Thinking on ISIS: An Open Forum

Date: Feb 11^th, 12:30-2pm

Location: EM119

Recent events in the Middle East—in particular the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq—coupled with the terrorist attacks in Paris and California have stirred considerable debate about Islam, and stoked concerns about security, law, and international affairs. This Open Forum offers members of the Law School community a chance to ask questions about and "think on" ISIS to reflect on our contemporary legal, political, and cultural landscape. 

Critical Analysis of Law Workshop Series

presents 

Ronald Niezen
McGill University Faculty of Law 

Templates and Exclusions in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission
on Indian Residential Schools

 Tuesday, February 9, 2016
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park 

The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada on Indian Residential Schools, released in early June 2015, provides us with a reconsideration of the history of the state in the light of Survivor experience. The statements from former students offered in this context put into relief the suffering and memories of assault and torture of children.  This has resulted in widespread recognition of the need for changes to Aboriginal policies and to institutional practices in such areas as child welfare and criminal justice.  The weak mandate of the commission, however, favored the expression of a certain type of voluntary testimony, thereby shaping the dominant narratives of trauma, institutional crime, and national history in a way that misinforms as much as it enlightens. Its essentialization of testimony leads me to question the ability of the TRC to effectively reveal the diversity and dynamics of the residential schools, the reasons for their establishment, the causes of the corruption of their goals, and the common features they might have with ongoing, enduring forms of abuse and institutional power.

Ronald Niezen holds the Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the faculties of Law and of Arts, a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Anthropology of Law, and is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Anthropology.  Professor Niezen researches and teaches in the areas of political and legal anthropology, indigenous peoples and human rights. He is an anthropologist with wide ranging research experience: with the Songhay of Mali, the Cree communities of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba, and the Sami of northern Europe.   Professor Niezen has taught legal anthropology and anthropological theory at the Faculty of Law and the Anthropology Department of McGill University. He has taught for nine years at Harvard University and held visiting positions at the Department of History at the University of Winnipeg and the Institute for Human Rights at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.  Professor Niezen earned his B.A. in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He completed his M.Phil. and Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, England.  His research has been funded notably by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Research Chair programme and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Infrastructure Fund.  His most recent books are The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Difference (University of California Press, 2003), A World Beyond Difference: Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization (Blackwell, 2004), The Rediscovered Self: Indigenous Identity and Cultural Justice (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), Public Justice and the Anthropology of Law(Cambridge University Press, 2010) and Truth and Indignation: Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools (University of Toronto Press, October 2013). 

A light lunch will be provided. 

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

 The first meeting of the Law and Economics Reading Group run by graduate students will take place on February 10, at 12.30, room FA1. 

The group will meet with Professor Bruce Chapman to discuss his paper “Economic Analysis of Law and the Value of Efficiency” published in Aristides N. Hatzis ed. Economic Analysis of Law: A European Perspective (Cheltenham, U.K.: Elgar 2014).

All students are welcome to join!

For more info, email: francesco.ducci@mail.utoronto.ca

Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) is a topic of interest in international corporate tax planning. The Tax Law Society is hosting a panel on the topic featuring Professor Benjamin Alarie, Scott Wilkie, a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon, and Willard Taylor, Visiting Professor and partner at Sullivan & Cromwell. The panel will give an overview of BEPS, present case studies on Apple, Google, and Starbucks, and conclude with recommendations to mitigate the adverse effects of this tax planning strategy.

The panel will take place on Tuesday, February 23 from 5pm-7pm in Emmanuel 119. A reception will follow the discussion. The panel is geared towards all students interested in international tax planning, corporate law, or tax policy in general. 

Health Law Club: Carter v Canada Discussion Panel

WHEN: March 8 from 12:30 – 2:00PM

WHERE: FA2 - Solarium  

Please join the Health Law Club for our upcoming panel on the Supreme Court’s Carter v Canada ruling on physician-assisted dying. Our three panelists are Zachary Green (Counsel for the Intervener the Attorney General of Ontario), Professor Trudo Lemmens and Jack Pasht (Vice Chair of Dying with Dignity).

Discussion will address the key points and impact of the decision, the challenges ahead in drafting the new legislation, the government’s approach thus far, and the additional suspension of the declaration of invalidity.

Lunch will be provided.

How do we reconcile the perception of Canada as a welcoming and inclusive nation with the direction of its policies?

 
The reform of citizenship law and the surveillance of "anti-Canadian values" were among the previous government's attempts to to contour Canadian citizenship in the post 9/11 world, yet these policies also connect to a long-standing tradition of marginalization in Canada.

As Canadians are ushered into a new era of "sunny ways," how will the newly elected administration respond to the underrepresented voices and experiences of everyday citizens affected by public security policies?

Join us for the 15th Anniversary of the Hancock Lecture with Azeezah Kanji, lawyer, columnist and social commentator, and take part in a timely conversation which has galvanized Canadians and policymakers, and influenced the outcome of the 2015 federal election.    

When: Tues., Feb. 9, 2016, 7 pm 

Where: Hart House Theatre

Cost: Free with valid Student ID / $10 for non-students / Reserve your seats online!

The lecture will be followed by a reception, as well as an in-depth discussion and Q&A moderated by award-winning journalist and social activist, Desmond Cole.

For more information on the Hancock lecture and related programming, please visit www.harthouse.ca/hancock.

(Part)-Time for All: Generating New Norms of Work and Care

Jennifer Nedelsky

Faculty of Law and Department of Political Science, UofT

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

12 noon – 1:30 pm

Room 200, Second Floor, Larkin Building

15 Devonshire Place

The talk will present the chapter on care from my book manuscript, (Part)-Time for All: Generating New Norms of Work and Care.  The project addresses three critical problems that arise out of dysfunctional norms of work and care: unsustainable stress on families, persistent inequality for women and others who do care work, and policy makers who are ignorant about the care work that life requires. My argument is that the new norms should be 12-30 hours of unpaid care from everybody, along with 12-30 hours of paid work. The claim is that only a radical transformation of the structures of work and care can solve all of these critical problems. The objective of the book is to generate lively public conversation that moves the current “work-family balance” discussion onto the terrain of the kind of fundamental change that can actually address the problems. The project is also an exploration of the relation between norms, policy and law, since its primary focus is on the generation of new norms, with secondary attention (in the chapter on work) to the kinds of law and policy that would facilitate the norm transformation. It presents an argument about the inevitably coercive force of norms, and thus the importance of democratic deliberation about norms. Existing norms organize the distribution of care around hierarchies of gender, race, class, and citizenship status. Both the work of care and the people who do it are denigrated. To achieve an equal society, the distribution of care must be just and equal. Only a radical restructuring of norms can achieve this, and because the structures of work and care are so fully intertwined, norms around both work and care must be transformed. The chapter explores some of the details of what new norms of care would look like.