Law Commons^™

The Copenhagen Climate Talks: The End Of The Road For The Unfcc Or A Step Forward In The Evolution Of The Regime, Meinhard Doelle

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This paper offers an overview of the key outcomes of the 2009 climate negotiations in Copenhagen and consider their implications for the evolution of the UN Climate Regime.

'...And The Learners Shall Inherit The Earth': Continuing Professional Development, Life Long Learning And Legal Ethics Education, Richard Devlin, Jocelyn Downie

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After many years of debate and resistance the Canadian legal profession is finally accepting that compulsory professional development is a necessity. We argue that as the legal profession begins to design and deliver these programmes it should take into consideration the insights of the educational literature on lifelong learning. By way of a concrete example we explore the ways in which lifelong learning theory can inform the design and delivery of legal ethics education.

R. V. Munyaneza: Pondering Canada's First Core Crimes Conviction, Robert Currie, Ion Stancu

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Canada recently completed its first genocide trial, which resulted in the conviction of the Rwandan accused, Desiré Munyaneza, for crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide. While the case is still under appeal, it represents a significant success for Canada’s relatively new core crimes legislation, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, and was the first prosecution undertaken pursuant to that law. Drawing upon the Munyaneza case, the authors analyze the legislation and evaluate its effectiveness. They conclude that the model is an effective one that both bodes well for Canada’s future participation in the battle against impunity, and provides …

The Gulf Of Maine Boundary Dispute And Transboundary Management Challenges: Lessons To Be Learned, David Vanderzwaag

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One might be cynical about the usefulness of trying to draw legal guidance from a judicial determination of a United States-Canada dispute admitted by the judges themselves to be geographically unique. As stated by the majority of the judges in the Case Concerning Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Gulf of Maine Area (Gulf of Maine Case) decision:

"Although the practice is still rather sparse, owing to the relative newness of the question, it too is there to demonstrate that each specific case is, in the final analysis, different from all the others, that it is monotypic and that, …

Introduction To 'Queer Theory: Law, Culture, Empire', Robert Leckey, Kim Brooks

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This is the introduction to an edited collection. The book uses queer theory to examine the complex interactions of law, culture, and empire in relation to sexual minorities. Building on recent work on empire, it studies how law-reform efforts by sexual minorities can unwittingly advance imperial projects and how queer theory can itself show imperial ambitions. The book takes a contextual, socio-legal, comparative, and interdisciplinary approach. The authors - from five continents - study examples from Bollywood cinema to California’s 2008 marriage referendum. The chapters view a wide range of texts - from cultural productions to laws and judgments - …

The Potential Of Multilateral Tax Treaties, Kim Brooks

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This short chapter canvasses alternative possible approaches governments could adopt if they were serious about better coordinating and possibly harmonizing international tax regimes; explores the potential advantages of using multilateral tax treaties; evaluates the CARICOM multilateral double tax treaty; and concludes by urging the pursuit of multilateral and collective solutions to international tax law design.

Book Review: The International Criminal Court: A Commentary On The Rome Statute By William Schabas, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, Robert Currie

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"A Commentary on the Rome Statute" by William Schabas is a giant of a work by a giant in the field. This review examines the breadth and scope of one of the most important works in the field, concluding that the book is not just an excellent resource but an indispensable one for anyone working in or following the field of international criminal justice.

Tribunal Jurisdiction Over Charter Remedies: Now You See It, Now You Don't, Steve Coughlan

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The Supreme Court's decision in R. v. Conway (reported ante p. 201) simplifies the test for deciding whether an administrative tribunal has jurisdiction to grant Charter remedies. At least in principle, it heralds a broader approach to allowing litigants to seek such remedies at the earlier stage of a proceeding, rather than waiting for a review before a court or pursuing a parallel action. The attitude behind Conway signals a greater willingness to allow administrative tribunals to grant Charter remedies. The test on the key question of whether a tribunal has jurisdiction over a particular remedy is still essentially the …

Using Protection Of Privacy Legislation To Erode Privacy: R. V. Chehil, Steve Coughlan

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The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal here in R. v. Chehil overturns the trial judge's conclusion that the accused had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information the police obtained from the computer manifest. With respect, their application of the totality of the circumstances test is subject to question at several important points. For example, in assessing the objective reasonableness of an expectation of privacy, the Court of Appeal relies on the fact that the Westjet website informs customers that "information will be disclosed to the authorities without your knowledge and consent as required by law." The court then …

'Canada' In Electronic Evidence, Steve Coughlan

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Canada is a bilingual and bi-jurisdictional country. Most provinces and territories are mainly English speaking and have common law as the basis for their legal system. The exception is the province of Quebec which is governed by civil law and where the majority speaks French. However, it must be noted that Quebec civil law has been substantially affected by common law, in particular with respect to discovery rules. The latter are closer to common law discovery rules than they are from, for instance, French civil law. Another important factor for the review of the management of digital evidence in Canada …

Kwiatkowski: Privacy Protection And Risk Analysis: Losing The Forest In The Telephoto Shots Of The Trees, Steve Coughlan

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Checklists of factors are a helpful feature in assisting courts to determine how to find the proper balance in a variety of situations. Properly used they can help to achieve a certain level of uniformity and predictability, though they do not guarantee it. However, it is also important to recognize that checklists are a way of getting at the right analysis — they are not in and of themselves that analysis. Checklists also create the possibility of becoming encumbered in specifics and therefore losing sight of the overall goal. The Supreme Court decided two decades ago that the reasonable expectation …

Precarious Pathways: Evaluating The Provincial Nominee Programs In Canada, Jamie Baxter

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Temporary foreign workers in Canada experience substandard employment relationships, are explicitly denied many formal rights and are practically excluded from most employment protections. Led by a growing emphasis on workers’ temporary status as a root cause of their employment-related vulnerabilities, some advocates, as well as elected officials, are now calling on governments to improve opportunities for workers to attain permanent residency in Canada, primarily for those in lower-skilled occupations. The central aim of this paper is to evaluate whether Provincial Nominee Programs are likely to address the real insecurities faced by vulnerable lower-skilled temporary foreign workers. Given that there are …

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 …