Law Commons^™

Conflicting Decisions: Why The Privy Council Drifted From Precedent In Deciding Cunningham V Homma, Keita Szemok-Uto

Dalhousie Law Journal

his paper highlights the structural barriers to voting rights that Japanese-Canadians in BC faced in the early 20th century. It documents Tomekichi Homma’s challenge of provincial legislation which prevented the Japanese from voting in local elections. His fight went to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, then the highest court of appeal in Canada. While Homma challenged the law because it denied voting rights based on racial grounds, the courts made little to no reference to race or ethnicity in hearing the issue; their focus was on questions of constitutionality and the division of powers. The Privy Council employed …

Humour, A Meditation, John Henry Schlegel

Dalhousie Law Journal

Back in 1987 when Critical Legal Studies was still “hot,” I was shopping a piece that was a long review essay on Laura Kalman’s history, Legal Realism at Yale. An acquaintance who was on that faculty invited me to present the piece—which I am still quite proud of—at the workshop he was running. Owen Fiss was the first person to ask a question. He wanted to know whether the piece was “serious” work or whether it was just an elaborate joke. Surprised and bewildered by the question, I answered, “Both.” In response he asserted that unless it were one or …

Show And Tell, Liam Mchugh-Russell

Dalhousie Law Journal

...to break the rules wisely, you have to know the rules well.

–Le Guin, Steering the Craft

I finished my doctorate in June of 2019. Most of my waking hours that late summer and early fall were spent writing and rewriting cover letters, teaching statements, and research agendas (and equity statements, long CVs, short CVs, etc.)—all the variegated materials demanded from applicants to tenure-track positions in North American law faculties. Writing those materials, and integrating the feedback on early drafts that I received from a host of generous peers and colleagues, became an accidental study in the principal subtext of …

Why The Multilateral Investment Court Is A Bad Idea For Africa, Akinwumi Ogunranti

Dalhousie Law Journal

The UNCITRAL Working Group III (WG III) is discussing procedural reforms in the investor state dispute settlement system (ISDS). The ISDS framework is criticized on various grounds, including arbitrator bias, lack of transparency, and inconsistent arbitral decisions. One of the recent reform proposals before the WG III is the possibility of a multilateral investment court (MIC). This proposal is championed by European Union states and supported by Canada. The proposal recommends replacing ISDS’ Ad hoc investment tribunals with an established and permanent court where states appoint judges. This paper examines the MIC reform option and argues that replacing the ISDS …

The Political Economy Of Laughter And Outrage, Genevieve Renard Painter

Dalhousie Law Journal

A bit uncomfortable. That is how it feels to be among dear friends but labelled professionally as an outsider. I have a law degree, a bar membership, and a PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy. I am a professor in a women’s studies department at Concordia University. At conference receptions, people respond breathlessly, “But they don’t have a law school at Concordia!?,” as though I am hearing confession in a gas station, or something as heretical. I teach legal history, international law, feminist legal theory, and constitutional law to undergraduates who are not in law school and mostly don’t want …

Making "Medical": How Psychedelics Are Becoming Legal In Canada, Agnieszka Doll

Dalhousie Law Journal

As legal restrictions loosen, psychedelic-assisted therapies are advancing at an unprecedented pace and scope in Canada and the US. Presented as a miracle cure for post-traumatic stress, depression, and other psychological disorders, psychedelics are being touted to treat post-pandemic mental health crises. In this paper, drawing on Science and Technology Studies, I ethnographically trace the ongoing process and practices involved in transforming illegal psychedelics into a regulated medicine in Canada, paying particular attention to regulatory pathways and the development of networks involved in psychedelic advocacy. Using these pathways as a methodological “sampling device,” I map the main actors, their mutual …

Access To Justice In The Nova Scotia Small Claims Court 1980-2022, William H. Charles

Dalhousie Law Journal

*This contribution has not been peer-reviewed.

In his latest research paper the author explores the extent or degree to which the Nova Scotia Small Claims Court achieves its declared purpose of providing the citizens of the province with what can accurately be described as a “People’s Court,” that is, a legal agency that would allow ordinary citizens to pursue their legal claims expeditiously and at a reasonable cost with a process that involved lawyers/adjudicators rather than judges. After a review and analysis of several thousand decisions by Nova Scotia Adjudicators/lawyers, the author concluded that the creators of the court had …

Expanding Equality, Terry Skolnik

Dalhousie Law Journal

Section 15 of the Canadian Charter provides a constitutional right to equality. But the Supreme Court of Canada has interpreted this right restrictively. Today, the Constitution fails to protect certain individuals and groups against obvious forms of direct and indirect discrimination. This article argues that s. 15 of the Charter is interpreted narrowly in three respects and advances proposals to expand the right to equality. First, the right to equality framework fails to protect marginalized persons and groups against direct discrimination. Second, courts overlook how individuals can suffer discrimination based on quasi-immutable traits, which are personal characteristics that are relatively …

An Old Bottle For The New Wine: Understanding The Duty Of Honest Performance Under The Objective Theory, Humphrey Yuan Jheng

Dalhousie Law Journal

Bhasin v Hrynew has many dimensions and potentially affects almost every aspect of Anglo-Canadian contract law. This article is limited to one aspect only: the duty of honest performance (“DHP”). My article attempts to show that the objective theory can provide a solid foundation and a different thinking framework for understanding and developing the DHP. If I am right, the DHP may be placed on a sound footing, independently of the organizing principle of good faith. Section I of this article traces the duty’s development from Bhasin to Callow. Section II argues that under the objective theory, reasonable expectations of …

Big Oil Liability In Canada: Lessons From The Us And The Netherlands, David W-L Wu

Dalhousie Law Journal

The number of nuisance and negligence tort claims in the US against “Big Oil” companies have grown significantly in the last five years. The Netherlands case of Milieudefensie et al v Royal Dutch Shell represents the first major success of such a claim internationally. While the US cases and Milieudefensie demonstrate starkly different approaches as to how to seek accountability from Big Oil for climate change harms, the increasing judicial engagement on these issues may mean the time is right for similar lawsuits in Canada. Three Canadian common law causes of action are examined: nuisance, negligence, and unjust enrichment. Defences …

Law’S Sexual Infections, Kyle Kirkup

Dalhousie Law Journal

In 2019, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights published its study on the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure in Canada. The report recommended removing HIV non-disclosure from sexual assault laws in Canada. This constituted a welcome development for many HIV advocates. Yet other recommendations proved more controversial. In order to counter the exceptional targeting of HIV, the Committee proposed an offence for the non disclosure of all infectious diseases. This article uses the proposal to develop three arguments. First, the idea of creating an offence for all infectious diseases finds its origins in criminal laws dating …

Permanent Injunctions In Defamation Actions, Hilary Young

Dalhousie Law Journal

Permanent injunctions prohibiting defamatory speech are increasingly sought and ordered following a finding of liability. This may seem unproblematic since a court will have found the particular speech to be unlawful—defamatory and likely false. However, there are good reasons to be cautious in permanently enjoining defamatory speech. This article shows that courts have recognized a test for permanent injunctions in defamation cases based on a misinterpretation of the case law—a test which is inconsistent with first principles of equitable relief. It then proposes a number of guidelines and principles for permanent injunctive relief in defamation actions. Most proposals relate to …

Mixing Mathematics And Morality: Precarity And Moral Hazard In Employment Insurance And Personal Insolvency Law, Anna J. Lund

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article examines how financially precarious Canadians face particular challenges to accessing the benefits of employment insurance and personal insolvency because these two systems include features designed to guard against moral hazard. However, these design features do not adequately account for how an increasing number of Canadians are precariously employed and precariously indebted. This article synthesizes the research on precarious employment in Canada, and uses it to suggest how one might conceptualize precarious indebtedness. It then traces how the Canadian employment insurance and personal insolvency systems treat characteristics of financial precarity as evidence of misconduct. As a result, precariously employed …

A Historical Account Of The Orderly Payment Of Debts Act Reference: Limiting Provincial Efforts To Protect Insolvent Debtors, Thomas Gw Telfer, Virginia Torrie

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper analyzes the history of the Alberta Orderly Payment of Debts Act and the constitutional controversy that followed. The legislation sought to protect debtors by imposing restrictions on creditors. In 1960, the Supreme Court of Canada in Reference re Validity of Orderly Payment of Debts Act, 1959 (Alberta) ruled that the legislation was ultra vires on the basis that it interfered with the federal bankruptcy and insolvency power. The Orderly Payment of Debts Act reference is the capstone in a trilogy of cases in which provincial legislation was invalidated for encroaching upon the federal bankruptcy and insolvency power. The …

Lost: Heritage Stock. The Heritage Property Act And Heritage Conservation In Downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, Eliza Richardson

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article considers heritage conservation in Halifax, examining the Heritage Property Act and its implementation. As one of the oldest cities in Canada, Halifax, Nova Scotia was graced with an abundance of built heritage. However, historic properties have been disappearing at an alarming rate, with 41 per cent of potential heritage buildings in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia having been demolished since 2009. This article argues that the current approach to heritage conservation in Halifax is nominally successful but consistently falls short of the spirit in which it was enacted. The Act performs well in specific situations, namely where the owners …

Are The Imposed Principles Standard? A Review Of Imposing Standards: The North-South Dimension To Global Tax Politics By Martin Hearson, Opeyemi Bello

Dalhousie Law Journal

The publication of Martin Hearson’s book, Imposing Standards: The North-South Dimension to Global Tax Politics, coincided with heated international discussions of the most substantial policy proposals in the field of international taxation in the last century.1 Hearson’s work provides insights on how the developed countries exerted control over the negotiations of the double taxation agreement (DTA) regime, which is the basis of the current international taxation framework. It explains how the negotiations resulted in a framework that works well for the developed countries, but does not substantially address the tax revenue needs of the developing countries. The publication of the …

The Future Of Data Protection Enforcement In Canada: Lessons From The Gdpr, Guilda Rostama, Teresa Scassa

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Imagine a not-too-distant scenario in which a private sector organization in Canada is investigated by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada jointly with the Commissioners of Quebec, British Columbia (‘‘BC”), and Alberta in relation to complaints that it shared massive quantities of personal data with third parties contrary to its stated practices in its privacy policies. Imagine also that each of the commissioners is empowered under newly amended data protection legislation to issue substantial Administrative Monetary Penalties (‘‘AMPs”). If each of the commissioners finds that its respective laws were breached, should the organization be subject to four different AMPs, or just …

Slouching Toward Regulation: Assessing Bill 88 As A Solution For Workplace Surveillance Harms, Danielle E. Thompson, Adam Molnar

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Employee monitoring applications (‘‘EMAs”) are proliferating in Canada and provide employers with sophisticated surveillance tools for the monitoring of workers (e.g., on-device video surveillance, browser activity, and email monitoring). In response to concerns about these increasingly invasive surveillance practices, the Government of Ontario passed Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, 2022, which requires all employers with 25 or more workers to have a written policy stating whether and how they electronically monitor their employees. Bill 88 marks a more explict attempt to regulate workplace surveillance in a modern digital context in Canada; however; however, an analysis of the Bill’s …

When Your Boss Is An Algorithm: Preserving Canadian Employment Standards In The Digital Economy, Fife Ogunde

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The platform or ‘‘gig” economy is a rapidly growing economy in Canada. Between 2005 and 2016, the share of gig workers among all workers in Canada rose from 5.5% to 8.2%. These include independent contractors, select freelancers and platform workers. In 2018, 28% of Canadians aged 18 and older reported making money through online platforms. Research by Payments Canada in 2021 showed gig workers as representing more than one in 10 Canadian adults with more than one in three Canadian businesses employing gig workers. As the share of platform workers in the economy has grown, so has the discussion regarding …

The Challenge Designing Intermediary Liability Laws, Emily Laidlaw

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The ideal framework for intermediary liability has vexed policymakers since the internet’s commercialization. The quest has taken on a frenzied pace in recent years with intense scrutiny of who they are, what they do and what they should be responsible for. Over the years a theme has emerged from my discussions about intermediaries, and its subset platforms, and it prompts me to explore it as the focus of this article. My question is simple: why is it so difficult for law and policymakers to agree on a regulatory framework?

This article tackles two parts of the regulatory challenge that are …

The Need For Cyber Resilience Of Space Assets: Law And Policy Considerations Of Ensuring Cybersecurity In Outer Space, Daniella Febbraro

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In 2018, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was the subject of a data breach where over 500 megabytes of data from a major mission system was stolen by hackers. This attack affected NASA’s Deep Space Network, prompting the United States Johnson Space Center to disconnect the International Space Station from the affected gateway due to fears that mission systems could become compromised. NASA has acknowledged that its vast online presence, which includes thousands of publicly accessible datasets, offers a large potential target for cybercriminals. The 2018 incident was one of many, with NASA experiencing more than 6000 cyberattacks from 2017-2021 alone. …

Masthead & Table Of Contents

Dalhousie Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Caesar’S Gambit: Coherence, Justification Of Legal Rules, And The Duty Test: Towards An Interactional Theory Of Government Liability For Negligence In Disaster Management, Irehobhude O. Iyioha

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article examines barriers posed by the duty of care test for government liability for negligence in disaster management. It argues that various aspects of the test raise concerns about coherence, legitimacy of judicial decision-making, and ultimately how we justify liability in tort law. In examining the coherence of the duty test through multiple prisms, including through theoretical justifications for tort principles, this article contends that the duty test, in its framing and interpretations, fails to meet the formal and substantive demands of coherence, correctness and legitimacy. Arguing that justificatory theories offer necessary theoretical lenses through which to understand, critique, …

Entangling Liberty And Equality: Critical Disability Studies, Law And Resisting Psychiatric Detention, Tess Sheldon

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Charter claims of persons with disabilities often sit precariously between sections 7 and 15. Psychiatric detention, including that pursuant to provincial mental health legislation, restricts liberty and security of the person based on the enumerated ground of disability. This project imagines opportunities to challenge state interventions that are linked to prohibited grounds of discrimination. It is inspired by Justice L’Heureux-Dubé’s “interpretive lens of equality” that understands that all Charter rights “strengthen and support each other.” The equality principle should wield significant influence on the interpretation of the protections offered by section 7. Such an approach to sections 7 and …

A Legal History Of The Regulation Of Assault-Style Rifles In Canada, R. Blake Brown

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article provides the first legal history of the regulation of “assault-style” weapons in Canada. A contentious part of Canada’s gun control regime is the firearms classification system that divides guns into non-restricted, restricted, and prohibited firearms. The sale of semi-automatic firearms, often based on military designs that could be quickly fired and reloaded, sparked concerns since the 1970s, particularly after mass shooting events. Canada adopted a classification regime relying on both statutory provisions that used technical details of firearms and Orders-in-Council to name models of firearms as restricted or prohibited weapons. Critics warned that this system allowed private citizens …

Introduction, Kim Brooks, Jamie Irvine

Dalhousie Law Journal

The dream for the Dalhousie Law Journal, included in the Foreword of the Journal’s first issue in 1973, was typically Dalhousie-modest: to have a “long and reasonably useful career.”1 As we celebrate our 50th anniversary, it’s clear that we have delivered on duration and over-delivered on purpose.

Beneficial Interests Under The Chattels Real Act, Gregory French

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper examines the Chattels Real Act of Newfoundland and Labrador and the strict treatment of property interests thereunder. Historical treatment of property interests under the Act had been pragmatic and flexible, however later jurisprudence took a stricter interpretation and restricted the interpretation of beneficial interest under the Act. The author suggests that a review of first principles and jurisprudence supports a broader interpretation of property interests under the Act, which should be followed for the better administration of justice and practical expectations of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Cet article examine la Chattels Real Act de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador et …

The Borders Of Responsibility, The Democratic Intellect, And Other Elephants In The Room, Liam Mchugh-Russell

Dalhousie Law Journal

What can André Zucca’s photos, taken during the Nazi occupation of Paris, tell us about the law to come or the challenges it will pose to lawyers, legal scholars and legal educators? In short: Zucca’s photos serve not just as a cipher for a past in need of reckoning but as a caution about abiding a present in which crisis is always just out of frame. In the throes of slow-motion apocalypse, what should an intellectual be? And for whom? In 80 years, when someone is rifling through an attic shoebox of our history, will we appear like the subjects …

Fifty Years Of Taking Exception To Human Exceptionalism: The Feminist-Inspired Theoretical Diversification Of Animal Law Amidst Enduring Themes, Maneesha Deckha

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this article, I attend to the scholarly interventions over the last fifty years that engage with the question of what general subjectivity or protective model the law should apply to animals to combat anthropocentrism and effect widespread positive change for animals. I call this field “animal rights law.” The article demonstrates the theoretical diversity and related richness of this scholarship, making three contributions. Most notably, it highlights the prominence of feminist theory to the development of animal rights law. This more recent feminist-inspired work has attempted to bypass the personhood-property debate from earlier decades through theorizing alternative or supplementary …

Book Review Of John Borrows & Kent Mcneil, Eds, Voicing Identity: Cultural Appropriation And Indigenous Issues (Toronto: University Of Toronto Press, 2022), 311pp., Charlotte Connolly

Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies

No abstract provided.