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The connections between law and religion are many. State laws support some religious values and practices and interfere with others. And, from the other side, religious beliefs often inform or shape state laws. Even if Canadian law does not directly compel citizens to engage in religious practices, to attend church or pray, for example, it sometimes favors or advances the religious practices or values of some members of the community over those of others. And even if it does not directly restrict religious practices on the ground that they are erroneous, Canadian law, when advancing otherwise legitimate public purposes, sometimes impedes minority religious practices.

The thesis examines protections afforded by the emerging right in international law of refugees or internally displaced persons to retum to their homes of origin following conflict. The establishment of discrete, quasi-judicial housing and property restitution mechanisms (for example in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina) promising "restitution in kind" has become the preferred approach of the international community. Their attractiveness is that they promise both legal redress and a practical outcome - the retum of refugees and IDPs to their homes. However, as the thesis discusses, the desires of refugees and IDPs often shift over a long displacement, to the point that return often no longer equates with going "home". Meanwhile ties begin to form with the host community. The thesis assesses the effectiveness of restitution mechanisms as concerns the decision-making of refugees and displaced persons, and concludes that they will be useful if undertaken quickly and in coordination with a larger project to encourage return. In protracted refugee situations, by contrast, restitution is unlikely to lead to widespread retum. A wider array of remedies (including increased use of compensation in place of restitution in kind) and approaches to the protection of housing and property rights for displaced persons should be available. Further, rather than detracting from the rights-based approach, such solutions are solidly rooted in the larger property rights discourse and may in fact strengthen protections of the rights to housing and property for returnees. Based in qualitative and quantitative empirical research, the last chapter presents a case study of protracted displacement and the possibilities for housing and property rights approaches which support a range of durable solutions in the Republic of Georgia and South Ossetia.

The servers and data streams which make up the internet in Canada are owned and controlled by corporations like Rogers and Bell. These businesses have potentially enormous power to control how the internet works, and how much it costs you to use it. Should the government regulate the ways they use this power? The answer, as I argue here, is both yes and no. (Winner of the IT.Can 2007 Student Essay Competition.)

Judicial Review' means a court reviewing a decision made by an administrative tribunal. When judicial review occurs, should the tribunal be allowed to send a lawyer to court to defend its decision? I think it generally should, and this article explains why.

The 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 terms produced several noteworthy decisions in the area of administrative law, furthering administrative law jurisprudence in three key areas: the relationship between constitutional and administrative law, especially with respect to judicial review of exercises of administrative discretion that affect Charter rights and freedoms (Multani v. Commission scolaire Marguerite Bourgeoys); exclusive and concurrent jurisdiction (Tranchemontagne v. Ontario (Director, Disability Support Program) and Bisaillon v. Concordia University) and standard of review (Livis (City) v. Fraternite des policiers de Livis Inc. and Council of Canadians with Disabilities v. Via Rail Canada Inc.). Overall, there was a strong synergy between administrative law and human rights matters over the past two terms, with human rights issues driving many of the recent developments in the field.

The first part of this article provides an overview of the most dominant private and public law approaches that have been attempted in the courts by plaintiffs seeking redress for historical wrongs and outlines why these approaches have been unsuccessful. It also defines the notion of historical wrongs and provides background on the two historical wrongs used as a case study in this paper – Aboriginal residential schools and sexual sterilization in Alberta. In the second part, I turn to discuss the phenomenon of creating compensation schemes as an alternative to traditional court action. Two illustrative examples are the outcry surrounding the introduction of a statute to compensate the victims of sterilization in Alberta and the continuing challenges related to the Aboriginal school resolution process established by the federal government. An examination of the compensation schemes that emerged in these two contexts as well as the process of their emergence provide valuable insight into some of the tensions that can occur when systems of compensation for victims of historical wrongs are designed. I argue that these tensions may be addressed by fostering continuous dialogue between the government and the victims and through independent oversight. Finally, I offer some observations on the ways in which compensatory schemes for historical wrongs expand our traditional conceptions of administrative justice.

Access to justice scholars have moved from a uni-dimensional focus on the procedural and cost barriers that prevent individuals from bringing their claims to court, to a more holistic assessment of all aspects of the legal system. Focus has widened from simply an emphasis on "access" to an examination of "justice" as well. The trend is towards thinking of access to justice as three distinct yet interdependent components: substantive justice which concerns itself with an assessment of the rights claims that are available to those who seek a remedy; procedural aspects which focus on the opportunities and barriers to getting one’s claim into court (or other dispute resolution forum); and, the symbolic component of access to justice which steps outside of doctrinal law and asks to what extent a particular legal regime promotes citizens’ belonging and empowerment.

If I emit greenhouse gases, and as a result the climate changes and you consequently suffer damage to your property or person, the law should allow you to sue me in tort. This article explains why this is so, and how we could reform Ontario law to make it a reality. (Winner of the 2007 CBA NEERLS Student Essay Competition.)

This study explores four postwar attempts to re-imagine the role of workers within the corporation and especially their relation to the processes of corporate governance. Employees have been variously conceptualized as “citizens at work,” whose rights of association, speech, assembly, and due process can be secured through collective bargaining; as “stakeholders,” whose interests are entitled to consideration analogous to those of corporate shareholders; as “human capital,” worth preserving and enhancing through enlightened employment policies and practices; and as “investors” — actual holders of corporate equity through pension funds and other vehicles. Despite the descriptive power and normative appeal of these approaches, each ultimately failed. Nonetheless, they provide important insights into the political economy of the corporation, revealing it not only as it is usually imagined — as a site of orderly governance, rational decision making, and purposeful coordination — but also as a site of conflict. This insight may help to explain and predict how the political economy of corporations — rather than their governance structure — determines the fate not just of workers but also of shareholders, debt-holders, and creditors; of corporate managers and professional advisors; of participants in corporate supply and distribution chains, of consumers of corporate goods and services; and of inhabitants of communities and environments which come within the corporate force field.

After signposting some of the developments towards a self-confident and self-consciously Canadian voice in international law, this article asks what the Canadian perspective on international law actually is. It suggests, through a comparison with the UK along three axes (government, courts and media portrayals of international law), that the Canadian international law reflex has been multilateralist/internationalist but that this description needs to be nuanced. An accurate description of the Canadian perspective(s) on international law must take into account: disconnects between stances taken by the federal government on the world stage and implementation of international obligations at home; instances where Canadian governments and courts have treated international law in a less than principled way while nonetheless paying it 'lip service'; and the Canadian public's lack of understanding and engagement with international law.