Law Commons^™

Condominium Government And The Right To Live In The City, Douglas C. Harris

All Faculty Publications

Condominium is an architecture of land ownership that produces separate, privately owned units within multi-unit developments. Condominium also constructs a form of private, democratic government, described as a fourth order of government, that acts beneath federal and provincial governments, and alongside municipal government, to govern owners and their property. This article considers a conflict between residential-unit owners and a commercial-unit owner within a condominium development in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Drawing from material produced in litigation, the article situates the dispute within its property and urban contexts to argue that condominium government requires attention, and not just for its impact on …

The "Statutory Rape" Myth: A Case Law Study Of Sexual Assaults Against Adolescent Girls, Isabel Grant, Janine Benedet

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This article examines three years of Canadian case law involving sexual offences against adolescent girls between the ages of twelve and seventeen inclusive, with a view to identifying the types of cases that are making it to court, whether these cases are resulting in convictions, and what are the types of sentences being imposed on individuals convicted of these offences. A significant majority of cases under review involved men considerably older than the complainant. The average age difference between the accused and the complainant was nineteen years and, where family members were excluded, 15.6 years. The small number of cases …

Assessing Sexually Harassing Conduct In The Workplace: An Analysis Of Bc Human Rights Tribunal Decisions In 2010–16, Bethany Hastie

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Sexual harassment in the workplace was first recognized as a form of discrimination in the 1980s. Since that time, the concepts of sexual harassment and discrimination have evolved substantially. This article explores how human rights tribunals address complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace through a case analysis of BC Human Rights Tribunal decisions from 2010 to 2016. Focusing on an examination of how the tribunal determines what constitutes sexually harassing conduct, this article suggests that, while human rights tribunals are advancing in their understanding and analysis of sexual harassment claims, there remain inherent limitations associated with the individualized nature …

The Digital Services Tax As A Tax On Location-Specific Rent, Wei Cui, Nigar Hashimzade

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In 2018, the European Council and the UK and Spanish governments each proposed to introduce a Digital Services Tax (DST), to be levied on the revenue of large digital platforms from advertising, online intermediation, and/or the transmission of data. We offer a rationalization of the DST as a tax on location-specific rent (LSR). That is, just as many countries already levy royalties on rent from extracting natural resources, one can think of the DST as levied on rent earned by digital platforms from particular locations. We provide stylized illustrations of how platform rent can be assigned to specific locations, even …

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

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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 …

Seeing Like An Authoritarian State, Cristie Ford

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The Social Credit System (SCS), as proposed in China, provokes an interesting philosophical question. Can human behaviour be moulded to create a better, fairer society by awarding ‘credit’ to those who behave in ways seen as positive by some broad-based authority, in this case, the state? Is the SCS a promising idea for developing a well-functioning society under conditions of complexity and diversity, or is it a massive exercise in government control over virtually all aspects of citizens’ lives?

When Do Chinese National Ministries Make Law?, Wei Cui

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This paper documents some basic empirical facts about the issuance of formal regulations (FRs) and informal policy directives (IPDs) by China’s national ministries and agencies from 2000 to 2014. Prior scholarship (e.g. Cui 2011, Howson 2012) depicts specific instances of Chinese national agencies announcing substantive new policies (many ultra vires by statutory standards) through IPDs. I use FR and IPD quantities as measures of the agencies’ propensity to resort to legal as opposed to non-legal, merely bureaucratic mechanisms for announcing policy. I find significant variations across agencies in the quantities of FRs issued, both in absolute terms and relative to …

Transnational Environmental Law's Missing People, Natasha Affolder

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Legal scholars rely heavily on vocabularies of ‘actors’, ‘agents’, and ‘experts’ to account for the fact that law does not develop by itself. However, the identities, idiosyncrasies, and individual professional contributions of law’s people are rarely illuminated. This article suggests that the relative absence of people in transnational legal scholarship helps to explain some of its gaps. The task of bringing ‘human actors back on stage’ creates some new opportunities for transnational environmental law scholarship. It invites attention to both dominant and excluded voices. It offers a way of bridging the gap between the bureaucratic language of law and its …

Interest Deductibility And International Taxation In Canada After Beps Action 4, David G. Duff

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Among the ways in which multinational enterprises (MNEs) can shift profits from one jurisdiction to another in order to minimize taxes, one of the most simple and widely-employed involves the payment of interest to related parties and third parties. For these reasons, it is not surprising that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) identified the deduction of interest and other financial payments as a significant source of BEPS concerns, and that BEPS Action 4 was charged with developing “recommendations regarding best practices in the design of rules to prevent base …

Workplace Sexual Harassment: Assessing The Effectiveness Of Human Rights Law In Canada, Bethany Hastie

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This report analyzes substantive decisions on the merits concerning workplace sexual harassment at each of the BC and Ontario Human Rights Tribunals from 2000-2018, with a view to identifying how the law of sexual harassment is understood, interpreted and applied by the Tribunals’ adjudicators. In particular, this report examines whether, and to what extent, gender-based stereotypes and myths known to occur in criminal justice proceedings arise in the human rights context.

This report examines substantive decisions on the merits for claims of workplace sexual harassment from 2000-2018 in BC and Ontario. The limitation to substantive decisions allows for a greater …

The Superiority Of The Digital Service Tax Over Significant Digital Presence Proposals, Wei Cui

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Responding to calls for reallocating taxing rights over multinationals’ profits to reflect the place of user value creation, the OECD recently announced a Program of Work to implement international tax reform. I use the European Commission’s 2018 proposal to introduce the “significant digital presence” concept into income tax treaties as an example of the type of approach the OECD favors, and argue that it is inferior to recently proposed digital services taxes (DSTs). DSTs directly address the question of where profits should be allocated and taxed, while SDP proposals subordinate this vital question to superfluous treaty conventions. Global tax coordination …

Excluding Women, Catherine Dauvergne, Hannah Lindy

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This article reviews 16 years of Canadian case law applying the Refugee Convention’s exclusion provisions to women. Despite a quarter of a century of strong scholarly and policy-making work asserting the need for attention to gender in refugee law, this dataset shows that, in questions of exclusion, gendered analysis is almost entirely absent. By contrast, in seeking explanations for the factual basis of exclusion in these cases, gender is almost always an explanatory factor. This stark observation leads us to conclude that significant additional work – both scholarly and policy-focused – is required. The article also considers whether a more …

Forensic Science Evidence And The Limits Of Cross-Examination, Gary Edmond, Emma Cunliffe, Kristy Martire, Mehera San Roque

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The ability to confront witnesses through cross-examination is conventionally understood as the most powerful means of testing evidence, and one of the most important features of the adversarial trial. Popularly feted, cross-examination was immortalised in John Henry Wigmore’s (1863–1943) famous dictum that it is ‘the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth’. Through a detailed review of the cross-examination of a forensic scientist, in the first scientifically-informed challenge to latent fingerprint evidence in Australia, this article offers a more modest assessment of its value. Drawing upon mainstream scientific research and advice, and contrasting scientific knowledge with answers …

Contagious Environmental Lawmaking, Natasha Affolder

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It is rare to find an environmental law development or ‘innovation’ announced or celebrated without some discussion of its transferability. Discourses of diffusion are becoming increasingly central to the way that we develop, communicate and frame environmental law ideas. And yet, this significant dimension of environmental law practice seems to have outgrown existing conceptual scaffolding and scholarly vocabularies. The concept, and intentionally unfamiliar terminology, of ‘contagious lawmaking’ creates a space for both fleshing out, and problematizing, the phenomenon of the dynamic and multi-directional transfer of environmental law ideas. This article sets the stage for further study of the global diffusion …

Transnational Business Governance Interactions, Regulatory Quality And Marginalized Actors: An Introduction, Stepan Wood, Errol Meidinger, Burkard Eberlein, Rebecca Schmidt, Kenneth W. Abbott

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In what circumstances can transnational business governance interactions (TBGIs)—the myriad overlaps, intersections, conflicts, collisions and synergies amongst the actors and institutions involved in transnational regulation of business activity—be harnessed to enhance the quality of transnational regulation and advance the interests of marginalized actors? This chapter introduces the concept of transnational business governance interactions (TBGIs), summarizes the TBGI analytical framework and defines regulatory quality and marginalized actors. It proposes to investigate the relationship between TBGIs, regulatory quality and marginalized actors at three levels: regulatory capacities, outputs and outcomes. The chapter presents the plan of the book and summarizes the key messages …

A Multi-Jurisdictional Review Of Legislative And Regulatory Changes In Relation To The Banking/Commercial Separation Doctrine, And The Business Of Banking, Cristie Ford

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Banks have long provided essential services to the economy and to Canadians. In return, they have had access to special privileges, and been subject to special prohibitions. Across the world, there are boundaries around what we in Canada would call the “business of banking”. Such boundaries are important, because they set the conditions under which institutions may be recognized as “banks,” and may have access to those privileges and prohibitions. This report summarizes research undertaken across five jurisdictions – Australia, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US, federal level only) – with respect to a particular …

The Banking/Commercial Separation Doctrine In Comparative Perspective, Cristie Ford

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This report, prepared for the Department of Finance, Government of Canada, summarizes research undertaken across five jurisdictions – Australia, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US, federal level only) – with respect to a particular kind of boundary on the business of banking: the separation of banking business from commercial business. “Commercial” here means the provision of non-financial goods and services. This separation exists under what in the United States has long been referred to as the “banking/commercial separation doctrine”. The report considers the historical justifications for the doctrine in the context of the modern “business …

Harnessing Tbgis For Regulatory Quality And Marginalized Actors, Stepan Wood, Errol Meidinger, Burkard Eberlein, Rebecca Schmidt, Kenneth W. Abbott

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The chapters of this book paint a mixed and not particularly optimistic picture of the prospects for harnessing transnational business governance interactions (TBGIs)—the myriad overlaps, intersections, conflicts, collisions and synergies amongst the actors and institutions involved in transnational regulation of business activity—to improve the quality of transnational regulation and advance marginalized interests. This chapter synthesizes key findings about the impact of TBGIs of regulatory quality and marginalized actors, explores the implications of these findings for identifying and shaping TBGIs that foster regulatory quality or advance marginalized interests, and presents concluding reflections on lessons learned and future research directions.

Say On Purpose: Lessons From Chinese Corporate Charters, Li-Wen Lin

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No abstract provided.

Mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility? Legislative Innovation And Judicial Application In China, Li-Wen Lin

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is often understood as voluntary corporate behavior beyond legal compliance. The recent emergence of CSR legislation is challenging this typical understanding. A number of countries including China, Indonesia and India have expressly stated in corporate law that companies shall undertake CSR. The CSR law is controversial. Critics of CSR see the law as an unwise effort to challenge profit maximization as the only social responsibility of the corporation. Even CSR advocates welcome the CSR law with great caution. Given the vague statutory language of CSR, the practical application of the law places high demands on the …

Gendering Islamophobia To Better Understand Immigration Laws, Catherine Dauvergne

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This paper examines two recent developments in immigration law in Western liberal democracies: security exclusions and forced marriage provisions. It aims to consider how both of these settings are influenced by a pernicious Islamophobia and by gender. And, of course, by the intersection that creates a gendered version of Islamophobia. The overarching aim of the work is to consider whether and how human rights arguments are likely to be effective in immigration law. The work proceeds by developing the ideas of ‘unknowability’ and ‘unintelligibility’ as two ways to describe how Western law responds to Islam, and in so doing, contributes …

Time To Act: Response To Questions Posed By The Expert Panel On Sustainable Finance On Fiduciary Obligation And Effective Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, Janis P. Sarra, Cynthia Williams

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While there are numerous strategies to be deployed to move Canada to a financially sustainable future, this study addresses two critically important issues: fiduciary obligation of corporate- and pension-fiduciaries, and national action on environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) financial disclosure, including climate-related financial risk disclosure. The Canadian economy is facing significant challenges and disruptions in the transition to a lower carbon world. Absent clear and innovative steps to ensure our corporations and financial institutions act to address carbon emissions and other environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities, we will be seriously prejudiced in a world that is rapidly moving …

Interactions, Iteration And Early Institutionalization: Competing Lessons Of Globalgap’S Legitimation, Donal Casey

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Since its inception, GLOBALGAP has transformed from an informal grouping of retailers into a highly elaborate regulatory organisation. This chapter critically examines GLOBALGAP’s development. I argue that, through an iterative process of legitimation, actual and anticipated interactions with state, market and civil society actors led GLOBALGAP to develop structures, practices and processes that sought to enhance representation and participation of structurally weaker parties such as smallholders, whilst also addressing concerns relating to the exclusionary effect of its standards. I tease out how, as non-state regulatory organisations emerge and develop, they respond to actual and anticipated governance interactions in order to …

Case Comment: Mccain V Mccain And Barton V Sauvé: A New Approach To Autonomous Domestic Contractual Bargaining In Ontario, Mark Cornish

Canadian Journal of Family Law

This case comment explores the tension between principles that guide domestic contractual bargaining and interpretation in Ontario with reference to two recent trial-level decisions. The courts’ analyses in McCain and Barton suggest a way to reconcile the apparent tension between principles of autonomy and fairness. In light of these decisions, and drawing on the literature in this area, the paper suggests a two-pronged approach for courts to adopt when deciding whether to set aside a domestic contract. This approach attempts to ensure that courts only uphold domestic contracts that are negotiated by truly autonomous parties.

Les Amoureux Sur Les Bancs Publics : Le Traitement Juridique Du Polyamour En Droit Québécois, Michaël Lessard

Canadian Journal of Family Law

L’auteur offre un tour d’horizon des manières dont le droit québécois désavantage les relations polyamoureuses. Dans la première partie, l’auteur définit le polyamour, le monoamour et certaines notions connexes. Dans les sections subséquentes, il avance une catégorisation du traitement juridique du polyamour. Selon son analyse, quatre angles sont exploités pour orienter les relations conjugales vers le monoamour et hors du polyamour : (1) limiter à deux le nombre de parents par enfant (biparenté vs pluriparenté), (2) faciliter la prestation de soins de conjoint·e à conjoint·e, (3) protéger les conjoint·es contre des vulnérabilités économiques, et (4) prohiber certains comportements polyamoureux (criminalisation …

In Memoriam: The Canadian Research Institute For Law And The Family, 1987–2018, John-Paul E. Boyd

Canadian Journal of Family Law

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Canadian Journal of Family Law

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Special Issue: Shifting Normativities, Régine Tremblay, Erez Aloni

Canadian Journal of Family Law

On May 9 and 10, 2019, we held an international and interdisciplinary conference entitled Shifting Normativities: Families, Feminisms, Laws—Celebrating the Work of Professor Susan B. Boyd. This event, cohosted by the Centre for Feminist Legal Studies and the Canadian Journal of Family Law, brought together to the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia scholars from different countries and disciplines. It had three principal goals. First, celebrating the work of Professor Susan B. Boyd; second, producing cutting-edge scholarship in under-researched fields, namely, family studies and feminist theory; and third, creating new networks of …

Faire Valoir Ses Droits À La Chambre De La Jeunesse : État Des Lieux Des Barrières Structurelles À L’Accès À La Justice Des Familles, Emmanuelle Bernheim, Marilyn Coupienne

Canadian Journal of Family Law

S’il est convenu que l’intervention en protection de la jeunesse constitue en soi une atteinte aux droits fondamentaux des parents, il est souvent pris pour acquis que les droits des parents et des enfants s’opposent autour de notions telles que l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant et le projet de vie permanent. Au Québec, dans un contexte où les mères vivant dans la pauvreté, et plus particulièrement les mères autochtones ou issues de minorités visibles, sont surreprésentées en protection de la jeunesse et où le nombre de dossiers judiciarisés a cru de 20% depuis les années 1990, il apparaît non seulement pertinent …

Intent To Parent Is What Makes A Parent? A Comparative Analysis Of The Role Of Intent In Multi-Parenthood Recognition, Nola Cammu

Canadian Journal of Family Law

In most jurisdictions, the two-parent rule does not take into account the social reality of intentional multiple-parent families where more than two parents share parenting tasks from a child’s birth. Many cases show that children in non-traditional parenting constellations are emotionally attached to all parental figures and perceive them as true parents. Unfortunately, the law does not adequately acknowledge multiple parenting practices, and thus a discrepancy exists between the social and the legal reality of (often young) children in intentional plus-two-parent families. This article argues that the law should aim to rectify this discrepancy by legally accommodating multiple parenthood, preferably …