Law Commons^™

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 …

Cle Working Paper No.2/2020--Responsible Scholarship In A Crisis: A Plea For Fairness In Academic Discourse On The Carbon Pricing References, Stepan Wood, Meinhard Doelle, Dayna Nadine Scott

Centre for Law and the Environment

The Canadian federal government's carbon pricing legislation has generated substantial public and academic debate. In this paper we argue that academic debate should adhere to standards for responsible conduct of research during crises such as the current climate emergency, and avoid the nastiness and distortion that infect populist political rhetoric and social media. We discuss the norms of responsible scholarship that apply to Canadian legal academics, with a focus on standards that demand scrupulous fairness to other scholars and to the materials one is analyzing. We argue that a recent article by Professor Dwight Newman on the Saskatchewan and Ontario …

Cle Working Paper No.1/2020--Rights Of Nature Legislation For British Columbia: Issues And Options, Rachel Garrett, Stepan Wood

Centre for Law and the Environment

This paper explores how the rights of nature could be protected through legislation in British Columbia (BC). Canada is far behind other countries in protecting rights of nature. Canadian law does not currently recognize the rights of nature in any meaningful way. Numerous statutes in Canada making nature—from fisheries to wildlife, to the land itself—the exclusive property of humans, with no inherent right to exist, flourish or be restored. We explore two potential avenues for protecting the rights of nature in British Columbia: 1) amendment of existing legislation, and 2) a new stand-alone rights of nature statute. We examine trailblazing …

When Do Chinese Subnational Governments Make Law?, Wei Cui, Jiang Wan

All Faculty Publications

How often does law get made in China, and what kinds of law? We construct a dataset on subnational lawmaking to address these questions. The dataset builds on a basic insight: Chinese politicians choose among three types of instruments to implement policy—statutes, regulations, and informal policy directives (IPDs). IPDs are easier to promulgate than statutes and regulations, and the fact that they lack the force of law rarely impedes enforcement. Why then do politicians make law at all? Several findings shed light on this puzzle. First, the choice between formal lawmaking and IPDs depends on the policy subject. Second, provinces …

R. V. Safarzadeh-Markhali: Elements And Implications Of The Supreme Court's New Rigorous Approach To Construction Of Statutory Purpose, Marcus Moore

All Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Safarzadeh-Markhali holds great significance, beyond Criminal Law, in the area of Statutory Interpretation: in Markhali, the Court decisively endorses a new rigorous approach to construing legislative purpose. Previously, while legislation itself was long-interpreted utilizing rigorous approaches, legislative purpose was typically construed ad hoc while providing only summary justification. Markhali’s new framework is distinct from prior approaches in at least four ways: (1) It expressly acknowledges the critical importance of purpose construction in many cases; (2) It is conscious of how a less-than-rigorous approach risks being self-defeating of larger legal analyses in which the …

Carbon Taxation In British Columbia, David G. Duff

All Faculty Publications

Among alternative public policies to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), environmental taxation represents a promising but often under-utilized approach-particularly in North America where the introduction of any new tax involves enormous political challenges. In Canada, however, British Columbia became the first North American jurisdiction to implement a consumption-based environmental tax specifically designed to reduce GHG emissions when BC's provincial government enacted a carbon tax effective July 1, 2008.

This paper provides a general overview and initial evaluation of British Columbia's carbon tax, explaining the background to the announcement of the tax in the Provincial Government's …