance to an oil auction in Ecuador and Indigenous resistance to a large-scale mining project in …

Compulsory Conjugality, Erez Aloni

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What happens when the state changes the default rules that govern financial obligations between unmarried partners from opt in to opt out? Most states have an opt-in rule: unmarried partners do not take on financial obligations of one another unless they agree to do so with a contract. Nevertheless, advocates argue that an opt-out system puts the burden in the right place: unmarried couples who want to avoid default obligations should bear the burden of making contracts. A scholarly debate over the opt-in/opt-out model has raged for twenty years, but the issue is now coming to a head. Yet no …

Cle Working Paper No. 3/2021--A Roof Over Our Stomachs: The Right To Housing In Canada And Its Implications For The Right To Food, Tasha Stansbury

Centre for Law and the Environment

In 2019, the Canadian government passed the National Housing Strategy Act, legislating for the first time a human right to housing in Canada. This was largely the result of pressure from housing advocates to align Canada’s legislation with the right to housing embedded in international human rights instruments. Despite similar efforts, food rights advocates have not had the same success in having the right to food recognized in Canadian law. This paper considers the question of whether, and how, food rights advocates can use the process of achieving a legislated right to housing as a model in pursuing the legislation …

Front Matter

Canadian Journal of Family Law

No abstract provided.

La Fragilisation Du Lien De Confiance Au Sein De L’Intervention Sociale En Protection De La Jeunesse : Peut-On Blâmer Le Droit ?, Marilyn Coupienne

Canadian Journal of Family Law

Dans le contexte de la protection de la jeunesse, la Loi sur la protection de la jeunesse (LPJ) édicte les pouvoirs et responsabilités des intervenantes sociales œuvrant à la Direction de la protection de la jeunesse (DPJ) et encadre la relation entre celles-ci et les familles. Cette loi octroie aux intervenantes un double mandat, qui implique à la fois celui de l’aide et celui du contrôle et de la surveillance. Selon la littérature relative aux pratiques sociales dans ce domaine, les familles suivies par la DPJ peuvent se sentir observées, traquées, dénuées d’intimité et considèrent difficile de laisser …

Children’S Place And Voice In Quebec’S Child Protection Proceedings, Mona Paré, Émilie De Bellefeuille

Canadian Journal of Family Law

This article explores children’s participation and their right to be heard in Quebec’s child protection proceedings. While children’s participation rights are well protected in international and domestic legal instruments, they have received little attention in relation to child protection. This article aims to fill a gap in the legal literature by reporting on the results of an empirical research project examining children’s participation in judicial child protection procedures in Quebec. The participation of judges, social workers, and children in this research sheds light on practice that is clearly inspired by the Quebec’s rights- advancing Youth Protection Act (YPA) …

The Children Parliament Left Behind: Examining The Inequity Of Funding In An Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit And Métis Children, Youth And Families, Rachel Garrett

Canadian Journal of Family Law

An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families (the Act) came into force in January of 2020, containing many innovative provisions aimed at affirming the jurisdiction of Indigenous peoples and providing services for Indigenous families. Ground- breaking provisions within the Act create a positive obligation on the government to provide services to Indigenous children who otherwise would have been apprehended due to their socioeconomic status. However, the Act lacks a concrete funding provision. This legislative comment conducts an exercise in statutory interpretation to conclude that the current omission of a funding provision within the legislation …

Psychological Abuse Claims In Family Law Courts In Bc: Legal Applications And Gaps, Haya Sakakini

Canadian Journal of Family Law

This research paper investigates a particular form of family violence (“FV”) under the British Columbia Family Law Act (FLA): psychological abuse. The paper defines the scope and assessment of psychological abuse claims in family law courts (“courts”) in British Columbia since 2013. It identifies the shortcomings in addressing such claims and analyzes the multifaceted reasons behind the limitations and gaps which victims of psychological abuse face when bringing forward such claims.

The paper provides a brief background on FV and psychological abuse before moving on to identifying the various forms of psychological abuse accepted by courts in BC, …

Starting With Life: Murder Sentencing And Feminist Prison Abolitionist Praxis, Debra Parkes

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Advocates of decarcation often focus their critiques on imprisonment for non-violent offences. In this vein, current advocacy efforts to end mandatory sentences in Canada tend to carve out “serious violent offences” as not part of a reform agenda. In this chapter, Debra Parkes sketches out the contours of an argument for why feminists might not want to cede that ground, why anti-carceral feminism might involve centering our analysis on the most, rather than the least, serious crimes – starting with those who are serving life sentences for murder. Parkes identifies four non-exhaustive reasons for that focus. The first reason relates …

The Growth Of Vancouver As An Innovation Hub: Challenges And Opportunities, Camden Hutchison, Li-Wen Lin

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This article assesses the development of Vancouver as an entrepreneurial region. Using data collected from commercial startup databases, we find that Vancouver produces more startups and receives more venture capital financing per capita than any other major Canadian city. However, we also find that Vancouver lags many U.S. cities on these same metrics. In light of our empirical findings, we explore whether differences in entrepreneurial activity between Canada and the United States are due to differences in the countries’ legal environments. We conclude that legal differences do not explain observed economic disparities, and that differences in entrepreneurial activity are due …

Immigration Detention In The Age Of Covid-19, Efrat Arbel, Molly Joeck

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In this chapter, we analyze Canada’s response to the outbreak of COVID-19 as it relates to immigration detention. We focus on decisions released by the Immigration Division (ID) of the Immigration and Refugee Board, the quasi-judicial administrative tribunal tasked with detention-related decision-making in Canada. Writing in the four months after pandemic measures were first introduced in Canada, our analysis is by necessity provisional, and focuses on seventeen ID decisions released between mid-March and mid-May 2020, at the height of the pandemic in Canada. Our analysis of this dataset reveals an identifiable shift in ID practice: prior to the outbreak of …

Pandemic Pop-Ups And The Performance Of Legality, Alexandra Flynn, Amelia Thorpe

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Cities around the world have rushed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic by regulating public space to promote social distancing and stimulate economic recovery. The resulting decisions are what we term ‘pandemic pop-ups’ - hasty, real-time, and temporary changes to the use and regulation of public space. Focusing on Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia, we argue that pandemic pop-ups extend beyond immediate infrastructure needs to how cities govern generally. Pop-ups may replace cars with bikes or extend restaurants into streets, and for this they have been celebrated: for saving jobs, and for making streets safer and more enjoyable. Pandemic pop-ups …

Policy Forum: Non-Standard Employment And Canada’S Initial Pandemic Response, Wei Cui

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Despite public attention to gig workers and their potential mis-classification as independent contractors, much flexible work already takes place in the sphere of formal employment. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labour market suggests that non-standard employees may be even more vulnerable than the self-employed. This article suggests that traditional employment insurance and related programs inadequately serve flexible employees, and policies targeted at the intensive margins of employment are needed to help precarious workers.

Prospective Overruling Unravelled, Samuel Beswick

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Judges have a dual role: they decide cases and they determine the law. These functions are conventionally understood to be intertwined: adjudication leads to case law, and disputes over judge-made laws lead to adjudication. Because judgments involve the resolution of past disputes, judge-made law is retrospective. The retrospective nature of judicial law-making can seem to work an injustice in hard cases. It appears unfair and inefficient for novel judicial decisions to apply to conduct occurring prior to the date judgment is handed down. A proposed solution is to separate the law-making and adjudicatory functions of courts. This is the technique …

Submission To House Of Commons General Committee On Judicial Review And Courts Bill 152 2021-22 (Prospective Quashing Orders), Samuel Beswick

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I disagree with the proposal in the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, clause 1(1)(29A)(1)(b), to create prospective-only remedies in judicial review, because:

a. Prospective Quashing violates Professor A.V. Dicey’s canonical three meanings of the Rule of Law.

b. The premise of Subsection (1)(b), ‘that legal certainty, and hence the Rule of Law, may be best served by only prospectively invalidating’ impugned acts, is contradicted by the leading mainstream theories of adjudication in the common law world.

c. Prospective Quashing draws judges into making policy and encourages judicial activism.

d. Prospective Quashing is inconsistent with the English common law judicial method …

Re- Imagining Agenda 2063: A Socio-Legal Foundation Of The Africa We Want, Sara Ghebremusse, Toby S. Goldbach, Oludolapo Makinde

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Re- Imagining Agenda 2063: A Socio-Legal Foundation of the Africa We Want, June 21 - 24, 2021 Virtual Conference Report

Climate Disruption In Canadian Constitutional Law: References Re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, Jocelyn Stacey

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This analysis considers the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, 2021 SCC 11, in which a majority of the Court upheld as constitutional national carbon pricing legislation. The decision presents an excellent illustration of the legally disruptive nature of climate change. Illustrating that nothing is static in a climate disrupted world—including constitutional law—this article identifies three shifts the Court makes in relation to climate disruption. First, the decision represents a shift away from climate denialism toward a judicial willingness to confront the environmental, social and legal implications of climate change for Canada. Second, …

"A Code Red For Humanity": Judicial Relevance In A Time Of Climate Emergency, Margot Young

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The Washington Post calls it the “the biggest political story in the world, a grinding global crisis in public view.” The Globe and Mail’s coverage is more muted, but its Editorial Board notes about this crisis that “[t]wo things have since changed: urgency and ability. The danger is growing closer, but so is humanity’s capacity to avert disaster.” These statements reference the 9 August 2021 release by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of its Working Group I report, first instalment of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment due out in 2022. The recent report, compiled by 234 authors based on …

The Hmcs Unconscionability: Adrift In The Atlantic, Marcus Moore

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This paper traces the Canadian doctrine of unconscionability’s distant voyage in Uber Technologies v Heller 2020 SCC 16 from the familiar waters of the English ‘unconscionable bargains’ family of doctrines, found in various common law jurisdictions. Since the 19th century, those jurisdictions had included Canada. However, in this important decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, the position of the doctrine shifted significantly. Its movement can be identified as towards the American doctrine of unconscionability, a distinct doctrine not part of the English family, based rather on §2-302 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Courtwatchers in the United Kingdom and other …

Indigenous-Municipal Legal Relationships: Moving Beyond The Duty To Consult And Accommodate, Alexandra Flynn

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This paper examines the path forward for Indigenous-municipal relationships in regard to the land use planning process. While the arguments in the paper apply broadly, I focus on the unique legalities of planning approaches in Ontario. The aim is to argue that municipal planning – using the example of the Ontario planning model more specifically – should not frame its responsibilities with First Nations and Indigenous peoples based on the requirements of the duty to consult, which is a problematic singular framework in grounding a nation-to-nation relationship. The duty to consult as the basis of Indigenous-settler relationships has not led …

Johnson V. M'Intosh, Alexandra Flynn

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A title to lands, under grants to private Individuals, made by Indian tribes or Nations northwest of the river Ohio, in 1773 and 1775. The decision of the United States District Court is deemed to be in error. ERROR to the District Court of Illinois. This was an action of ejectment for lands in the State and District of Illinois, claimed by the plaintiffs under a purchase and conveyance from the Piankeshaw Indians, and by the defendant, under a grant from the United States.

With Great(Er) Power Comes Great(Er) Responsibility: Indigenous Rights And Municipal Autonomy, Alexandra Flynn

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This article asks how the dialogue surrounding greater municipal autonomy intersects with Aboriginal rights and title, recognized under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 (Constitution), with a particular focus on Toronto. The first part of this article sets out the ways in which Toronto sought empowerment following the Better Local Government Act or Bill 5, including judicial consideration of the constitutional role of Canadian municipalities, the legislative advances made by provincial governments, and the yet-implemented possibilities of protection through a little-used mechanism within the Constitution. Part II analyzes the obligations of municipalities in respect of Indigenous Peoples …

Access To Justice For Migrant Workers: Evaluating Legislative Effectiveness In Canada, Bethany Hastie

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This report analyzes, compares and contrasts the growing number of provincial legislative schemes aimed at addressing known recruitment and employment abuses of temporary foreign workers through registration and licensing schemes, with a view to identifying best practices and recommendations for further improvement that will enable the effective operationalization of these statutes and the realization of their core goals to protect temporary foreign workers in Canada.