2011-2012 Faculty Research News

BLG Research Fellowship: Professor Nickie Vlavianos is the Faculty recipient of the 2012 Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) Research Fellowship student ‘s assistance. Her winning project  is  titled “A Single Regulator for Energy Project Approvals? The Pros, the Cons, and Recommendations for Legislative Reform.” Since 2004, BLG has generously provided Summer Research Fellowships to students finishing first year in Canadian law schools, including at the University of Calgary. A BLG Summer Research Fellow provides research assistance for a faculty member whose cutting edge research project is chosen by a Faculty selection committee. The financial award is $12,000 for 16 weeks of student research assistance.

Publication News:  “NAFTA Takings Update – The Glamis Decision”, written by Professor Allan Ingelson (left), Lincoln Mitchell (LLM 2010) and Christine Viney (JD 2011) will be published in (2012) 5:1 Journal of World Energy Law and Business in February. This article is an update to "The Glamis Regulatory Takings Claim and Compensation Under NAFTA" (2009) 2:1 Journal of World Energy Law and Business, written by Allan Ingelson and Lincoln Mitchell.  Lincoln Mitchell is currently an associate in the Calgary office of Norton Rose and Christine Viney is currently articling with the Provincial Court of Alberta.

Presentations in Japan, Hungary and Kazakhstan: Professor Catherine Brown has just returned from a two-month sabbatical trip to Japan, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In Tokyo, she spoke at the 19th Tax Conference on International Model Tax Treaties for Central, West and East Asian Countries, organized by the Japanese Ministry of Finance and the Asian Development Bank, on the subject of “Permanent Establishments and the Mining Industry.” While in Hungary she delivered a lecture at Corvinus University in Budapest on the subject of international taxation and the Canadian tax system. At the Central Asian Tax Research Center (CATRC) at the School of Law at the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research in Almaty she delivered a lecture on Canadian tax policy and spoke at a Colloquium on permanent establishments in Canada. Professor Brown has accepted an invitation to serve as a Research Fellow at the CATRC Institute.

Is Ottawa overstepping its boundaries on climate change?: The federal government has introduced sector-by-sector regulations in an effort to address emissions related to climate change. Does Ottawa have jurisdiction over climate change laws? Or does the right to set environmental regulation sit with the provinces? Professor Alastair Lucas (left) and Jack Mintz, the Director of the School of Public Policy and the James S. and Barbara A. Palmer Chair in Public Policy, answered these questions at a press conference on December 6. Professor Lucas discussed the findings of his latest study, produced for the School of Public Policy, which draws the lines of federal and provincial jurisdictions when it comes to climate change law. See, for eample, the December 6 story in the Calgary Sun, "Prof says Ottawa has no power over greenhouse emissions."

Protecting Instream Flow Requirements: Professor Nigel Bankes' article on “Basin Closing Orders and Crown Reservations as Tools to Protect Instream Flow Requirements” has just been published in the current issue of the Journal of Environmental Law and Practice: (2011) 21 JELP 17–67. The article examines the use of basin closing orders and Crown reservations as two different but related means of establishing in-stream flows to protect aquatic ecosystem health. Adopting a comparative approach, the article analyzes the use of these two related tools in Alberta, British Columbia and Montana. Funding for Professor Bankes' research on this topic was provided by Alberta Ingenuity.

Arctic Human Development Report II:  Several years ago Professor Nigel Bankes served as the lead author of the “Legal Systems” chapter of the Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR) of the Arctic Council. The Arctic Council has recently decided to commission a second edition of the AHDR. In this new edition, due in 2013, Professor Bankes will serve as the co-lead author of the legal systems chapter, along with Professor Timo Koivurova of the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland. The Arctic Council is a high-level intergovernmental forum of the eight Arctic States designed to provide a means for promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among those States, with the involvement of the Arctic Indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues and, in particular, issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.

Overview of the Canadian Oil Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline:  Professor Alastair Lucas participated in a conference on “Canadian Oil Sands, the Keystone XL Pipeline, and North American Energy Security” hosted by the Energy Management and Policy Group at the University of Houston on November 11. He and Sean McMaster (TransCanada Corporation General Counsel) provided an “Overview of the Canadian Oil Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline.” As part of the Conference, five groups of 4-5 students assessed the proposed pipeline, taking environmental impact, economic benefits and US energy security into account, and presented their conclusions to a panel that included Professor Lucas. Four of five student groups recommended approval of the pipeline.

Global Fellows Forum Presentation: Professor Jennifer Koshan, a Global Research Fellow at NYU Law this term, is presenting a paper entitled  “Legal Responses to Domestic Violence in Canada and the United States: Comparing Specialized DV Courts” at the Global Fellows Forum on November 2.  An abstract of her paper and the paper itself are available for downloading from the Global Fellows Forum website.

CBA - Alberta Insolvency Law Section Presentation: Professor Jassmine Girgis (left) is presenting a paper entitled "The WEPPA, Purposive Interpretation and Vulnerable Creditors" at the Canadian Bar Association - Alberta Branch Insolvency Law Section meeting on October 31. Professor Girgis' research for the paper was funded by the INSOL International Fellowship she received as the 2010-2011 INSOL Scholar for the Americas. 

Colloquium on Globalization and the Legal Profession: The Fordham University School of Law in New York City is hosting a colloquium on Globalization and the Legal Profession on October 20-21. Professor Alice Woolley is presenting a paper, co-authored with Professor Deborah L. Rhode of Stanford, titled "Comparative Perspectives on Lawyer Regulation: An Agenda for Reform in the United States and Canada".  

‘Anything But Conventional' CAPL Conference: The Canadian Association of Petroleum Landmen (CAPL) 33rd Annual Conference, the ‘Anything But Conventional' conference,takes place in Québec City from September 25-28. The goal of the Conference is to reflect the changes in the North American energy industry. Guest speakers include a former Prime Minister, a national news icon, and our own Professor Allan Ingelson, who will be speaking on "Shale Gas Regulations". 

In the latest Alberta Law Review: The most recent volume of the Alberta Law Review includes an article by Professor Nigel Bankes and Sarah Nykolaishen (JD 2012), “The Jurisdiction of the Alberta Surface Rights Board Under Section 30 of the Surface Rights Act” (2011) 49 Alberta Law Review  1-36 and a case comment by Professor Shaun Fluker (left) on the 2010 conviction of Syncrude Canada under  federal and provincial charges for the death of approximately 1600 migratory birds in one of its tailings ponds: “R v Syncrude Canada: A Clash of Bitumen and Birds” (2011) 49 Alberta Law Review 237-244.

Intuition and Theory in Legal Ethics Teaching: Professor Alice Woolley will be presenting a paper entitled "Intuition and Theory in Legal Ethics Teaching” on September 23 at a symposium focused on The Lawyer’s Role and Professional Formation. At a time of wrenching change in the legal profession, the symposium gathers many of the leading scholars who are working to help clarify our understanding of the lawyer’s role in society and how that role should shape the way we educate lawyers. The symposium is being held at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis.

“The Canadian Lawyer in the 21^st Century”: “The Canadian Lawyer in the 21^st Century”, an article written by Dean Ian Holloway Q.C., is now published in 69(5) Advocate 691 (September 2011).  This article began life as the Chief Justice Thane Campbell Lectureship in Law in Charlottetown, PEI.  It captures much of what our new Dean thinks about the current state of the Canadian legal profession and the challenges facing Canadian law schools. 

Research Project: The Recognition of Indigenous Property Systems within Arctic States:  Three members of the Faculty of Law have prepared papers for a meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland from September 19-21 on a project, “The recognition of indigenous property systems within Arctic states,” funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Professor Nigel Bankes, a co-leader of this three year project with Timo Koivurova, Director of the Northern Institute of Environmental and Minority Law at Lapland University, will have two papers discussed. One, co-written with lead author Professor Jonnette Watson Hamilton, is entitled “Living together on the land: A review of the literature on the property relations of settler and indigenous societies”. His other paper is entitled “The recognition of indigenous property rights in settler states: modern land claim agreements in Canada”.  Professor Jennifer Koshan (right) has also participated in the project and her paper, entitled “The Nordic Sami Convention and the Rights of Saami Women: Lessons from Canada”, will also be discussed, as will that of PhD candidate Veronica Potes on the topic of “The Achuar People in Ecuador: Towards Territorial and Political Autonomy”.

Section 15(1) Equality Rights Publication: “Meaningless Mantra: Substantive Equality after Withler”, an article written by Professors Jennifer Koshan and Jonnette Watson Hamilton (right) is in press, to appear in (2011) 15 Review of Constitutional Studies.  An earlier version of the paper is now available for downloading here from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). The article examines the contribution made by the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Withler v. Canada (Attorney General) to equality rights jurisprudence under s. 15(1) of the Charter. 

Russian-Norwegian Conference: Professor Nigel Bankes is attending the “Second Russian-Norwegian Conference on Legal Systems in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region” in Tromsø, Norway from September 14-16. He will speak on the legal status of aboriginal peoples in Canada. At the conclusion of this conference, Professor Bankes and his colleague, Professor Øyvind Ravna, will drive 600 kilometers south-east to Rovaniemi, Finland for the third and final meeting of an international group of academics who have been looking at legal issues associated with the recognition of indigenous property interests in circumpolar states.

Book review: Professor Shaun Fluker has reviewed the 3rd edition of Christopher Stone's book Should Trees Have Standing? Law, Morality, and the Environment (Oxford University Press, London 2010) for (2011) 2 Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 246. His review includes a consideration of the status of non-humans in Canadian law.  It can be downloaded from his list of publications, as can a number of other articles he has written.

Becoming Arctic-Ready: Professor Nigel Bankes worked with lead author, Louie Porta, to prepare an assessment of Canada’s regulatory framework for offshore oil and gas activities in Canada’s Arctic. The resulting report, entitled Becoming Arctic-Ready: Policy Recommendations for Reforming Canada’s Approach to Licensing and Regulating Offshore Oil and Gas in the Arctic was commissioned by Oceans North Canada, a project of the Pew Environment Group’s International Arctic Program. The report,  released on September 9, 2011, was conveyed to the National Energy Board, which is currently conducting a Public Review of Arctic Safety and Environmental Offshore Drilling Requirements. 

Global Research Fellow: Professor Jennifer Koshan began her term as a Global Research Fellow at New York University on September 6.  She joins ten other international legal scholars — from England, Israel, China, Germany, Korea, Italy and France, as well as Canada — appointed by the Hauser Global Law School Program for the 2011-2012 academic year. Professor Koshan will be conducting a comparative study of specialized domestic violence courts in Calgary and New York. 

Consultation Publication and Renewable Energy Presentation: Professor Allan Ingelson has just published an article on “’Adequate’ Consultation with Aboriginal Stakeholders in Canadian Oil and Gas Development” in a special issue on Indigenous People and Resources Development in the Oil, Gas and Energy Law (OGEL) journal, volume 9, issue 4.  Professor Ingelson recently returned from a trip to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, following the presentation of his research on “Provincial Responses to Climate Change: Renewable Energy Policies and Legislation” at the Aurora Research Institute on August 15.

Carbon infrastructure research presented to industry and government: Professor Nigel Bankes presented the results of joint work with recent LLM graduate Rick Nilson to two different groups in July and August. The research deals with possible models for the economic regulation of carbon infrastructure (pipeline and storage sites), drawing on models from Europe and the upstream natural gas sector. Professor Bankes was invited to present the research to a provincial regulatory working group as part of the Regulatory Framework Assessment for carbon capture and storage (CSS)and also to ICO₂N, a network of Canadian companies committed to the deployment of CCS technologies.

The Law of Climate Change in Canada: Congratulations to U of C law alumna, Teresa L. Meadows (LLB 1992), an associate in the Edmonton office of Miller Thomson, and Professor Al Lucas, contributing authors to The Law of Climate Change in Canada, which was recently awarded the Walter Owen Book Prize. They co-authored a chapter on the policy and regulatory framework of climate change law in Alberta for the 19-chapter, 1,200 page multi-author text. The Walter Owen Book Prize, awarded by the Foundation for Legal Research, is designed to recognize excellent legal writing and to reward outstanding new contributions to Canadian legal literature that enhance the quality of legal research in this country.

Carbon Finance Workshop: Dean Alastair Lucas guest lectured at the Carbon Finance Executive Development Workshop presented by the Centre for Environment at the University of Toronto, the International Emissions Trading Association and the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary June 28-29 in Calgary. Dean Lucas spoke about the “Risk of Constitutional Challenges to Federal Carbon Management Legislation” as part of an overview of the carbon markets.

Columbia River Treaty Presentation: The Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) and the Village of Valemount hosted information sessions on the Columbia River Treaty on June 27 and June 28. Professor Nigel Bankes gave a presentation on the 1964 Columbia River Treaty and its future. Nigel is a member of the CBT’s Water Initiatives Advisory Panel.

Presentation at 2011 Symposium on Insolvency and Financial Literacy: Professor Jassmine Girgis is presenting a paper entitled ""The WEPPA, Purposive Interpretation and Vulnerable Creditors", written with the generous financial assistance of INSOL International, at the 2011 Symposium on Insolvency and Financial Literacy.  The Symposium runs from June 6-7 in Ottawa under the auspices of the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy as part of their Insolvency Research Initiative.

What Independence of the Bar Requires of Lawyer Regulation:  In a paper entitled "Rhetoric and Realities: What Independence of the Bar Requires of Lawyer Regulation",  released June 1 by The School of Public Policy, Professor Alice Woolley analyzes the adequacy of regulation of Canadian lawyers with respect to competence, the general structure of professional regulation and access to justice. The paper is available as an SPP Research Paper on The School of Public Policy''s website, under Publications.  

Presentations at the LSA Annual Meeting in San Francisco:  Three of our law professors are presenting papers on June 2 as part of the Law & Society Association (LSA) Annual Meeting in San Francisco June 2 - 5. Jennifer Koshan is presenting a paper on "The Judicial Treatment of Marital Rape in Canada: Lingering Myths and Stereotypes." Her presentation is part of a panel on Combating Gendered Misperceptions in Law. Alice Woolley's presentation is on "Regulation in Practice," part of a panel on Case Studies in Lawyer Discipline and Deviance. Professor Woolley (right) is also chairing a discussion panel on the topic of Moral Pluralism and Legal Ethics on June 3.  Maureen Duffy is part of a panel on Legal Rights and National Powers in a Post-9/11 World.  Professor Duffy's paper is entitled "Marginalizing the ‘Other' in Terrorism Detentions: The Debate over Institutionalized Preventive Detention"

Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA) 2011 Annual Conference: Professors Jennifer Koshan and  Lyndsay Campbell (left) each presented a paper on May 29 at the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA) Annual Conference in Frederickson, New Brunswick. The CLSA Conference is part of the Congress of Social Sciences and Humanities.  Professor Koshan's paper on "Marital Rape: Lessons in Colonization", focuses on the legal treatment of marital rape against Aboriginal women as a practice of colonization.  Her presentation is part of a Panel in Honour of Patricia Monture: Contemporary Colonialism: Critical and Feminist Interrogations, one several panels honouring the work of Patricia Monture.  Professor Campbell's paper on "Oliver Dawsey and the Operation of Race in the Criminal Justice System in Canada West" was presented as part of a Panel on Legal History 2: Criminologies. That panel is one of two dedicated to legal history at the CLSA Conference.

RMMLF 15^th  Institute for Natural Resources Resources Law Teachers  Professor Allan Ingelson is presenting a paper entitled "NAFTA, the Mining Law of 1872 and Environmental Protection" on May 27, 2011 in Stevenson, Washington at the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation's 15^th  Institute for Natural Resources Resources Law Teachers. The paper will be published in the University of New Mexico's Natural Resources Journal later this year

IBA Section Meeting:  Both Dean Alastair Lucas and Professor Nigel Bankes are attending the mid-term meeting of the International Bar Association's Academic Advisory Group (AAG) of the Section on Energy, Environment, Natural Resources and Infrastructure Law (SEERIL) from May 25 to 27 in Groningen in the Netherlands. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the AAG's next book to be published by Oxford University Press. The edited volume will deal with deal with legal issues associated with energy infrastructure. Bankes' contribution (co-authored with recent course-based LLM graduate Rick Nilson) deals with regulatory options associated with the development of a carbon infrastructure in Alberta. Lucas' contribution is entitled "Energy Infrastructure and the Federalist Dilemma".

Paper Presentation at Program on Water Governance Conference:  Professor Nigel Bankes, Chair of Natural Resources Law, will be speaking at a conference on "Water Without Borders? Canada, the United States and Transboundary Water", where he will be presenting a co-authored paper on the "Apportionment of the Waters of the Milk and St. Mary Rivers". His co-author is Lisa Bourget with the Army Corps of Engineers in the United States, the former Secretary of the United States' Section of the International Joint Commission. The conference is being held at the University of British Columbia on May 16. The papers presented are to be published in a book to be edited by the conference conveners, Karen Bakker, Alice Cohen and Emma Norman - all with the Program of Water Governance at UBC.

Public Participation at the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board:  The most recent issue of the Canadian Institute of Resources Law Resources Newsletter contains an article by Assistant Professor Shaun Fluker entitled "Public Participation at the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board." Professor Fluker argues for a revised interpretation of the Board's governing legislation that would enhance participation in the Board's energy project licensing process.  The research was funded by the Alberta Law Foundation, which facilitated the research assistance of Christine Caskey (JD 2011) for this project. 

Conference presentation: Professor Nigel Bankes, Chair of Natural Resources Law, will be speaking at a conference on “Legal Pluralism in Latin America: Challenges and Perspective” that is co-sponsored by the California Western School of Law and the University of California, San Diego on May 5 and 6. This two-day conference discusses the challenges of creating functional pluralistic legal systems that respect indigenous peoples’ right of self-determination, acknowledge international human rights obligations, and institutionalize a means of adjudicating outcomes when indigenous and national legal systems clash.

In the news: Canadian legal academics who teach legal ethics have called on the Federation of Law Societies of Canada (FLSC), the Canadian Bar Association, and the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) to develop formal guidelines for the professional conduct of judges after they leave the Bench. Professor Alice Woolley is one of the law professors quoted in an article examining the controversial topic of retired judges giving legal advice related to cases in which they participated.

Publication News:  Professor Alice Woolley's book, Understanding Lawyers' Ethics in Canada, has just been published by LexisNexis Canada.  Acclaimed as a "tour de force" and a "vital reference," the book is a thorough and scholarly review of the legal and ethical duties every lawyer should follow in order to manage risk and make prudent decisions in everyday practice. 

Genome Canada GE3LS PhytoMetaSyn Workshop: The Faculty of Law successfully hosted the Genome Canada GE3LS PhytoMetaSyn Workshop on March 24th in Banff, Canada.  The workshop, organized by Professor Greg Hagen, was devoted to a discussion of ethical, regulatory, policy and philosophical issues arising from the PhytoMetaSyn project. Participants included academics, government regulators, and industry representatives who hailed from the US, Austria, UK, Australia and Canada.

Accepted for publication: Second year student, Sarah Nykolaishen (JD 2012), and Professor Nigel Bankes have had their paper on "The Jurisdiction of the Alberta Surface Rights Board under Section 30 of the Surface Rights Act" accepted for publication in (2011) 49:1 Alberta Law Review.  Ms. Nykolaishen worked on the paper as a summer research student in 2010, funded by an ISEEE grant to Professor Bankes. They have continued to collaborate over the 2010-2011 academic year and will be working together again this summer, following up on Professor Bankes' ABlawg post on "Using water reservations to protect the aesthetic values associated with water courses: a note on the Spray River (Banff)."

Cyberjustice Laboratory project: Professor Greg Hagen is part of the research team involved in the University of Montreal's Cyberjustice Laboratory Project which received a Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI) grant of $2.5 million grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). The Cyberjustice Laboratory project will allow our judicial system to make use of the latest technological advancements. Its goal is to offer technological solutions to problems of cost, delay and inaccessibility of information by developing a new generation of software tools that will be open and interoperable, and will facilitate judicial and extra-judicial processing and the resolution of disputes in accordance with the complex existing legal parameters.

INSOL's Annual Asia Pacific Rim Regional Conference: Professor Jassmine Girgis has just returned from Singapore and INSOL's Annual Asia Pacific Rim Regional Conference, held 13 - 15 March 2011.  INSOL International is a world-wide federation of national associations for accountants and lawyers who specialise in turnaround and insolvency. Professor Girgis is the INSOL International Scholar representing the Americas for 2010-2011 and is responsible for issuing quarterly reports on current legislative and case law developments relevant to international insolvency in her region. 

 2011 BLG Research Fellowship: The BLG Research Fellowship recipient for the summer of 2011 is first year law student, Colin Poon. Colin will be assisting Professor Maureen Duffy with her research project on "An Ounce of Prevention? A Study of Proposed Preventive Detention in Canada."  Borden Ladner Gervais LLP has been providing funding for student researchers at 14 of Canada's leading law schools since 2004. The law schools select both the students and the projects that will benefit from the BLG funding and BLG provides a $12,000 fellowship for each student.  

Registration opened the week of March 7 for ‘Anything But Conventional', the Canadian Association of Petroleum Landmen (CAPL) 33rd Annual Conference that takes place in Québec City from September 25-28, 2011. Guest speakers include a former Prime Minister, a national news icon, and our own Professor Allan Ingelson who will be speaking on "Shale Gas Regulations". >> more

The Matrimonial Property Act: A Case Law Review, a research paper for the Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) written by Professor Jonnette Watson Hamilton and third year law student, Annie Voss-Altman, has now been published on the ALRI web site.  The 10-year review of judicial decisions identifies areas where reform would clarify policy or resolve problematic issues. The 270 page, 1279 issue database on which the paper is based is available here.

An article entitled "The protection of the rights of indigenous peoples to territory through the property rights provisions of international regional human rights instruments", written by Professor Nigel Bankes, has been accepted for publication in the Yearbook of Polar Law. This article is an expanded version of a paper that Professor Bankes first presented at the annual conference on polar law at the University of Akureyri, Iceland in September 2010. The paper looks at the jurisprudence of the Inter American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. If you would like a pre-publication versions of this paper, please get in touch with Professor Bankes. 

Professor Nigel Bankes, our Chair of Natural Resources Law, has recently had his article on "Alberta's New Carbon Capture and Storage Legislation" accepted for publication in Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology. This paper is an expanded version of a blog that Professor Bankes posted on ABlawg in November 2010.  Professor Bankes' work on CCS is supported by grants from ISEEE and Carbon Management Canada. Third year law student, Trevor Ference, provided research assistance for this paper.

Professor Catherine Brown has been appointed as one of twelve members of the new Editorial Board for the Australian Tax Review, the foremost refereed Australian tax journal.   >> more

Professor Jennifer Koshan is travelling to Nairobi, Kenya during Reading Week to participate in a workshop aimed at initiating legal action to protect girls in Kenya from rape. The "160 girls" project is being led by the equality effect, an international network of human rights advocates primarily from Canada, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.  >> more

Professors Jennifer Koshan and Alice Woolley both published articles in the recently issued 2010 volume of the Canadian Legal Education Annual Review (CLEAR). Professor Koshan contributed "Rewriting Equality: The Pedagogical Use of Women's Court of Canada Judgments" (with Diana Majury, Carissima Mathen, Megan Evans Maxwell and Denise Reaume), and Professor Woolley contributed "The Character of Continuing Education in Legal Ethics".

Freedom's Conditions in the U.S.-Canadian Borderlands in the Age of Emancipation, a collection of essays edited by Professor Lyndsay Campbell and Tony Freyer has just been published by Carolina Academic Press. In addition to co-authoring the Introduction and Conclusion, Professor Campbell also wrote two of the chapters in the collection, "Governance in the Borderlands: Upper Canadian Legal Institutions"and "The Northern Borderlands: CanadaWest." >> more

Professor Nigel Bankes' recent ABlawg post on "The world wide web and the honour of the Crown", a comment on the Alberta Court of Appeal decision in Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation v Alberta (Minister of Energy), 2011 ABCA 29, generated interest on the business pages of the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal and in Fort McMurray Today. As the latter article notes, Professor Bankes, our Chair of Natural Resources Law, routinely posts on ABlawg about oil and gas legal developments, as well as aboriginal law matters, in order to contribute to an informed public debate on these issues.

Professor Jassmine Girgis is presenting "Corporate Reorganization and the Economic Theory of the Firm" this Friday, February 3, in Toronto at the 8th Annual Review of Insolvency Law. Her presentation is part of a panel on Policy Issues in Commercial Insolvency. The paper has been published in the 2011 edition of the Annual Review of Insolvency Law (Thomson Carswell). 

Professor Nigel Bankes is visiting the Faculty of Law at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, on January 31 and February 1 to participate as an external examiner in the PhD thesis defence of Anatole Boute.  The candidate's 450 page thesis is entitled, "The Modernisation of the Russian Electricity Production Sector: Regulatory Risks and Investment Protection".  Profesor Bankes will also deliver a presentation on developments in the law and regulation relating to carbon capture and storage in Canada at a seminar for Groningen's PhD students.

Professor Maureen T. Duffy has been selected as the supervisor for the 2011 BLG Summer Research Fellowship. Her research project, called "An Ounce of Prevention? A Study of Proposed Preventive Detention in Canada," will examine current debates over whether preventive detention is a necessary and permissible tool in the fight against terrorism. She proposes to examine past terrorism prosecutions and identify various issues raised by those cases to address the question of whether existing judicial structures are adequate to handle terrorism-related cases, or whether preventive detention has a role in dealing with the threat of terrorism.

Professor Jassmine Girgis has been appointed Book Review Editor of the Canadian Business Law Journal (CBLJ). The CBLJ is the leading Canadian commercial and business law journal, frequently cited in court judgments at all levels.

The Law Society of Alberta and the Canadian Bar Association Alberta announced on January 14 that they will present an award to Professor Catherine A. Brown for Distinguished Service in Legal Scholarship at the upcoming Alberta Law Conference in Edmonton on January 28 and 29. Professor Brown is co-author of the text Taxation and Estate Planning as well as numerous Canadian Tax Foundation and Estate Trust and Pension Journal publications. She has presented dozens of papers to professional forums on tax and related issues, including the Canadian Tax Foundation, Canadian Bar Association, STEP and Insight. Her current research explores the interaction of tax and trade agreements in regulating tax discrimination.

Conflict of Laws (Irwin Law, 2010) by Professor Stephen GA Pitel (UWO) and our Professor Nicholas Rafferty was recently reviewed by Professor Janet Walker (Osgoode) in (2011) 49 Canadian Business Law Journal at 502-505. Walker noted Conflict of Laws "fills an important need for a clear and concise discussion of the subject that is highly readable and thoughtful..."

2010 Faculty Research News