Faculty Research - Spring 2011

ERIKA CHAMBERLAIN, along with Professor Barbara Hocking of Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, was awarded an International Research Linkages Grant from the International Council for Canadian Studies.  The grant is funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and will support research into the influence of tort law on legislative policy, particularly in the areas of alcohol-related and environmental harms.  In addition, she co-authored an article with Professor Solomon and others entitled “Random Breath Testing: A Canadian Perspective” which was published in volume 12:2 of Traffic Injury Prevention.

MICHAEL COYLE has been awarded a national SSHRC research grant in the amount of $87, 082. The three-year term grant will fund Professor Coyle's research into the availability of civil remedies for breach of the obligations incurred in the treaties negotiated between the Crown and First Nations in Canada. 

GILLIAN DEMEYERE with Professors Bradley Miller and Grant Huscroft participated in a public forum on April 6 on recent developments in the interpretation of Charter right to equality. Discussion centered on the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Withler v Canada, where the Court confirmed its recent shift from a dignity-centered approach to s. 15(1) of the Charter and abandoned the concept of comparator groups.

RANDAL GRAHAM has been appointed the “Goodmans LLP Fellow in Legal Ethics”.  His latest book, “Legal Ethics: Theories, Cases and Professional Regulation” (2^nd edition) was published by Emond Montgomery Publications.  The production of this text was supported by Goodmans LLP, who purchased copies of the book for all members of Western’s first-year class. On April 7, 2011, Professor Graham was the keynote speaker at London’s annual “Straight from the Bench” conference, where he spoke on the topic of Integrity, Civility, Professionalism and Ethics.

GRANT HUSCROFT participated in a forum on Denis Baker's book, "Not Quite Supreme" at the annual Canadian Political Science Association convention at Laurier University in May. Joining him on the panel were political scientists Ian Greene, Peter Russell, and Janet Hiebert, and American constitutional law scholar Robert Nagel (University of Colorado).  Professor Huscroft was interviewed byVoice of America on Canada's Polygamy laws. 

RANDE KOSTAL published "The Alchemy of Occupation: Karl Loewenstein and the Legal Reconstruction of Nazi Germany, 1945–1946" in Law and History Review 29:1 (2011)

MICHAEL LYNK  was interviewed widely in the national print and broadcast media in January and February on the uprisings in Egypt and the Middle East. He taught a course on The Charter and Human Rights in Labour Law at the Osgoode LL.M. program in Labour Law. During the spring, he published the following  book reviews: The Strange Alchemy of Law and Life, by Mr. Justice Albie Sachs in (2011) Canadian Bar Review;  Work on Trial: Canadian Labour Law Struggles, edited by Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker, in (2011) 19:5 Literary Review of Canada; Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by John Strawson, in (2011), 41 Journal of Palestine Studies; From Coexistence to Conflict: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1981-1949 by Victor Kattan, in (2011), 48 Osgoode Hall Law Journal. As well, he co-edited International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Routledge, 2011) with Susan Akram, Michael Dumper and Iain Scobbie.  

MARGARET MARTIN was one of the keynote speakers at "The Nature of Law: Contemporary Perspectives", a conference held at McMaster University May 11-15. Other keynote speakers include Matthew Kramer (Cambridge), Brian Leiter (Chicago), Mike Giudice (York), Scott Shapiro (Yale), and Mark Murphy (Georgetown).

RICHARD MCLAREN was one the 2010 Winners of the Lionel E. McGowan Awards of Excellence.  The award recognizes outstanding contribution to Alternative Dispute Resolution as a profession on a regional and national basis. He published "Is sport losing its integrity?" in the Marquette Sports Law Review (Vol.21:2) and in April 2011, Professor McLaren taught a Sports Dispute Resolution intensive course at the Melbourne Masters program at the University of Melbourne.

BRADLEY MILLER’s paper ‘Morals Laws in an Age of Rights: Hart and Devlin at the Supreme Court of Canada’ was published in the American Journal of Jurisprudence.  A paper co-authored with Nicholas Aroney, ‘Finnis on Liberty’, was published in The Jurisprudence of Liberty (2d ed), Ratnapala and Moens (eds), and a volume of essays co-edited with Professor Huscroft entitled The Challenge of Originalism will be published by Cambridge University Press later this year, including Professor Miller’s paper ‘Origin Myth: the Persons case, the living tree, and the new originalism’.  Professor Miller presented an invited paper on sexual orientation and the legal regulation of marriage at the I Congresso Internacional de Ideología de Género at Universidad de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain in February, as well as an invited paper at a conference on Equality, Freedom, and the Common Good in London, UK in March.  He participated in two public forums sponsored by the Public Law and Legal Philosophy Research Group: one with Professor Gerry Bradley of Notre Dame University and Prof Huscroft addressing Bedford v. Canada and the legal regulation of prostitution, and the other with Professors Demeyere and Huscroft on recent Charter equality jurisprudence from the Supreme Court of Canada.  He also attended the conference, ‘The Nature of Law: Contemporary Perspectives’ at McMaster University.

CHRISTOPHER C. NICHOLLS was invited to give presentations on Corporate Law and Corporate Law Remedies to judges attending the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta Education Seminar in Edmonton in January 2011. In March, he presented a paper entitled, “The Regulation of Risk and the Risk of Regulation” at the UBC National Centre for Business Law’s Banks, Markets and RegulationSeminar in Vancouver. He has also published the following papers in 2011: “The Regulation of Financial Institutions: A Reflective but Selective Retrospective” (2011) 50 Canadian Business Law Journal 129; “Insider Reporting Obligations and Options Backdating” (with Daniel Sandler, Lindsay Tedds and Ryan Compton) (2011) 25 Banking and Finance Law Review; and “The Market for Lehmans: The Report of the Bankruptcy Examiner for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.” (2011) 51 Canadian Business Law Journal 27.

ADAM PARACHIN was a recipient of the USC Teaching Honour Roll for 2009-2010. He was also  honoured by law students with The Jay McLeod Professor of the Year Award and an award from Pro Bono Students of Canada for PBSC Outstanding Mentor. The Jay McLeod award is given by the Student Legal Society to the professor who embodies the qualities of both excellence in teaching and outstanding contributions to the school.  The PBSC Outstanding Lawyer-Mentor Award is given to an individual with a demonstrated interest in the legal issues raised during projects as well as in their students' volunteering experience and in the pro bono cause in general.  

MARK PERRY was an invited speaker at the Harmony and Dissonance in International Law Conference in San Francisco, speaking on Research Freedom for University Scholars.

STEPHEN G.A. PITEL is the Goodmans LLP Faculty Fellow in Legal Ethics.  He published “The Portability of Judicial Remedies at Common Law” in R. Weaver and F. Lichere, eds., Recognition and Enforcement of Judgements: Comparative and International Perspectives (Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires D’Aix-Marseille, 2010) 126.  He presented his paper “The Canadian Codification ofForum Non Conveniens” at the Journal of Private International Law’s conference at the Universita Degli Studi di Milano.  At the same conference he was the chair of a panel on general issues in private international law.  He received the 2011 Borden Ladner Gervais Student Research Fellowship, enabling him to hire first-year student Lyndsey Kiser to research the developing jurisprudence on the Court Jurisdiction and Proceedings Transfer Act.  He organized a meeting of Canadian conflict of laws scholars in Toronto in April.

MELANIE RANDALL was quoted in CBC News on  Supreme Court decision on sexual consent 

VALERIE OOSTERVELD served as the Academic Commentator at the Atrocity Crimes Litigation Year-in-Review (2010) conference at Northwestern Law School in Chicago. Also in January, she did a joint talk with Professor Darryl Robinson on “The Future of the International Criminal Court: The 2010 Kampala Review Conference and Beyond”, as part of UWO’s Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Speakers Series. She presented a paper on “Gender-Sensitive Thematic Prosecution Using Gender-Neutral Crimes?” at a March 7-8 seminar in Cape Town, South Africa, on Thematic Investigation and Prosecution of International Sex Crimes, co-organized by the Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law, Yale University and the University of Cape Town. She also presented an evaluation of the gender-related jurisprudence of the Special Court for Sierra Leone at an April 1-2 conference in Columbia, South Carolina, on Rebuilding Sierra Leone: Changing Institutions and Culture, organized by the University of South Carolina School of Law. Her article, “The Gender Jurisprudence of the Special Court for Sierra Leone: Progress in the Revolutionary United Front Judgments” (2011) 44(1) Cornell International Law Journal 49-74, was published in April. A book chapter, "Gender-based Crimes Against Humanity" was also published in April, in Leila Nadya Sadat (ed.), Forging a Convention for Crimes Against Humanity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011) 78-101. Prof. Valerie Oosterveld quoted in Ottawa Citizen article "Peace prize winners launch campaign against rape as a weapon of war"

SARA SECK was invited in January to participate in a roundtable discussion at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies on Harmonizing Canada-US Disclosure Requirements in the Extractive Industries. In February, she was invited by the International Law and Environmental Law Joint Speaker Series at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa to present a paper entitled “Environment, Human Rights, and (Extra)-territorial Regulation”. In March, she moderated a Roundtable on Research Methodologies for the International Environmental Law interest group of the American Society of International Law, at the annual conference in Washington, D.C. Also in March, Professor Seck was invited to contribute an article on Third World Approaches to International Law for a special issue of the Trade, Law and Development journal of the National Law University, Jodpur, India. Professor Seck was quoted in Miners Weekly on the trial of Guatemalan woman suing Canadian miner HudBay Minerals and was featured in the article "CSR Becomes Entrenched" in the February 2011 issue of Lexpert Magazine.

Professor Seck had a book chapter released this winter: "Collective responsibility and transnational corporate conduct" http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9781107002890 

The book, published by Cambridge University Press, is called Accountability for Collective Wrongdoing and is edited by Richard Vernon & Tracy Isaacs, both at UWO.

ROBERT SOLOMON co-authored: a brief submitted to the Ontario Ministry of Finance, Committee Reviewing the Alcohol and Gaming Regulation and Public Protection Act; an editorial published in the January 31, 2011 Hill Times; and a commentary distributed to all members of the British Columbia Legislature. He also developed and presented a one-day continuing education program for the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Social Workers.

THOMAS TELFER was a Visiting Professor at the University of Auckland, Faculty of Law in January 2011. During that time he taught Commercial Law to LLB students. In the first week of February he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Adelaide where he co-taught an intensive LLM graduate course in Secured Transactions. With Australia about to adopt a new Personal Property Security Act, Professor Telfer was invited to speak at a seminar hosted by the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Scholarship Unit at Adelaide Law School. His presentation was entitled “PPSA Reform in Australia and Recent Canadian Jurisprudence”.  On returning to Canada, Professor Telfer spoke at the February 2011 Annual Review of Insolvency Law Conference in Toronto hosted by the University of British Columbia. He was invited to participate as a member of a panel that paid tribute to the scholarship of Prof. Jacob Ziegel.   Prof. Telfer’s conference paper, “Canadian Insolvency Law Reform and ‘Our Bankrupt Legislative Process’” was published in [2010] Annual Review of Insolvency Law 583-592. He is also co-author of a paper, “A Retrospective on the Canadian Consumer Bankruptcy System: 40 Years after the Tassé Report” that was published in (2011) 50 Canadian Business Law Journal 236-258.

SAMUEL TROSOW, who holds a joint appointment in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies (FIMS),  is a Network Investigator with the Graphics, Animation and New Media (GRAND) Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) and recently attended their annual meeting in Vancouver B.C. in May where he gave a report on the research activities of the Digital Labour project for which he is the project leader. He was the principal investigator on a project supported by a Knowledge Synthesis Grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) entitled Mobilizing User Generated Content for Canada's Digital Advantage; the final report of the FIMS research team is available at the Western Library's Scholarship@ Western website. He presented an overview of this research at the Law Society's Entertainment and Media Law Symposium held in Toronto on April 15-16 and also at the Canada 3.0 Conference held in Stratford on May 2-4.  Prof. Trosow is also presenting several talks on current copyright policy issues. On May 13^th, he gave a presentation sponsored by the British Columbia Library Association's information policy committee entitledCanadian Copyright in a Changing Political Environment at Simon Fraser University's Vancouver campus, and he will be making similar presentations for the St. Mary's University Faculty Association in Halifax N.S. on May 26^th and for the UNB Libraries and the Association of New Brunswick Teachers on May 30^th. He will be making two presentations at the upcoming annual conference of the Canadian Library Association (CLA) in Halifax, The Public Library Board Trustee: Policymaker or Policytaker? on May 27^th and a presentation on current copyright issues on May 28^th.  Prof. Trosow serves as a member of CLA's Copyright Committee and Intellectual Freedom Advisory Committee. His recent publications include two critical essays on copyright policy, “The copyright policy paradox: Overcoming competing agendas within the digital labour movement” in Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization  Volume 10, issue 3 /4 (a special issue of the journal which was edited by  colleagues at FIMS and supported by GRAND's Digital Labour project);  and “Bill C-32 and the Educational Sector: Overcoming Impediments to Fair Dealing” (in Michael Geist's edited collectionCanadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda: From Radical Extremism to Balanced Copyright).

Prof. Samuel Trosow participated in the ABC Copyright Group 2011 Conference in Prince George, B.C. held at the University of Northern B.C. June 23rd-24th. The theme of the conference was Access Denied: Striving for Balance. Prof Trosow was a panelist on the discussion panel  "New Era of Copyright: Mapping Uncharted Territory" where the presenters responded to questions which were solicited by the audience and organized into a series of themes. The ABC Copyright Group is composed primarily of copyright officers and librarians from Alberta and B.C., although the attendance at the 2011 conference was national in scope. Next year the conference will be held in Ottawa,

While in Prince George, he also gave a presentation entitled "Copyright Policy as an Academic Workplace Issue" which was co-sponsored by the UNBC Faculty Association

MARGARET ANN WILKINSON has been named Faculty Scholar in the Faculty of Law for 2011-2013. The Faculty Scholar award recognizes outstanding scholarly achievement in research, teaching or service while also reflecting sustained excellence in all scholarly activities.  Recently she is author, with her colleague Mark Perry, of “The Creation of University Intellectual Property:  Confidential Information, Data Protection and Research Ethics,” (2010: Special Issue, Guest Editor-Ysolde Gendreau) 26 Canadian Intellectual Property Review 93-122.  Her contribution as Canadian Speaker to “Intellectual Property Rights in the Canada-United States Relationship (Friday, April 9, 2010, session V)” (with William Manson as US Speaker and Christopher Hunter chairing) has appeared in [2011] 36(1) Canada-United States Law Journal 169-198.  Her keynote article (with Kirsti Nilsen), “Information Policy and the Canadian Library Association,” in the Theme Feature of Canadian Library Association’s journal also recently appeared ((2010) 56 (2) Feliciter 64-67).  In January, at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, Professor Wilkinson gave a Copyright Workshop.  At the Ontario Library Association Superconference in Toronto in Professor Wilkinson gave three sessions: “Genealogy and the Law in Canada,” “Copyright Update,” and “Collective Rights Management of Copyright in Canada.” With Karen Weisbaum (Queens University), Professor Wilkinson discussed “Getting to the Data Portal: Mapping the Route Through a Legal Lens” at the Health Data Summit hosted by the Ontario Council of University Libraries at St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto, in March.  Also this spring, Professor Wilkinson appeared on CTV television in a 3 part new story on privacy and personal data protection and the ability of establishments to check ID under Ontario’s liquor licensing regime. In May, Professor Wilkinson presented “Research into Innovation and Commercialization Outreach: Mobilizing Intellectual Property Expertise” at the inaugural international Conference on Research and Pedagogical Trends relating to Entrepreneurial Outreach in Windsor.  Professor Wilkinson was interviewed on CTV News speaking about ID Scanners & Privacy

Summer/Autumn 2010

Craig Brown's 7^th edition of Insurance Law in Canada was published by Carswell.

Chi Carmody presented a paper entitled "'Rights and Obligations' in WTO Law" at the WTO Scholars' Forum, University College London, London, England on October 26, 2010. He also presented a second paper entitled "The Obligation to Settle in WTO Law", at the Asian Center for WTO & International Health Law & Policy, National Taiwan University College of Law, Taipei, Taiwan on Oct. 29, 2010. The second paper is forthcoming in the Asian Journal of WTO & International Health Law & Policy.

Erika Chamberlain published, “Lord Atkin’s Opinion in Donoghue v. Stevenson: Perspectives from Biblical Hermeneutics” in Law and Humanities, and “What is the Role of Misfeasance in a Public Office in Modern Canadian Tort Law?” in the Canadian Bar Review. Together with Professor Robert Solomon, she also published, “Enforcing Impaired Driving Laws Against Hospitalized Drivers: The Intersection of Healthcare, Patient Confidentiality, and Law Enforcement” in the Windsor Review of Legal and Social Issues. In July, Professor Chamberlain attended the Fifth Biennial Conference on the Law of Obligations in Oxford, England to present her paper, “Misfeasance in a Public Office: A Justifiable Anomaly to the Rights-Based Approach?” Her paper will be included in the conference volume, Rights and Private Law, to be published by Hart in 2011. In August, she attended the International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS), held in Oslo, Norway, where she and Robert Solomon made three presentations. Finally, along with Professor Emeritus Gerald Fridman and Professors Botterell, Neyers and Pitel, she prepared the Third Edition of The Law of Torts in Canada, which was published in November.

Michael Coyle continues to investigate an oddly undeveloped area of Canadian law: the mechanisms and legal norms applicable to the civil enforcement of obligations incurred in the treaties negotiated between the Crown and First Nations in Canada. With the assistance of a University of Western Ontario internal research grant, Professor Coyle is drawing on Neil MacCormick’s theory of law as institutional normative order, to explore whether an analysis of treaties as institutions (i.e., taking into account their legal and historical context and the shared ends to which they were directed) permits the extrapolation of certain baseline remedial norms for their enforcement. Through the resources supplied by this year's Cassels Brock Fellowship in Contract Law, he has also been investigating the potential use of relational contract theory to assist in the development of a principled legal approach to the enforcement of treaties. Professor Coyle's latest article, “The Idols of the Cave: Re-imagining the Protection of Indigenous Knowledge and Expression”, is being published in the current issue of the Canadian Intellectual Property Review.

Gillian Demeyere's "Discrimination, Freedom, and the Limits of Contract" appeared in Volume 10(4) the International Journal of Discrimination and the Law. The article takes issue with the prevailing view that legislative prohibitions against discrimination in contracting represent a restriction on contracting freedom and argues that the freedom in freedom of contract is best understood, as it is in the republican tradition, in terms of nondomination, that is, as freedom from interference on an arbitrary basis. Forthcoming in the Queen's Law Journal is her article, "Human Rights as Contract Rights: Rethinking the Employer's Duty to Accommodate" in which she offers a contract-based account of the duty of reasonable accommodation.  Also forthcoming are "Discrimination in Employment by Religious Organizations: Exemptions, Defences, and the Lockean Conception of Toleration" in the Canadian Journal of Labour and Employment Law and a comment on the Shafron v. KRG Insurance Brokers (Western) Inc. decision in the Supreme Court Law Review.  Her current writing projects focus on the nature of implied rights under the contract of employment and the place and purpose of punitive damages in Canadian employment law. 

Randal Graham, together with Stephen Pitel, were named as a “Goodmans LLP Faculty Fellow in Legal Ethics”.  Randal completed the 2nd edition of my book, “Legal Ethics: Theories, Cases and Professional Regulation” (Emond Montgomery Publications) which is expected to hit the stands in January.  This substantially revised edition of my earlier book applies the theories of rational choice and evolutionary psychology to the regulation of lawyers’ ethical choices.  His paper entitled “Evolutionary Analysis” was published in two journals: the UNB Law Journal (Volume 61, 2010, pp 143 – 171) and in the Manitoba Law Review (Volume 34, Number 1). This was a collective publishing venture by the University of Manitoba and the University of New Brunswick.  His paper entitled “The Myth of Originalism” was accepted for publication in a collection of essays honouring the career of Pierre-Andre Cote.

Ben Hovius presented a paper entitled “The Family Home” in Toronto on June 10, 2010 at the Law Society of Upper Canada’s Fourth Annual Family Law Summit.  A revised version of the paper was subsequently published under the title “The Family Home: Legal Treatment in Ontario” in the August issue of the Canadian Family Law Quarterly (pp. 25-76).

Grant Huscroft (as part of the Public Law and Legal Philosophy Research Group) organized and hosted an international symposium at Western Law on Proportionality in Constitutional Rights this past October. Together with Professor Bradley Miller, Huscroft edited a collection of essays taken from the 2008 symposium on originalist interpretation at Western Law (including Huscroft's paper "Vagueness, Finiteness, and the Limits of Interpretation and Construction") which will be published as The Challenge of Originalism: essays in constitutional theory, by Cambridge University Press in 2011.

Rande Kostal's essay, "The Alchemy of Occupation: Karl Loewenstein the Legal Reconstruction of Nazi Germany," will appear in January, 2010 as a featured article in the American journal, Law and History Review.

Margaret Martin published "Raz’s The Morality of Freedom: Two Models of Authority", Jurisprudence (2010) 153-27.

Richard McLaren was the keynote speaker at the International Sports Law and Business Conference in September hosted at Istanbul University Law Faculty Centre of Comparative Law. He spoke on the topic “Contemporary Issues in Drug Testing and Coping Control: Court of Arbitration for Sport: Experiences and the current ADR process.” He was an Invited Workshop Leader for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union held at the Canadian Automobile Workers Education Centre at Port Elgin, Ontario in August. In October, he addressed the Young Canadian Arbitration Professionals Symposium at the International Bar Association meeting in Vancouver on the topic “When They Can’t Play Nice: Dispute Resolution for Sport” and spoke at Marquette University in Wisconsin on the issue “Changing Methods of ADR and Their Impact on Sport”. He was an invited speaker at the Special Keynote Panel Sessions, European Sports Law and Business Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, October 19-20, 2010 and spoke on the topics “Assessing the Impact on Sport of the Latest Developments in Tackling Anti Doping” and “Special Session on the CAS: Increasing the Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Sporting Matters.” In November, he moderated a sports law panel with Gordon Kirke and Ian Pulver hosted at Western Law.

Bradley Miller presented his paper “Dworkin’s Shadow: Equality Rights and the Supreme Court of Canada’s Loss of Dignity” to the Constitutional Theory Discussion Group at the University of Oxford on June 8, 2010. The discussion group is organized by faculty members Nick Barber and Aileen Kavanagh, and presents papers from visiting academics throughout the academic year. Bradley Miller co-authored a paper with Nicholas Aroney (University of Queensland) entitled “Finnis on Liberty”, which will be a chapter in the forthcoming second edition of Jurisprudence of Liberty (S. Ratnapala and G Moens (eds)). In October, Miller (as part of the Public Law and Legal Philosophy Research Group) organized and hosted an international symposium at Western Law on Proportionality in Constitutional Rights. Together with Professor Huscroft, Miller edited a collection of essays taken from the 2008 symposium on originalist interpretation at Western Law (including Miller’s paper “Origin Myth: the Persons case, the living tree, and the new originalism”) which have been accepted for publication in The Challenge of Originalism: essays in constitutional theory, Cambridge University Press. Miller also presented his working paper “The Criminal Prohibition of Polygamy in Canada: the Nature and Limits of Governmental Regulation of Marriage” at Ernescliff College, Toronto.

Jason W Neyers’ paper “Tate & Lyle Food & Distribution Ltd v GLC” was published in Charles Mitchell & Paul Mitchell, eds., Landmark Cases in the Law of Tort (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010). He also joined the editorial team of The Law of Torts in Canada, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2010), finished the fourth edition of Cases and Materials on Contract (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2010), presented on abuse of rights at Obligations V at the University of Oxford, and founded the Tort Law Research Group with Professors Chamberlain and Pitel.  He will soon be off to the Torts in Commercial Law conference at the University of New South Wales to present a paper entitled:  “Should the High Court of Australia follow OBG v Allan?” Professor Neyers also created and administers the Obligations Discussion Group (ODG), which is an international mailing list devoted to all aspects of the law of obligations. To be added to the list please send him a message.

Valerie Oosterveld participated as an academic advisor on the Canadian delegation in the May 31-June 11, 2010, Review Conference on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in Kampala, Uganda. Her attendance was funded by a SSHRC grant. As a result, she was invited to contribute a chapter on “Gender Issues, Stocktaking and the Kampala ICC Review Conference” in Van Schaack et al., Beyond Kampala: Next Steps for U.S. Principled Engagement with the International Criminal Court (American Society of International Law, 2010). In late November, she spoke in Washington D.C. at a panel discussion on the launch of this publication. Also in the fall, she spoke on a panel in Ottawa at the Canadian Council on International Law annual conference, on a panel on gender stereotyping at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and at a conference on post-conflict peacemaking at the University of Toronto’s Hart House. In August, she taught an intensive course on “Gender Issues in International Criminal Law“ at Case Western Reserve Law School, and also presented the year-in-review lecture on key developments in international criminal law at the International Humanitarian Law Dialogs in Chautauqua, New York. She has also had two articles and a book chapter accepted for publication, and had “Feminist Debates on Civilian Women and International Humanitarian Law” published in (2009) 27(2) Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 385-402. She also contributed numerous posts on gender issues within international criminal law to IntLawGrrls, one of the top-ranked international law blogs.

Adam Parachin has been awarded the Canadian Tax Foundation's 2010 Douglas J. Sherbaniuk writing prize. He received the award for his article "Reforming the Meaning of 'Charitable Gift': The Case for an Alternative to Split Receipting” published in the Canadian Tax Journal (2009) vol. 57, no. 4 787-838. He presented papers dealing with discriminatory trusts at the annual conferences for the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organization and Voluntary Action and also the Association for Nonprofit and Social Economy Research. In addition, he spoke at a conference hosted by McGill Law School entitled "The Worlds of the Trust" and at a conference hosted by the Brooklyn Law School entitled "Governing Civil Society".

Associate Dean Research Mark Perry delivered the papers "Recent Developments in Canadian Copyright Law" and "300 Years of Rights Management Information in the West" at the Second International Forum on Content Industry and Intellectual Property: 300 Years of Copyright Law from the Statute of Anne to Digital Copyright 2010 held at the East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai in November.  He also contributed a chapter entitled "The Protection of Rights Management Information:  Modernization or Cup Half Full?” featured in the book From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright":  Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda (edited by Michael Geist).

Stephen G.A. Pitel is one of the authors of The Law of Torts in Canada, 3d ed. (Toronto: Carswell, 2010) which was published in November.  He updated the chapters on the standard of care, defences to negligence and damages in negligence.  A book launch, generously sponsored by Cohen Highley, was held at the Old Courthouse in London.  He also published “Reformulating a Real and Substantial Connection” (2010) 60 U.N.B.L.J. 177-85, a discussion of the Court of Appeal for Ontario’s recent decision in Van Breda v. Village Resorts Limited.  This decision deals with the law of civil jurisdiction and it has been appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.  He also wrote “Estimating the Presence of Alcohol and Drug Impairment in Traffic Crashes and their Costs to Canadians: 1999 to 2007”, a report prepared in 2010 for MADD Canada, and co-wrote (with colleague Robert Solomon and others) “Predicting the Impact of Random Breath Testing on the Social Costs of Crashes, Police Resources, and Driver Inconvenience in Canada”.  He is currently working on the eighth edition of Cases and Materials on the Law of Torts which will be published in 2011.

Sara Seck presented a paper in June entitled “Ecological Integrity and Third World Approaches to International Law” at a conference of the interdisciplinary Global Ecological Integrity Group in Vancouver. The paper will be published in a forthcoming book, Globalisation and Ecological Integrity in Science and International Law.  In October, she spoke on a panel at the International Bar Association Conference in Vancouver on the topic of “Redressing Resource Company Foreign Environmental Harm”. She also prepared a set of Extraterritorial Environmental Liability Reform Proposals for discussion at the day-long conference session. Other ongoing research projects include her work on international law and international relations theory in the business and human rights context, as well as climate change and insurance law.

Robert Solomon was awarded The Kaiser Foundation, 2010 National Award for Excellence in Public Policy. The recipient is selected, by an independent National Advisory Board, based on a record of outstanding achievement in reducing alcohol and other drug harm through effective public policy. The Award is accompanied by $10,000 to be given to a charity of the recipient’s choice. He published (With E. Chamberlain), “Enforcing Impaired Driving Laws Against Hospitalized Drivers: The Intersection of Healthcare, Patient Confidentiality, and Law Enforcement” (2010), 29Windsor Yearbook on Access to Justice 45, (With R. Linden, et al.), “Research, Policy Development and Progress: Antisocial Behaviour and the Automobile,” (2010)Canadian Public Policy S.81 and (With R. Purssell et al.), “Emerg. departments: Considered a safe haven from prosecution for impaired drivers involved in fatal or personal injury crashes?” (2010), 52(9) British Columbia Medial Journal 477.

Tom Telfer was a Visiting Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School where he taught Bankruptcy and Insolvency Law in the fall term.  In October he was co-presenter of a paper entitled “A Retrospective on the Canadian Consumer Bankruptcy System: 40 Years after the Tassé Report” at the 40th Annual Commercial and Consumer Law Workshop held at the University of Toronto on Oct. 14-15.   The paper will be published in 2011 in a special issue of Canadian Business Law Journal marking the publication's 50th volume.  He also published “Justice Rand’s Commercial Law Legacy: Contracts and Bankruptcy Policies” in a special joint issue of the University of New Brunswick Law Journal and the Manitoba Law Journal dedicated to Justice Ivan Rand.

Sam Trosow was a speaker at the DIG 2010 Conference at the London Convention Center on Thurs. Nov 18th. He spoke on Mobilizing User-Generated Content. On Nov. 23 he debated Graham Henderson, the President of the Canadian Recording History Association.  The debate was reported on in The Waterloo Record.  He also wrote a chapter on "Bill C-32 and the Educational Sector:  Overcoming Impediments to Fair Dealing”, which was featured in the book From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright":  Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda (edited by Michael Geist).

Margaret Ann Wilkinson continues to work on research involving legal boundaries affecting information flows.  In this connection, she was pleased to see publication of her article , “Confidential Information and Privacy-Related Law in Canada and in International Instruments,” in Chios Carmody (ed.) Is Our House in Order?: Canada’s Implementation of International Law (Queen’s McGill Press, 2010), pp.275 – 311.  This paper arose from a conference organized by colleagues Chi Carmody and Valerie Oosterveld.  Another paper which also explores boundaries, and stems from a research grant, has just been published:  Mark Perry and Margaret Ann Wilkinson, “The Creation of University Intellectual Property: Confidential Information, Data Protection and University Ethics,” 26 C.I.P.R., pp.93-122.  Finally, the introduction of Bill C-32 on copyright has spawned much activity.  Professor Wilkinson has made presentations reaching a number of university audiences in Ontario and across Canada.  She was also keynote speaker at the recent conference of the Western New York/Ontario Association of College & Research Libraries, in New York State.  This work has also led to her invited, refereed chapter “Copyright, Collectives, and Contracts: New Math for Educational Institutions and Libraries,” in the book From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda (edited by Michael Geist; published by Irwin Law, 2010), pp.480-518, chapter downloadable FREE from http://www.irwinlaw.com/store/product/666/from--radical-extremism--to--balanced-copyright-

 

 

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Erika Chamberlain published an article entitled, “Abdelrazik: Tort Liability for Exercise of Prerogative Powers?” in Volume 18:3 of Constitutional Forum. The paper examines the potential tort liability of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for his refusal to issue an emergency passport to a Canadian citizen exiled in Sudan. Along with Professor Robert Solomon and others, she also published two papers related to her research in impaired driving: “Antisocial Behaviour and the Automobile” (published in Canadian Public Policy) and “Random breath testing: A needed and effective measure to prevent impaired driving fatalities” (published in the British Columbia Medical Journal).

Chi Carmody published "Law and Reform of the International Economic System" in the Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law. He also presented a paper, "Justice Then and Now: A Modern Reading of Aristotle's Distributive/Corrective Distinction", at a conference entitled 'Justice in the Ancient World' hosted by the UWO Classics Department, March 5-7, 2010. His edited volume, Is Our House in Order? Canada's Implementation of International Law is to appear shortly from McGill-Queen's University Press. The book features contributions from 11 Canadian legal scholars on the state of implementation of international law in Canada's domestic legal order. Chi contributed the Introduction and a chapter on Canadian implementation of the WTO Agreement. All chapters in the volume originated in a conference on Canadian implementation of international law that Chi hosted together with Valerie Oosterveld at UWO Faculty of Law in September 2007.

Michael Coyle's book chapter " Power and the Resolution of Indigenous Land Rights” has now been published in Democracy, Ecological Integrity and International Law, edited by K. Basselman, R. Engel and L.Westra (Cambridge Scholars Publishing). 
In March Michael presented a paper at a panel of SSHRC scholars held at the University of Ottawa, entitled “Establishing Indigenous Governance: The Challenge of Escaping Mainstream Cultural Norms."

Randal Graham had three pieces accepted for publication in early 2010. The first, “Evolutionary Analysis: The Impact of Interpretive Theory” will appear in a forthcoming volume of the Manitoba Law Review. The second, “The Myth of Originalism”, will appear in a volume of essays honouring Pierre-Andre Cote. The third (co-authored with David Lepofsky) is “Universal Design in Legislative Drafting: How to Ensure that Legislation is Barrier Free for People with Disabilities”, which will appear in the National Journal of Constitutional Law in late 2010. This third paper is an updated and expanded version of Graham and Lepofsky’s earlier piece, “Universal Design in Legislation”, published by “Oxford’s Statute Law Review in late 2009. 
In January, 2010, he presented a paper entitled “Activism vs. Restraint: Judicial Approaches to Statutory Interpretation” at the annual mid-Winter conference of the Manitoba Law Association, together with co-presenter Justice Freda M. Steel (of the Manitoba Court of Appeal).

Ben Hovius was selected in March by the Law Commission of Ontario to be a member of the Special Advisory Group to provide expert feedback on the Commission’s Family Justice Project. The purpose of this project is to improve the process of addressing family disputes by identifying and recommending best practices at entry points to the family law system. In May, Ben presented a paper entitled “Unjust Enrichment & Common Law Couples: The Vanasse v. Seguin and Kerr v. Baranow Appeals in the SCC” at the 20th Annual Middlesex Family Law Association Conference.

Grant Huscroft presented his paper "What did the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Settle?" in Mexico City at the Canada-Mexico Encounter on Constitutional Interpretation, Legal Theory and Philosophy, April 22, 23. The conference was hosted by the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, with the financial assistance of the Government of Canada. In March, under the auspices of the Public Law and Legal Philosophy Research Group, he and Professor Bradley Miller co-organized a public forum on the criminalization of polygamy. Visiting Professor John Finnis participated, along with Professor Michael Milde of the Philosophy Department, and Professor Margaret Martin moderated the event. He also organized and participated in a roundtable discussion on freedom of religion with John Finnis, Professor Joseph Boyle of the University of Toronto, and colleagues Bradley Miller and Margaret Martin. His paper "Vagueness, Finiteness, and the 'Natural Limits' of Interpretation and Construction" will be published in the forthcoming volume of essays on constitutional interpretation from the Originalism and Constitutional Interpretation conference hosted by the Public Law and Legal Philosophy Research Group in 2008.

Rande Kostal was an invited speaker to the History Colloquium at Rice University on Feb. 22, where he presented his paper entitled "The Alchemy of Occupation: Karl Lowenstein and the Legal Reconstruction of Germany, 1945-46". The paper will be published as a feature article in a forthcoming issue of Law and History Review.
In December 2009, Prof. Michael Lynk appeared as an expert witness before the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board on the role of international labour law in the interpretation of the freedom of association guarantee in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He presented a paper in February on international labour law and the Charter at a symposium on international labour law at Washington College of Law, in Washington D.C.

In March, Michael Lynk was an invited expert at a consultation on disability rights hosted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission in Ottawa. He also spoke on disability and human rights in the workplace at industrial relations conferences organized by the Ontario Grievance Settlement Board (Toronto), Lancaster House (Toronto) and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (Ottawa).
Margaret Martin has signed a book contract with Hart Publishing, Oxford UK, one of the leading publishers of original legal scholarship. The book's working title is Judging Positivism and is based on her PhD dissertation "Raz's Exclusive Legal Positivism: the Tension Between Law and Morality".

Richard McLaren published The 2010 Annotated British Columbia Personal Property Security Act and The 2010 Annotated Alberta Personal Property Security Act in January. Both books were published by Carswell. He delivered the Thomas Feeney Memorial Lecture, entitled “Olympic Arbitration: Sports, Drugs & Corruption”at The University of Ottawa in January. In April he attended the semi annual meetings of the Strauss Institute at the Faculty of Law at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California where he is a member of the Council of Distinguished Advisors to the Institute. The Strauss Institute has been ranked the leading dispute resolution institute in the United States for the 5th year in a row.

Bradley Miller presented his paper “Dworkin’s shadow: equality rights and the Supreme Court of Canada’s loss of dignity” in Mexico City at the Canada-Mexico Encounter on Constitutional Interpretation, Legal Theory and Philosophy, April 22, 23. In March, he co-organized and was a panellist at a public forum addressing the criminalization of polygamy (together with John Finnis, Michael Milde, and Grant Huscroft) where he presented his paper “The criminal prohibition of polygamy in Canada: the philosophical foundations”. He also organized and participated in a roundtable discussion on freedom of religion with John Finnis, Joseph Boyle, Grant Huscroft and Margaret Martin. His paper “Morals Laws in an Age of Rights: Hart and Devlin at the Supreme Court of Canada” was accepted for publication in the American Journal of Jurisprudence, and his paper “Origin Myth: the Persons case, the Living Tree, and the New Originalism” will be published in the forthcoming volume of essays on constitutional interpretation from the Originalism and Constitutional Interpretation conference hosted by the Public Law and Legal Philosophy Research Group in 2008.

Jason Neyers’ paper “Tate & Lyle Food & Distribution Ltd v GLC” was published in Charles Mitchell & Paul Mitchell, eds., Landmark Cases in the Law of Tort (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010). The paper argues that this House of Lords decision provides the key to understanding the instances of liability (and non-liability) found in the torts of nuisance and negligence.
Christopher Nicholls’ paper, “Civil Enforcement in Canadian Securities Law” was published in Volume 9 of the U.K. Journal of Corporate Law Studies. This article was a revised version of a paper he had been invited to present at the University of Cambridge in 2009 as part of an international conference on enforcement in securities law. In March 2010, Professor Nicholls was invited to return to Cambridge as Herbert Smith Visitor while on sabbatical leave. While there, he presented a paper entitled “Blinded by the Light: ‘Stock Responses’, ‘Irrelevant Associations’ and Financial Regulatory Reform". Shortly after returning to Canada, he delivered a lecture at the University of Ottawa entitled, “The Oppression Remedy: A Distinctly Canadian Remedy with an English Origin.” He is currently working on the second edition of his book, Corporate Finance and Canadian Law which he hopes to complete by this fall.

On February 4-5, Valerie Oosterveld co-organized and co-hosted, with the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations, an expert group meeting on "Closing the International and Hybrid Criminal Tribunals: Mechanisms to Address Residual Issues" in New York City. This was funded through a grant from the Global Peace and Security Fund of the Government of Canada. On February 26, she presented a paper entitled "The Role of Specialized Criminal Tribunals in the Era of the International Criminal Court" at Loyola University Chicago School of Law's conference on the International Criminal Court. In March, she travelled twice to Washington D.C.: first, to present a paper on "The Special Court for Sierra Leone: Progress and Gaps in Jurisprudence on Gender-Based War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity" at Cornell University Law School's March 12 conference on "Gender-Based Violence and Access to Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Areas", and again on March 25 to chair a panel on "Getting to Closure: Winding Up the International and Hybrid Criminal Tribunals " at the American Society of International Law's annual conference, "International Law in a Time of Change". On April 13, she presented a paper on "Closing the International Criminal Tribunals" at Western Law's faculty seminar series. From April 19-21, Professor Oosterveld participated as a moderator and rapporteur in the International Gender Justice Dialogue, which took place in Mexico. In April, Professor Oosterveld was awarded an individual one year standard SSHRC grant for $31,664 for a project focusing on gender in international criminal justice. As well, she was awarded a two year standard SSHRC grant for $70,736 along with three other academics from the University of Alberta, University of Ottawa and Queen's law faculties, to attend and analyze the process and outcomes of the Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, taking place in Kampala, Uganda from May 31-June 11, 2010.

Mark Perry delivered a talk on “Public policy, law and influence on regulation of biotechnology" at the Genomics in Sustainable Agricultre workshop held at Western Law on March 30. Prof. Perry and Thomas Margoni presented two papers at The Fourth International Conference on Digital Society: "FLOSS for the Canadian Public Sector: Open Democracy" (which received the Best Paper award at CYBERLAWS 2010) and "Interpreting Network Discrimination in the CRTC and FCC". In April he delivered a lecture on “Safe Harbour for Internet Service Providers (Managers)”, in the Faculty of Law, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), in Varanasi, India. His paper "The Proxy-based Mobile Grid" (co-written with Azade Khalaj and Hanan Lutfiyya) will be published in the proceedings of The Third International ICST Conference on MOBILe Wireless MiddleWARE, Operating Systems, and Applications. A paper entitled "Decentralized Resource Availability Prediction for a Desktop Grid" (with Karthick Ramachandran, Hanan Lutfiyya) has been accepted for The 10th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing.

Stephen G.A. Pitel is the co-author of two books on private international law, both published this April. The first, a textbook, is Conflict of Laws (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2010), written with Professor Nicholas Rafferty. The second, a casebook, is Private International Law in Common Law Canada: Cases, Text, and Materials, 3d ed. (Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications Limited, 2010), written with six other Canadian conflict of laws scholars. With his colleagues Professors Botterell, Chamberlain and Neyers, he was awarded research funding by the Foundation for Legal Research to write the third edition of Gerald Fridman’s The Law of Torts in Canada.

Sara Seck presented a paper entitled “Extraterritoriality, and the Theory behind the Ruggie Framework” at an interdisciplinary conference on Business and Human Rights held in February in Toronto by the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network. Her paper “Collective Responsibility and Transnational Corporate Conduct” has been accepted for publication by Cambridge University Press as part of a collection entitled Accountability for Collective Wrongdoing, edited by Tracy Isaacs and Richard Vernon.

Tom Telfer was invited to speak to the London and Area Insolvency Discussion Group in January 2010. He spoke on "The Underlying Policy Objectives of Voidable Preference Law and the Revised Preference Regime: The Impact of the 2005 and 2007 Amendments" He was also invited to speak at the Annual Review of Insolvency Law Conference hosted by the University of British Columbia in Kelowna in February. He was a commentator for the "Consumer Bankruptcy Panel" and his comments covered subprime mortgages, responsible lending practices and debtor misconduct. Prof. Telfer’s forthcoming article in University of Toronto Law Journal was featured in the Legal History Blog. The Legal History Blog posted Prof. Telfer’s article “Ideas, Interests, Institutions and the History of Canadian Bankruptcy Law 1867-1880.” The article was originally presented at the Professor Michael Trebilcock Symposium at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. The paper will be published in the spring 2010 special volume of the University of Toronto Law Journal dedicated to Michael Trebilcock’s scholarship.

Margaret Ann Wilkinson was invited to contribute “Thoughts and Research,” to a Panel on “Law and Policy” of an E-Health Law and Policy Symposium, hosted by the Law Commission of Ontario in Toronto on January 28,2010. She was also invited to contribute both "-isms, acronyms and research - some reflections" as the Keynote Speaker for the 3rd Annual Canadian Law School Conference in Windsor on March 18, 2010, and an address on the role of academic journals in a changing information environment for the annual dinner of the /Windsor Review of Legal and Social Issues./ Just recently, she spoke on "Balancing Public and Private Claims to Data" as part of a panel on Intellectual Property Rights in the Canada-US Relationship for the Canada-US Law Institute Annual Conference in Cleveland Ohio on April 9, 2010.

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