Law Commons^™

Death To Semelhago!, Bruce Ziff

Dalhousie Law Journal

In the 1996 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Semelhago v. Paramadevan, Justice John Sopinka stated that it is no longer appropriate to assume that specific performance will issue as a matter of course to enforce a contract for the sale of land. Before performance will be ordered, it must be proven (and not assumed) that common law damages for breach of contract will not suffice to do justice. In this article, Semel hago and the case law generated in its aftermath will be reviewed, and the policy arguments pertaining to the current law addressed. In short, it …

The ‘Hart’ Of The (Mr.) Big Problem, Adelina Iftene

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Hart reviewed the application and evidentiary consequences of Mr. Big operation. For the majority, Moldaver J. changed the common law confessions rule so that it applies in Mr. Big scenarios based on a two-pronged test. Immediately after Hart, the SCC rendered a new decision in R v Mack where the two pronged test was leniently applied in favour of the Crown. In this article I argue that the SCC approach in Hart and its application in Mack failed to address to the core problems that Mr. Big operations pose. It …

The Immunity Of The Attorney General To Law Society Discipline, Andrew Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

English Abstract: The Attorney General is both the minister responsible to the legislature for oversight of the law society and a practicing member of the law society. This dual status raises important questions: Is the Attorney General subject to discipline by the law society? Should she be? This article argues that the Attorney General is immune, absent bad faith, both for prosecutorial discretion and core policy advice and decisions, as well as absolutely immune under parliamentary privilege for anything said in the legislature. The Attorney General enjoys no special immunity otherwise, i.e. for the practice of law outside prosecutorial discretion …

Philosophy Of Law In The Arctic, Dawid Bunikowski, Jaakko Husa, Diana Ginn, Ko Hasegawa, Karol Dobrzeniecki, Patrick Dillon, Francis Joy, Rene Kuppe, Leena Heinämäki, Maura Hanrahan, Tom Svensson, Makoto Usami, Agnieszka Szpak, Rebecca Johnson, Brendan Tobin

Books

This is rather the first book with a title "Philosophy of Law in the Arctic" in the literature. This philosophy of law is a very wide and cross-disciplinary area of research: between law, philosophy, anthropology, history, cultural ecology or environmental studies. I have no doubts that we have done such kind of philosophy in the academia so far, not using this term, but keeping up with the concept, the idea.

The book is a result of research conducted by many members of the Sub-group of Philosophy of Law in the Arctic (the University of the Arctic). This team seems a …

Realizing The Precautionary Principle In Due Diligence, Ling Chen

Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies

The precautionary principle is a legal principle that has found considerable support in international environmental law. Its emergence, however, has not been without problems and controversies: how do we define its normative content and trigger elements, and how do we ensure concrete implementation. The 2011 Seabed Mining Advisory Opinion used states’ due diligence obligations to prevent harm to realize the precautionary principle. Focusing on this case, this article examines how the precautionary principle can be applied using the concept of due diligence. First, this article explores the precautionary concept using examples from a selection of regional and multilateral environmental instruments, …

Modernizing Pakistan's Blasphemy Law As Hate Speech, Farhan Raouf

LLM Theses

It is difficult to define blasphemy. What is regarded as blasphemous will depend on the values prevalent in a given society. In general, it includes denigrating and insulting expressions targeted toward God and other aspects of religion. My thesis is that blasphemy, to the extent it should be dealt with by the law, should be regarded a sub-category of hate speech. The law should concern itself only with those aspects of blasphemy which incite hatred against a group which is identifiable on the basis of religion. More specifically, I argue that Pakistan should repeal its blasphemy law (s. 295-c Penal …

The Bill Of Lading In An Era Of Electronic Commerce: Legal Developments And The Reform Options For Nigeria, Kenneth Ugwuokpe

LLM Theses

One of the pervasive effects of the advancement in information and communication technology is a radical shift in the means of conducting business transactions. With the digitalization of the global economy, business transactions are increasingly conducted in an electronic medium. The bill of lading, as the most important ocean transport document, has, in response to the needs of the times, passed through many phases of development to its present electronic nature. The problem however, is adapting the challenges of electronic commerce to the old contractual legal order. For the bill of lading, the challenge is the replication of all its …

Justified Outbreak: Bringing Together Law, Public Health, And Ethics During An Infectious Disease Emergency, Clark Colwell

LLM Theses

Infectious diseases have recently found renewed significance in Canadian scholarship, with a corresponding increased interest in Canada's overall preparedness, including legal preparedness, to combat infectious disease emergencies. Nearly every Canadian province has emergency legislation containing a "basket clause" - a provision which, for the duration of an emergency, authorizes a decision maker to take 'all necessary measures' to defeat it. Public health legal preparedness scholarship has not yet examined what criteria the decision maker must consider before deciding to deploy measures that could seriously impact the rights of individuals, including those under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This …

A Future For A Forgotten Predator: Assessment Of The Global And Regional Legal Frameworks For Protection And Recovery Of The Caribbean Sawfishes Pristis Pristis And Pristis Pectinata And Recommendations For The Course Forward, Olga Koubrak

LLM Theses

Two species of sawfish, Pristis pristis and Pristis pectinata, used to be common in the coastal waters of the Caribbean Region. However, due to direct and incidental fishing pressures, national and international trade in body parts, and habitat loss, the populations of these ecologically and culturally significant species have drastically declined. This thesis identifies and reviews global and regional, binding and non-binding legal instruments in effect in the Caribbean Region that encourage states to protect biodiversity in general or address identified threats to sawfishes specifically. Despite the presence of obligations that call upon states to adopt sawfish conservation and habitat …

Indigenous Rights, Environmental Rights, Or Stakeholder Engagement? Comparing Ifc And Oecd Approaches To The Implementation Of The Business Responsibility To Respect Human Rights, Sara Seck

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD MNE Guidelines) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability (IFC Performance Standards) are widely viewed as key international standards to which extractive companies operating internationally should comply. Indeed, these standards, together with the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), are promoted by Canada in its November 2014 enhanced corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy for extractive sector companies operating abroad. The strategy states that the Canadian government expects companies operating outside of Canada to “respect human rights …

Bend Or Break: Enhancing The Responsibilities Of Law Societies To Promote Access To Justice, Richard Devlin Frsc

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

There now appears to be a consensus in Canada that we have a serious access to justice problem. Chief Justices have been vocal. The Governor-General has made an intervention. Legal newspapers and websites have weekly, if not daily, stories on access to justice concerns. There have been several thorough reports which both detail the problems and propose possible paths forward. And one CEO of a national law firm has lamented that “access to justice is the legal profession’s equivalent of global warming.”

However, in my opinion, despite all this alarm, attention, and progress, two key components tend to be missing …

Human Rights And Extractive Industries: Environmental Law And Standards, Sara Seck

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The importance of environmental laws and standards for sustainable development of extractive industries has been well recognized by the international community for decades. More recently, the relationship between human rights and environmental protection has received greater attention in light of increased global and local recognition of both substantive and procedural environmental rights. Extractive industries search for, discover and develop natural resources in countries in which the governmental and civil society institutions necessary to protect human rights may not exist or where governments lack the capacity or will to effectively ensure the protection of human rights. Allegations of human rights violations …

El Aborto En El Derecho Transnacional: Casos Y Controversias: Introducción, Rebecca Cook, Joanna Erdman, Bernard Dickens

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

El debate jurídico y judicial sobre el aborto ha tenido, a lo largo del siglo XX y principios del XXI, importantes revoluciones en su abordaje teórico y práctico, que son expresión de estrategias de sectores sociales, religiosos y políticos que en ocasiones resultan contrapuestas. Éste es un completo balance dinámico sobre las nuevas transiciones actuales y posibles y los desarrollos jurídicos más significativos a nivel transnacional en el tema del aborto, y da cuenta del nuevo desarrollo conceptual que concibe la idea de que no sólo la sanción penal, sino también la amenaza de la sanción penal, ponen en riesgo …

The Ethical Identity Of Sexual Assault Lawyers, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Despite progressive law reforms, sexual assault complainants continue to experience the criminal justice response to the violations that they have suffered as unsatisfactory, if not traumatic. One emerging response to this dilemma involves greater consideration of the ethical boundaries imposed on lawyers that practice sexual assault law. What is the relationship between a criminal lawyer’s ethical duties and the reforms to the law of sexual assault in Canada? How do lawyers themselves understand the ethical limits imposed on their conduct of a sexual assault case? How do lawyers that practice in this area of law comprehend their role in the …

The Inhospitable Court, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Who speaks and with what authority, who is believed, what evidence is introduced, and how it is presented, is informed not only by the substantive law and the rules of evidence but also by the rituals of the trial. It is from this legal process as a whole that a judge or jury determines the (legal) ‘truth’ about a woman’s allegation of rape. A sexual assault complainant’s capacity to be believed in court, to share in the production of meaning about an incidence of what she alleges was unwanted sexual contact, requires her to play a part in certain rituals …

La Publication En Libre Accès Au Cœur De La Demande Européenne. État Des Lieux Et Enjeux Juridiques En Matière De Diffusion De La Recherche, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

No abstract provided.

Introduction To "Regulating Creation: The Law, Ethics, And Policy Of Assisted Human Reproduction", Trudo Lemmens, Andrew Flavelle Martin

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In 2004, Canada's Parliament passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. Fully in force by 2007, the act was intended to safeguard and promote the health, safety, dignity, and rights of Canadians. However, a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada decision ruled that key parts of the act were invalid. Regulating Creation is a collection of essays built around various components of the 2010 ruling. Featuring contributions by Canadian and international scholars, it offers a variety of perspectives on the role of law in dealing with the legal, ethical, and policy issues surrounding changing reproductive technologies. The book is divided in three …

The Road To Artificial Super-Intelligence: Has International Law A Role To Play?, J.-G. Castel, Matthew E. Castel

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Part I of this article deals with the road to artificial general super-intelligence.

Part II addresses the controls, if any, that should be exercised over the production and use of partially or fully autonomous machines of artificial intelligence before and after they become super-intelligent. More particularly, should there be legal and ethical limits to their use and to what extent should international law play a role in this connection?

Un Nouveau Code Pour Une Procédure Technologique: Mémento Pour Le Pr@Ticien, Antoine Guilman

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Table des matières

Introduction.................................................................................................. 18

I. La transmission technologique des actes de procédure ................................. 22

(a) Le dépôt technologique des actes de procédure ................................... 23

(i) Un régime légal inédit : les dispositions du NCPC...................... 23

(ii) Un régime réglementaire inexistant : l’exemple de la Cour fédérale ...................................................................................... 26

(b) La signification technologique des actes de procédure ......................... 28

(i) Le principe : la signification de main à main .............................. 29

(ii) L’exception : la signification technologique................................. 30

(c) La notification technologique des actes de procédure..........................35

(i) La notification par un moyen technologique .............................. 35

(ii) La notification par …

Les Photos Prises Par Les Téléphones Cellulaires Sont-Elles Assez « Originales » Pour Être Protégées Par La Loi Sur Le Droit D'Auteur?, René Pépin

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

On considérait traditionnellement que l’originalité réside dans les choix faits par le photographe au niveau de la sensibilité du film choisi, de la vitesse de l’obturateur, de la mise au foyer, de la pose du sujet photographié , etc. Mais les caméras incorporées dans les téléphones cellulaires sont si perfectionnées que la prise de photo se fait de façon presque automatique. L’appareil fait seul la mise au foyer, le flash se déclenche au besoin, la vitesse d’obturation est optimale, le cadrage se fait presque seul, etc. C’est justement le grand avantage et le grand attrait de ces appareils. L’utilisateur n’a …

Is There A 'Right To Be Forgotten' In Canada's Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act (Pipeda)?, Michael Rosenstock

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In this paper, I argue that PIPEDA could support a version of the right to be forgotten, subject to three important caveats. First, for search engines to meet the threshold applicability test under PIPEDA, their activities (i.e., crawling, indexing, organizing, etc.) must constitute the ‘‘collection, use or disclosure” of personal information. Ascribing such a role to search engines in information dissemination would likely require a court to distinguish the activities of search engines from hyperlinks on websites, which the Supreme Court in Crookes v. Newton determined did not involve control over content. Second, PIPEDA’s ‘‘all-or-nothing approach” means that if search …

Minding The Gap: Why Or How Nova Scotia Should Enact A New Cyber-Safety Act - Case Comment On Crouch V. Snell, Jennifer Taylor

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Nova Scotia’s Cyber-safety Act was meant to fill a gap in the law. Where criminal charges and civil claims like defamation were unavailable or undesirable, the Act, it was hoped, would contain a substantive definition of cyberbullying, set out when it was actionable, and provide procedures for victims to obtain remedies. But the statute that was ultimately passed was too blunt a tool to address the problem, from both a substantive and a procedural perspective.

That helps explain why Justice McDougall of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia struck down the entire statute as unconstitutional, in the recent case of …

Protecting The Privacy Of Canadians' Health Information In The Cloud, Adrian Thorogood, Howard Simkevitz, Mark Phillips, Edward S. Dove, Yann Joly

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This article presents results from a year-long research project reviewing health privacy issues in the cloud, funded by the Contributions Program of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC). Section I provides a brief primer on cloud computing and its applications in data-centric health research and health care. Section II reviews Canadian privacy and health privacy laws and how they apply to CSPs. Section III identifies privacy risks arising from the technological, organizational, and jurisdictional complexity of cloud computing. Section IV argues that Canadian health privacy laws fail to address difficulties custodians face in balancing responsibilities with CSPs, …

Fighting Spam. How Stringent Is The Canadian Legal Arsenal. An Analysis In The Light Of The U.S. Can-Spam Act, Serge Kablan

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Following several countries, Canada recently passed Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), in an attempt to tackle spam. The law aims to ‘‘protect Canadians while ensuring that businesses can continue to compete in the global marketplace”. For this purpose, CASL prohibits not only the sending of commercial electronic messages without consent, but also any alteration of transmission data in the course of a commercial activity. Moreover, the Act disallows the installation of a computer program on another person’s computer system and the sending of commercial electronic messages following the installation. These three activities are prohibited unless the author or initiator has obtained …

Cyber Force: The International Legal Implications Of The Communication Security Establishment's Expanded Mandate Under Bill C-59, Leah West

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Canada is about to join the ranks of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea; countries with a declared policy and authorized program of state-sponsored cyber attacks. In the summer of 2017, the Liberal Government introduced Bill C-59 An Act 2 Respecting National Security Matters. The bill, if passed, represents the most significant overhaul to Canadian national security institutions since the establishment of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) as a separate organization from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in 1984. One component of this sweeping reform is the introduction of The Communications Security Establishment Act (CSE Act or the …

Corporate Criminal Liability For Algorithmic Price Fixing In Canada, Theodore Milosevic

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The use of computerized algorithms is increasingly common in the modern business environment. An algorithm can be defined as ‘‘a set of mathematical instructions or rules that, especially if given to a computer, will help to calculate an answer to a problem.” As noted in this definition, algorithms are particularly powerful tools when combined with computing power. The proliferation of computerized algorithms in business settings has occasionally led to unintended and injurious outcomes. This is perhaps most notable in relation to the algorithmic trading of securities. The 2010 ‘‘Flash Crash” of the United States (U.S.) financial markets, during which key …

Land Claim Settlement In Canadian Arctic: Pragmatism And Instrumentalism At Work, Diana Ginn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In Canada, comprehensive land claims based on Aboriginal title can be pursued through either litigation or negotiation. Generally, the relationship between litigation and negotiation of these claims is understood as one where the Supreme Court of Canada initially prodded the Canadian state to action, and then in a series of decisions developed the legal parameters within which the political realities of negotiation occur. Thus, settlement tends to follow and be shaped by the contours of the legal doctrine. However, settlement of land claims in Canada’s Arctic moved ahead of the case law in two key areas, as manifested in: (a) …

Carter, Medical Aid In Dying, And Mature Minors, Constance Macintosh

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Carter v Canada (AG) decriminalized medical aid in dying in certain defined circumstances. One of those circumstances is that the person seeking assistance be an “adult.” This article argues that the regulatory response to this decision must approach the idea of “adult” in terms of the actual medical-decisional capacity of any given individual, and not rely upon age as a substitute for capacity. This article surveys jurisdictions where minors are included in physician-assisted dying regimes, and identifies what little empirical evidence exists regarding requests from minors. The heart of the article considers the …

Carter, Medical Aid In Dying, And Mature Minors, Constance Macintosh

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Carter v Canada (AG) decriminalized medical aid in dying in certain defined circumstances. One of those circumstances is that the person seeking assistance be an “adult.” This article argues that the regulatory response to this decision must approach the idea of “adult” in terms of the actual medical-decisional capacity of any given individual, and not rely upon age as a substitute for capacity. This article surveys jurisdictions where minors are included in physician-assisted dying regimes, and identifies what little empirical evidence exists regarding requests from minors. The heart of the article considers the …

Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance And Wikipedia Use, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article discusses the results of the first empirical study providing evidence of regulatory “chilling effects” of Wikipedia users associated with online government surveillance. The study explores how traffic to Wikipedia articles on topics that raise privacy concerns for Wikipedia users decreased after the widespread publicity about NSA/PRISM surveillance revelations in June 2013. Using an interdisciplinary research design, the study tests the hypothesis, based on chilling effects theory, that traffic to privacy-sensitive Wikipedia articles reduced after the mass surveillance revelations. The Article finds not only a statistically significant immediate decline in traffic for these Wikipedia articles after June 2013, but …