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The Special Court for Sierra Leone has been noted for becoming the first international court to convict accused of the crimes of sexual slavery, the use of child soldiers, 'forced marriage', and intentionally directing attacks against peacekeepers. This article analyzes how prosecutions of some of these supposedly 'new' crimes were found not to be in violation of the principle of legality, nullum crimen sine lege. In particular, this article will focus on the crimes of 'forced marriage', intentionally directing attacks against peacekeepers, and sexual slavery: the judgments in the RUF case (Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon and Gbao) and the AFRC case (Prosecutor v. Brima, Kamara and Kanu) together reveal two different processes through which the law has proven able to evolve and adapt to accommodate so-called 'new' crimes without violating the principle of legality.

Copyright laws throughout the world are copyright holder centric and present a very fragmented source to comprehend the rights of users, and in particular of consumers owning copies of copyrighted works. Although in recent years, a growing number of commentators have worked towards defining the place of users in copyright law, little attention has been devoted to the nature and justifications of copy ownership of copyrighted works. This paper applies property and copyright theory to define and justify the existence of copy ownership of copyrighted works. It seeks to carve out in clearer terms the place of copy ownership legally and normatively, to offer a counterbalance to a predominant copyright holder centric approach to copyright law. Part One of this paper lays the theoretical framework of property and copyright theory. Part Two applies the theoretical framework to define the nature of the copy of a copyrighted works as well as its justifications. It explores the ramifications of copyright acting as a property-limitation rule to copy ownership, and how copy ownership can also act as a property-limitation rule of copyright.

This paper was written on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Annual Workshop on Commercial and Consumer Law and as a contribution to a collection of retrospective essays in the 50th volume of the Canadian Business Law Journal. In the paper, I reflect briefly on the impact of collective action on consumer access to courts, and the promised guarantee of effective justice. In the first part of the paper, I summarize the results of an empirical study which asked class action lawyers to identify the categories of cases being litigated, including those that come within the rubric of "consumer protection actions." I then examine two of the more significant advances in consumer rights litigation, namely, the development of the waiver of tort doctrine and the widespread rejection of mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer contracts. In the final part of the paper, I discuss two challenges to achieving substantive justice for consumers that have recently become more pronounced: increasing reliance on cy près distribution of settlements, and the effect of adverse costs awards on representative plaintiffs.

The Internal Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian officials in relation to Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmatti and Muayyed Nureddin is a particularly pronounced example of the use of secrecy that has defined Canada in the wake of 9/11. Despite having the authority to hold some portions of the Inquiry in public, the Iacobucci Inquiry was conducted almost exclusively in camera and ex parte. The result was an inquiry that was unlike previous commissions called under the federal Inquiries Act.

Copyright laws throughout the world are copyright holder centric and present a very fragmented source to comprehend the rights of users, and in particular of consumers owning copies of copyrighted works. Although in recent years, a growing number of commentators have worked towards defining the place of users in copyright law, little attention has been devoted to the nature and justifications of copy ownership of copyrighted works. This paper applies property and copyright theory to define and justify the existence of copy ownership of copyrighted works. It seeks to carve out in clearer terms the place of copy ownership legally and normatively, to offer a counterbalance to a predominant copyright holder centric approach to copyright law. Part One of this paper lays the theoretical framework of property and copyright theory. Part Two applies the theoretical framework to define the nature of the copy of a copyrighted works, as well as its justifications. It explores the ramifications of copyright acting as a property limitation rule to copy ownership, and how copy ownership can also act as a property-limitation rule of copyright. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Law can be the site through which women's dignity and equality can be expressed and pursued. Speaking the language of rights translates one's needs from private interests to public claims through words and concepts that the community – local, national and/or international – have already validated. Law can therefore offer a medium to confront the injustices and unfairness built into other systems of political, social and economic ordering. Women's rights advocates have won significant victories through law and have generated gains for women's dignity and equality. However, law can also be a place where women's rights are not only silenced but where social, economic and political power structures are replicated and work against women's rights.

The remedies that administrative tribunals can administer is an under studied area. Often, empowering legislation simply extoils an administrative tribunal to do what is ''fair and just''. In this paper, I argue that when confronted with open-textured remedial provisions, tribunals may often benefit from drawing by analogy from developed common law principles used to quantify monetary and non-monetary relief.

With this brief introduction to a special issue of the Osgoode Hall Law School Comparative Law and Political Economy Research Paper Series, we hope to evoke some of the discussions and background preparation that invigorated the 2010 Osgoode Graduate Law Students' Association conference.

On May 25 - 26, 2010, Université Laval, the University of Windsor Faculty of Law and the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, hosted the Sixth Administrative Law Discussion Forum. These discussion fora, which have become an international academic success, have been held in a variety of venues in North America and Europe since the early 1990s. They are an initiative of Russell Weaver, Professor of Law & Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville. The fora provide an opportunity for thoughtful exchange among administrative law academics on contemporary issues that cut across national borders.

Victor Kattan's “From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891–1949” is an archival excavation of the Israeli-Palestinian (Arab-Israeli) conflict and its origins. This review will examine the contours of Kattan's book followed by a brief examination of objectivity in academic scholarship often enunciated through the concept of ‘balance’ as it relates to those scholars (like Kattan) working on the conflict. Finally, this review will explore some of the weakness of the arguments that Kattan advances.

This volume of essays is the end product of the Second International Symposium on the Law of Remedies, a joint undertaking of the Faculties of Law at the Universities of Windsor, Canada, and Auckland (Research Centre for Business Law), New Zealand. The symposium brought together scholars drawn from four continents, representing the major Commonwealth common law jurisdictions, as well as the United States and Ireland. Collectively, the essays illustrate the breadth and depth of attention that is now accorded to the study of remedies throughout the common law world. The collection also demonstrates the value of fruitful exchanges across common law jurisdictions that have much to gain from learning of one another's experiences, thereby enriching the body of knowledge for a system that is inherently built upon discrete and incremental case law.

As part of an international group of scholars who came together in December 2007 to discuss and debate the use of class actions worldwide, the authors prepared a report on the role of class proceedings in Canada. The original report followed a format designed by the conference organizers and traced the procedural particularities and historical pedigree of class actions in Canada, as well as the general policy rationales and arguments that continue to attend them. Condensed versions of the country reports, including this Canadian report, were published in March 2009.

Since the first publication of Medicine and Law thirty years ago, there have been significant international advances in patient rights and participant protections in clinical trials. Despite such advances, there are still alarming reports of actual or perceived breaches in ethical standards by Institutions, Investigators and Sponsors of pre-market drug clinical trials. This is particularly disturbing as these trials involve participants in the testing of an investigational drug before its full safety, effectiveness, and clinical outcomes are understood. Moreover, the study design may randomize participants (recruited because they have specific diseases or conditions) into a group receiving a placebo or comparator drug versus a group receiving the investigational drug. The proposed Charter of Participant Rights in Pre-Market Drug Trials reflects the growing trend towards a participant-centred approach to the implementation and enforcement of participant rights. The development and adoption of the Charter is the next natural step towards the guarantee of rights in pre-market clinical drug trials.

On May 25 - 26, 2010, Université Laval, the University of Windsor Faculty of Law and the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, hosted the Sixth Administrative Law Discussion Forum in Quebec City, Canada.The forum provided an opportunity for thoughtful exchange among administrative law academics on contemporary issues that cut across national borders. The discussions reflected in this collection of papers touch on a variety of major administrative law themes. In addition, they examine local aspects of problems that transcend regional and national borders, and show connections and preoccupations between jurisdictions and indeed between countries.

In December 2009, the Ontario Legislative Assembly enacted the Adjudicative Tribunals Accountability, Governance and Appointments Act, 2009 (ATAGAA). This new legislation offers a unique approach to ensuring that adjudicative tribunals in the province are transparent, accountable and efficient in their operations while preserving their decision-making independence. The statute presents an approach that the author has termed "collaborative governance" as it aims to bring the executive branch of government and the tribunals together in reaching effective and accountable means of internal governance. The author argues, however, that the approach taken by the statute does not address many of the contemporary concerns about accountability that are experienced by tribunals on the ground. She argues further that the legislation is inconsistent in its underlying commitment to the concept of accountability as it does not take into account the importance of accountability on the part of the executive to tribunals. Finally, the approach taken by the legislation must be channelled properly to avoid disintegrating from a collaborative governance approach to one of command and control.

Hate mongers have found it strategically useful to present themselves as defenders of free speech. The shift from advocate of hate to defender of free speech fits well with the hate monger's self-understanding as a victim of state oppression and a defender of Western values against multiculturalism. More often, though, the opposition to hate speech regulation has a principled basis. There are many committed civil libertarians who regard hate speech as odious but are nevertheless prepared to defend the right of others to engage in it. Their opposition to the restriction of hate speech rests on a commitment to individual liberty sand a concern about the reach of state power. While I think the "civil libertarian" position is mistaken, it is not without merit. What is perplexing though is the extraordinary energy that these advocates of free speech put into the fight against hate speech regulation. They seem convinced that the integrity of the free speech edifice depends on holding the line here. Yet they seem indifferent to the more significant ways in which freedom of expression is being eroded in Western democracies. Whether by design or not, the obsessive opposition to hate speech regulation diverts our attention away from more fundamental free speech issues concerning the character and structure of public disclosure, and more particularly the domination of public disclosure by commercial messages and the advertising form. But, of course, these are not issues that can be addressed by the courts, except in indirect ways, and that may partly explain the lack of attention they receive.

In many cases of alleged war crimes, a civil action may be an attractive alternative to criminal proceedings, for political, logistical or other reasons. This is particularly so with respect to corporate conduct, where the mens rea requirements and custodial penal sentences that are hallmarks of typical criminal justice systems transpose poorly to the corporate context. However, while the universality principle is by now well-established with respect to criminal prosecutions in national courts, the picture with respect to civil claims in one country for war crimes committed in another is substantially less clear. In this spirit, the author analyses the recent Superior Court of Quebec decision in the case of Bil’in (Village Council) v. Green Park International Ltd. There, the plaintiffs sought to claim against two Quebec corporations and their sole director for participating in war crimes allegedly committed in the West Bank. After a careful examination of the decision, it becomes apparent that such claims may face significant legal and practical hurdles in Canada.