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Full-Text Articles in Human Rights Law

Twenty Years After Krieger V Law Society Of Alberta: Law Society Discipline Of Crown Prosecutors And Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin Oct 2023

Twenty Years After Krieger V Law Society Of Alberta: Law Society Discipline Of Crown Prosecutors And Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin

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Krieger v. Law Society of Alberta held that provincial and territorial law societies have disciplinary jurisdiction over Crown prosecutors for conduct outside of prosecutorial discretion. The reasoning in Krieger would also apply to government lawyers. The apparent consensus is that law societies rarely exercise that jurisdiction. But in those rare instances, what conduct do Canadian law societies discipline Crown prosecutors and government lawyers for? In this article, I canvass reported disciplinary decisions to demonstrate that, while law societies sometimes discipline Crown prosecutors for violations unique to those lawyers, they often do so for violations applicable to all lawyers — particularly …


Mental Illness And Professional Regulation: The Duty To Report A Fellow Lawyer To The Society, Andrew Flavelle Martin Jan 2021

Mental Illness And Professional Regulation: The Duty To Report A Fellow Lawyer To The Society, Andrew Flavelle Martin

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Lawyers have a largely overlooked duty to report other lawyers to the law society in a range of circumstances. This duty contemplates mental illness, explicitly or implicitly, as a reportable condition and thus engages issues of stigma and discrimination. This article analyzes this reporting duty with a focus on its implications for lawyers with disabilities. The article begins by examining the history and text of the rule and considering several legal problems it presents. It then canvasses law societies’ duties to their members with disabilities under human rights law and analyzes how the duty to report interacts with human rights …


Dispute Settlement Under The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement: A Preliminary Assessment, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe Nov 2020

Dispute Settlement Under The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement: A Preliminary Assessment, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

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The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) will add a new dispute settlement system to the plethora of judicial mechanisms designed to resolve trade disputes in Africa. Against the discontent of Member States and limited impact the existing highly legalized trade dispute settlement mechanisms have had on regional economic integration in Africa, this paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of the AfCFTA Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM). In particular, the paper situates the AfCFTA-DSM in the overall discontent and unsupportive practices of African States with highly legalized dispute settlement systems and similar WTO-Styled DSMs among other shortcomings. Notwithstanding the transplantation of …


Ethical Testing In The Real World: Evaluating Physical Testing Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Maggie Delano, Jonathon Penney, Afsaneh Ragot, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar Jan 2020

Ethical Testing In The Real World: Evaluating Physical Testing Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Maggie Delano, Jonathon Penney, Afsaneh Ragot, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

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This paper critically assesses the adequacy and representativeness of physical domain testing for various adversarial machine learning (ML) attacks against computer vision systems involving human subjects. Many papers that deploy such attacks characterize themselves as “real world.” Despite this framing, however, we found the physical or real-world testing conducted was minimal, provided few details about testing subjects and was often conducted as an afterthought or demonstration. Adversarial ML research without representative trials or testing is an ethical, scientific, and health/safety issue that can cause real harms. We introduce the problem and our methodology, and then critique the physical domain testing …


Template Policy Re: Access To Medical Assistance In Dying In Publicly-Funded Institutions, Jocelyn Downie Jan 2018

Template Policy Re: Access To Medical Assistance In Dying In Publicly-Funded Institutions, Jocelyn Downie

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Patients are being denied access to assessments for, and provision of, medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in publicly-funded institutions in Canada. Health authorities should implement policies that prohibit forced transfer for MAiD (assessments and provision) unless it can be achieved without undue delay or harm to the patient (as determined by the MAiD Program, not the institution). This is a template policy that health authorities could adopt to ensure access to a legal health service in all publicly-funded institutions (including faith-based institutions) under their authority.


An Alternative To Medical Assistance In Dying? The Legal Status Of Voluntary Stopping Eating And Drinking (Vsed), Jocelyn Downie Jan 2018

An Alternative To Medical Assistance In Dying? The Legal Status Of Voluntary Stopping Eating And Drinking (Vsed), Jocelyn Downie

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Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) has received considerable attention from many in the field of bioethics. Philosophers, theologians, lawyers, and clinicians of all sorts have engaged with many challenging aspects of this issue. Public debate, public policy, and the law have been enhanced by the varied disciplinary analyses. With the legalization of MAiD in Canada, some attention is now being turned to issues that have historically been overshadowed by the debate about whether to permit MAiD. One such issue is voluntary stopping eating and drinking (VSED) as an alternative to MAiD. In this paper, I will apply a legal lens …


Theorizing Time In Abortion Law And Human Rights, Joanna Erdman Jan 2017

Theorizing Time In Abortion Law And Human Rights, Joanna Erdman

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The legal regulation of abortion by gestational age, or length of pregnancy, is a relatively undertheorized dimension of abortion and human rights. Yet struggles over time in abortion law, and its competing representations and meanings, are ultimately struggles over ethical and political values, authority and power, the very stakes that human rights on abortion engage. This article focuses on three struggles over time in abortion and human rights law: those related to morality, health, and justice. With respect to morality, the article concludes that collective faith and trust should be placed in the moral judgment of those most affected by …


Next Up: A Proposal For Values-Based Law Reform On Unilateral Withholding And Withdrawal Of Potentially Life-Sustaining Treatment, Jocelyn Downie, Lindy Willmott, Ben White Jan 2017

Next Up: A Proposal For Values-Based Law Reform On Unilateral Withholding And Withdrawal Of Potentially Life-Sustaining Treatment, Jocelyn Downie, Lindy Willmott, Ben White

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As the legalization of assisted dying shifts from a project for law reform to one of implementation, the gaze for Canadian end of life law and policy academics and practitioners should be turned quickly to another pressing issue – the unilateral withholding and withdrawal of potentially life-sustaining treatment. What should happen when the health care team believes that treatment should not be provided and the patient’s loved ones believe that it should? While the future of end of life law and policy no doubt includes many other issues, this is an urgent and immediate horizon issue for Canada as well …


The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities: Beginning To Examine The Implications For Canadian Lawyers' Professional Responsiblities, H Archibald Kaiser Jan 2012

The Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities: Beginning To Examine The Implications For Canadian Lawyers' Professional Responsiblities, H Archibald Kaiser

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The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (hereafter the CRPD or the Convention) should herald a new epoch in the way persons with disabilities are treated throughout the world community. The entire panoply of ramifications of this Convention, the purpose of which is “to promote, protect and ensure the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity”, (Article 1) is as yet unascertainable. However, States Parties must “take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination by any person, organization or private enterprise” (Article …


A Conflict By Any Other Name Would Smell As Foul: A Comment On The Appointment Of A Vice-President Of Pfizer To The Cihr Governing Council, Jocelyn Downie Jul 2010

A Conflict By Any Other Name Would Smell As Foul: A Comment On The Appointment Of A Vice-President Of Pfizer To The Cihr Governing Council, Jocelyn Downie

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If one had to pick the pharmaceutical company most associated with unethical and illegal conduct this past year, it would likely be Pfizer. So it seems reasonable to respond with disbelief and outrage to the federal government’s October 5, 2009 appointment of Dr. Bernard Prigent – Vice President, Medical Director and registered lobbyist for Pfizer Canada – to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Governing Council (CIHR GC). This is the body that sets the strategic direction for most federally funded health research in Canada. A senior executive from a for-profit pharmaceutical company should not be given a seat at …


Watch Your Language: A Review Of The Use Of Stigmatizing Language By Canadian Judges, Jocelyn Downie, Michelle Black Jan 2010

Watch Your Language: A Review Of The Use Of Stigmatizing Language By Canadian Judges, Jocelyn Downie, Michelle Black

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Despite ongoing advances in understanding the causes and prevalence of mental health issues, stigmatizing language is still often directed at people who have mental illness. Such language is regularly used by parties, such as the media, who have great influence on public opinion and attitudes. Since the decisions from Canadian courtrooms can also have a strong impact on societal views, we asked whether judges use stigmatizing language in their decisions. To answer this question, we conducted a qualitative study by searching through modern Canadian case law using search terms that were indicative of stigmatizing language. We found that, although judges …


Indigenous Self-Determination And Research On Human Genetic Material: A Consideration Of The Relevance Of Debates On Patents And Informed Consent, And The Political Demands On Researchers, Constance Macintosh Jan 2006

Indigenous Self-Determination And Research On Human Genetic Material: A Consideration Of The Relevance Of Debates On Patents And Informed Consent, And The Political Demands On Researchers, Constance Macintosh

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Genetic research involving indigenous populations provokes many legal, ethical and cultural issues. Arguably, of these issues, two dominate the literature. The first is whether human genetic materials are or ought to be patentable, which is often argued against on the basis that such patents offend human dignity generally and are culturally offensive to many indigenous peoples. The second is whether researchers must obtain informed consent from representatives of indigenous groups as a whole before attempting to obtain consent for participation from individual members of that group. I argue that there is limited benefit in continuing to debate the patentability of …


Revisioning The Oversight Of Research Involving Humans In Canada, Jocelyn Downie, Fiona Mcdonald Jan 2004

Revisioning The Oversight Of Research Involving Humans In Canada, Jocelyn Downie, Fiona Mcdonald

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When individuals are asked to participate in research they should be able to assume that the research "is well designed and well executed, that the investigator is competent to undertake the study, that the study will be run efficiently, safely, and ethically and that the deviations from good practice will be identified and corrected." The central question that we focus on in this paper is whether the governance mechanisms that are currently in place to regulate the conduct of research involving humans are adequate to enable those who are approached to participate in research to make these assumptions. This review …


Protecting Human Research Subjects: A Jurisdictional Analysis, Jennifer Llewellyn, Jocelyn Downie, Robert Holmes Jan 2003

Protecting Human Research Subjects: A Jurisdictional Analysis, Jennifer Llewellyn, Jocelyn Downie, Robert Holmes

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The most recent speech from the throne contained a pledge from the federal government to "work with provinces to implement a national system for the governance of research involving humans, including national research ethics and standards." This commitment signals a desire on the part of the federal government to address concerns about the inadequacies of the current governance of health research involving humans (RIH). To this end, Health Canada's Ethics Division is currently exploring the ways in which such a national governance system for RIH might be implemented. It is important for the federal government, as it moves toward making …


Book Review Of Passion: An Essay On Personality , Richard F. Devlin Frsc Jan 1985

Book Review Of Passion: An Essay On Personality , Richard F. Devlin Frsc

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Passion is a cogently structured, compel Jingly argued and seductively enthralling masterpiece which, in years to come, will undoubtedly stand out as an inspirational source for many who seek social transformation. Unger's style, in this essay at least, is lucid and inviting. Substantively, Passion demonstrates not only the depth of his penetrating intellect but also his command of an array of' disciplines. Unger's polymathy is all the more impressive when we remember that ours is an era in which idiosyncratic specialization is the norm.