UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group
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Item AI & legal thinking(2021-09-29) Gaon, Aviv; Ramshaw, SaraThe future of legal thinking in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers an extensive analysis of how judges, legal professionals, scholars, and students understand law. As law is becoming increasingly digitized, it is necessary to explore the role that algorithms may play in different areas of law, legal practice, and legal education. Emerging topics like intellectual property, machine ‘judges’, AI justice, and biases in AI programming are worth critical talk. The UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group hosted a discussion with Professor Sara Ramshaw (UVic Law) and Professor Gaon Aviv (Harry Radzyner Law School), who discussed how AI impacts legal thinking.Item Animals as Property, Quasi-Property or Quasi-Person(2024-01-22) Fernández, AngelaThe field of animal law has been structured for the last twenty-five years around two key paradigms: (i) property v. persons and (ii) rights v. welfare. In this talk, Professor Fernández explains why both of these binaries are unhelpful traps for the field and why she thinks we need to move towards a more flexible legal status for nonhuman animals, which she terms quasi-property/quasi-personhood. In the quasi-hood approach to the legal status of nonhuman animals, nonhuman animals are more than mere property but they are also persons of a sort, legal persons, because they have legal rights, and only legal persons have legal rights.Item Are Religious Freedom Cases Transsystemic?(2021-03-30) Chan, KathrynIn this talk, Professor Kathryn Chan shared some evolving thoughts on the encounter between secular and religious legal traditions. She also shared findings from an ongoing project on the Immigration and Refugee Board’s adjudication of claims of religious persecution. She considered whether the encounter between legal traditions raises distinct normative concerns in the contexts of legal education and legal decision-making.Item Baha'i law(2021-11-02) Danesh, RoshanThe presentation provides a broad overview of Baha'i law in its historical, cultural, social, religious, political, and legal contexts. This includes situating Baha'i law within processes and discourses of social change and legal revitalization within Islamic societies, including responses to modernity, colonization, and justice movements. Particular attention is paid to how Baha'i law explicitly conceptualizes the application and enforcement of law as contingent on the existence of particular inner (spiritual) and outer (social) conditions, thus creating a Baha'i legal imagination and culture that is highly diverse, dynamic, and fluid.Item Beyond the Visual Theorising Legal Design for Accessibility and Inclusion through an Ability Capitalism Lens(2025) Williams, ClareWhat can a theory of disability bring to our understanding of design-based approaches in legal education? In this presentation, I will extend my chapter on Design in Legal Education by exploring how ‘legal design’ or ‘designerly ways’ can be incorporated into research methods and teaching. I will explore the potential of prefigurative counterfactuals to construct alternative realities through which we can explore ways of doing, talking, and thinking about law, economy, and society. I will take insights from my latest research on disability and my theory of Ability Capitalism to interrogate current shortcomings in how we theorize design-based approaches to legal education, and I will make two suggestions. Firstly, I propose that disability, specifically an Ability Capitalism lens, can help us identify pathways towards a deeper theoretical and conceptual engagement with a designerly lens, while secondly, this is both urgent and necessary for inclusion, accessibility and representation in education and beyond.Item Candidacy exams: are they important?(2021-02-24) Johnson, Rebecca; Vallianatos, Mary Anne; Saha, HimaloyaThe candidacy exam is required of all PhD students and is taken no later than two years after a student's first registration in a PhD program at UVic. This academic requirement helps graduate programs to determine if a student is ready to begin research in a specific area. Thus, it assesses if a student has 1) adequate knowledge of the discipline and specific research topic; and 2) the ability to pursue research at an advanced level. Although some people argue that this requirement is unnecessarily rigid and lengthy, others point out that it is one of the most helpful experiences that a researcher can undergo. In this presentation, our speakers, Prof. Rebecca Johnson, Mary Anne Vallianatos, and Himaloya Saha, explained why candidacy exams are important and how to prepare for taking them.Item COVID-19 vaccines: intellectual-property challenges and transnational-legal opportunities(2021-04-09) Ramraj, Victor V.; Gebru, AmanIn October 2020, India and South Africa proposed the World Trade Organization (WTO) to temporarily suspend trade-related intellectual property rights to COVID-19 vaccines and technologies. The proposal aims to ensure that not only the wealthiest countries will be able to access and afford those vaccines and technologies. After the proposal was presented, analysts claim that a “vaccine apartheid” has already been created. In response, in March 2021, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the WTO, invited countries and manufacturers to implement a framework that would provide developing countries with more opportunities to access COVID-19 technologies. On April 9, 2021, the UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group hosted an academic discussion between Professor Victor V. Ramraj (University of Victoria-Faculty of Law) and Professor Aman Gebru (Duquesne University-School of Law). Both speakers 1) explained the proposal that India and South Africa presented to the WTO; 2) discussed other initiatives to facilitate access to COVID-19 vaccines and technologies like the COVAX initiative, which is co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), CEPI, GAVI, and UNICEF; and 3) explored relevant legal, socio-economic, ethical, political, and international issues that could facilitate or restrict access to COVID-19 vaccines and technologies. Therefore, this event was one of the first (if not the first) thoughtful critical-legal discussions about the challenges and opportunities emerging from initiatives aiming to ensure global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, such as the initiative proposed by India and South Africa or COVAX.Item Cree law & Treaty 6(2021-11-30) Lindberg, DarcyThis presentation explores the use of Cree legal processes and legal principles in the negotiations of Treaty 6. While the implementation of the treaty has under-utilized Cree law, Professor Darcy Lindberg offers pathways for the effective use of Cree law to realize the spirit and intent of Treaty 6, and for right treaty relations generally.Item Debates on the beginning of life and legal regulations to personhood: A feminist approach(2024-03-20) Amoroso Gonçalves, TamaraHighly organized conservative groups have been pushing for stricter abortion laws all over the world. After the overturn of Roe vs. Wade in USA, women, feminists and health care professionals all over the world are worried about backlash in their own jurisdictions. In this scenario, while France has just changed its Constitution to include the right to legal abortions as a fundamental right; legal and feminist scholars have been debating when life starts and when legal protection from personhood starts. By discussing the case of Brazil, and taking a feminist and human rights approach, I will present how law regulates the multiple stages of life, and why such differences matter for preserving women’s access to sexual and reproductive rights. Building on previous research on this topic and from a socio-legal perspective, I will discuss challenges to legalizing abortion in Brazil; as well as lessons emerging from Brazil and other Latin American Countries in blocking conservative changes at the legal and constitutional level to protect women’s rights.Item Design in legal education: Engagement, clarity and agency(2025-03-11) Allbon, EmilyProfessor Emily Allbon began applying design principles to her work within legal education 25 years ago, and although her role has changed and the needs of young people learning law have shifted, the backbone of why design is still so pivotal remains. In this presentation, she talks about her eclectic practice involving virtual villages for land lawyers, mapping treacherous journeys to improve essay writing, unpicking Brexit, explaining consent to schoolchildren, improving understanding of reproductive rights in Nepal and clarifying procedures for making police complaints in the UK.Item Designing support for litigants in person: Using human-centred design(2025-02-25) McKeever, Gráinne; Royal-Dawson, LucySince 2016, the Litigants in Person in Northern Ireland (LIPNI) research study has been exploring the experiences of litigants in person (LIPs) in civil and family cases in the jurisdiction, and developing supports for them. We defined LIPs as individuals who do not have legal representation in their court hearing. Four main barriers prevent LIPs from participating in their legal proceedings: intellectual (not understanding the process), practical (not being able to access help or support), emotional (the process itself generating frustration, fear and anger) and attitudinal (being stereotyped as difficult to deal with). Beyond understanding the litigation experience of LIPs, our other research aims were to explore whether the practical and attitudinal barriers could be overcome. We wanted to know whether creating support materials for LIPs through a co-productive process could generate changes in attitudes by and towards LIPs. In two human-centred design processes we have worked with numerous stakeholders, including LIPs, to co-create two supports now in the public domain: a website containing information about conducting family cases; and a Charter aimed at improving the communication and relationships between a LIP and the solicitor for the other party in the same case. Our presentation will offer an overview of our HCD processes, our approach to these as research questions, and our findings related to the power of HCD to bring about a change in perspective as well as valuable assets to support LIPs.Item Doing contracts differently – A look at visual and comic book contracts(2024-11-04) Andersen, CamillaDo you know that visual and comic book contracts have opened the door for creative forms of contracting and furthered accessibility and transparency in the last decade? Nowadays, visual contracts are well received by people, companies, and students in different places. In this presentation, Professor Andersen from UWA shares her work over the last decade on simplifying and visualising contracts to make them more relational, enjoyable and transparent.Item Feeling person-able: Thinking with sex robots, therapy dogs and artificial friends(2024-02-19) Hamilton, Sheryl N.I have long been interested in the stories we tell about the entities which/who, in any given time and place, emerge as favoured candidates for membership in one of Western law’s most hallowed categories: the legal person. The performances required for the political prize of personality – reason, language, consciousness or self-interest – are as pernicious as they are prevalent. Yet boundaries always presuppose boundary work. And beings are entangled; categories porous; stories, unruly. In this presentation, I examine some contemporary narratives featuring sex robots, therapy dogs and artificial friends drawn from a range of sites of legal culture. These tales reveal our anxieties and obsessions, our delusions and desires. They make visible a series of conceptual traps in Western thinking about the person, and at the same time, open up possibilities for impersonating differently. Embodiment, entanglement, touch and care all surface in these stories with powerful effects and affects.Item Interdisciplinary community engaged academic research: Applying feminist methodologies(2024-02-26) Amoroso Gonsalves, TamaraOver the last 20 years, my academic work has explored topics in gender and human rights law in a closely intertwined engagement with the human rights and feminist movements in Brazil. My research agenda is community-engaged, place-based, and interdisciplinary, connecting law with socio-inequalities issues from a gender perspective. Following this thread, in my doctoral dissertation I use a consumer law case related to a sexist advertisement (Skol Summer Muse campaign) to examine the effectiveness of feminist engagement with the Brazilian State and the market. Brazilian consumer law is a hybrid law, where the state oversees private relationships, imposing the observance of public principles on private social actors. It is also hybrid in the sense that it combines civil, criminal, procedure, and administrative legislation in a single code. The Brazilian Consumer Code forbids discriminatory advertising but does not define it. This complex case involved multiple social actors, political and legal processes: the market (represented by the beer company that promoted the advertisement and the market self-regulatory body that monitors advertisement in Brazil); the feminist movement; and the state (represented by state and federal prosecutors, the judiciary, and PROCONS - administrative bodies that enforce consumer law) during a time of significant social change in Brazil. Theoretically grounding my work in feminist political economy analysis and considering contestation about sexist advertising as a relevant focus for political action, I discuss how material social inequalities are produced, reflected, reproduced, and reinforced in two ways: i) visually in advertising, and ii) discursively in the legal documents that comprise the litigation around the Skol Summer Muse Campaign. This work brings into conversation: i) fields of law that are hybrid (neither private or public) namely national and international human rights law that protects women, and consumer law in Brazil; and ii) discussions of material redistribution and visual representation in advertising, and establishes advertising and consumer law as a fruitful field for political action and contestation. I also look at the limits and challenges, as well as the strengths of the feminist movement in Brazil. Finally, my dissertation involved an extensive, and thorough process of translation, and considers the challenges and politics of providing full and multi-layered translations of legal systems, concepts and cultures.Item “Kill the chicken to scare the monkey”: Heavy penalties, excessive COVID-19 control mechanisms, and legal consciousness in China(2023-02-19) Yang, QianIn this presentation, Dr. Liu talks about her most recent paper: "Kill the Chicken to Scare the Monkey": Heavy Penalties, Excessive COVID-19 Control Mechanisms, and Legal Consciousness in China. In her paper, Dr. Liu analyzed the legal consciousness of Chinese citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic when the authoritarian state invoked heavy penalties to deter noncompliance with its excessive COVID-19 restrictions. China used the approach of “killing the chicken to scare the monkey,” publicly punishing those who violated restrictions in order to deter noncompliance. During her presentation, our speaker will explain why ordinary citizens supported this selective application of the law, as well as how the possibility of being the “chicken” contributed to their compliance (or noncompliance) with excessive COVID-19 restrictions. Her research suggests that the uncertainty and unpredictability of law in the authoritarian state bred fear, which then led to compliance, regardless of the lack of procedural fairness. People's dissatisfaction with the rules, however, led them to tolerate and even support the noncompliance of people they trusted.Item Legal design in action: From complex to clear with AI-assisted information design and plain language(2024-10-21) Haapio, Helena; Ketola, AnneClarity is now more important than ever. Legal Design in Action is about transforming complex information into clear, accessible communication for all. This session shows how AI-assisted information design and plain language can be used to simplify contracts and legal content. We will share practical examples, tools and methods for making information understandable and user-friendly, so that everyone can engage with it more effectively.Item Legal Personhood and Power: Seeing Mechanisms of Devaluation and Hyper-Empowerment in Legal Systems(2023-11-20) Hansen, RobinLegal personhood can be understood as the capacity for holding rights and obligations within a legal system, including the ability to make claims and seek remedies in law. Using a systems theory approach (developed by Niklas Luhmann) to understanding law as a series of communications concerning what is "legal" and what is "illegal", I trace examples of how assumptions and constructions in legal communications implicitly strip some human beings of their rights to full personhood at law. The converse is also evident, namely examples of hyper-empowerment, whereby actors in law have the capacity for claims to rights that far exceed their exposure to also holding obligations at law.Item Legal Personhood for AI systems: Conceptual Preliminaries(2023-11-06) Kurki, VisaThe question of AI legal personhood is increasingly becoming topical. However, this presupposes an understanding of what legal personhood is. When discussing AI legal personhood, many take for granted what I call the Orthodox View of legal personhood. I will discuss this view and show why legal personhood should instead be understood along the lines of my Bundle Theory. I will then apply this theory to AI systems.Item Meaning of the expression "Common Law"(2020-12-22) Gillen, MarkWhether one is immersed in the study of a civil law system or a common law system, a question that may arise is just what does the expression "common law" mean. This is a question I have examined in the context of teaching a course in the "Historical Foundations of the Common Law" in which one arguably needs to begin with some sense of the meaning of "common law" if one is to examine its historical foundations. As I will explain in an opening twenty to thirty minute talk, this expression has been given several different meanings. Although I am not an expert of any kind on civil law traditions, I will present some of the typical alleged differences between the civil law tradition and the common law tradition and critique those alleged differences from my study and experience in the common law context. I hope this will provide an opportunity for all of us from different legal traditions to engage, with a critical eye, on these and other differences between common law and civil law.Item Memory between Law and Politics(2023-11-20) Sadowski, Mirosław MichałHow can law influence collective memory? What mechanisms does law employ to influence social perceptions of the past? How successful is law in its attempts to rewrite narratives about the past? I propose to take a step back from established transitional justice narratives, returning to the core sociological, philosophical, and legal theoretical issues that underpin the field of memory studies in order to present a new approach to the relationship between law and collective memory based on a conception of ‘legal institutions of memory’. I will explore different examples taken from Japan, Iraq, Brazil, Portugal, Rwanda and Poland that move from the work of international tribunals and truth commissions to more explicit memory legislation.