Indigenous Courses

The Pii ki giigidod, N bizendaami: When the Earth Speaks, We Listen Anishinaabe Camp is offered as a four-day Intensive Learning on the Land course. The course will be conducted on Walpole Island First Nation, a First Nation community approximately 1.5 hours from Windsor. This on the land course is designed to assist students in understanding how Indigenous Law is found in many different aspects of the natural and living world. Students will have an opportunity to learn from Indigenous Knowledge keepers through song, dance, ceremony, storytelling and sharing circles. Students will learn first-hand how laws are formulated within an Indigenous context.

The class will take place over a four-day intensive period; Thursday, March 11 through Sunday, March 14, 2021. The 4-day Anishinaabe Camp will be held at a lodge located on Walpole Island First Nation. During this 4-day camp 2L and 3L students will learn how Anishinaabe law operates and how it can be found in traditional stories, the environment, treaties, declarations, customs, etc. The camp is outdoors, on land and water, and in a First Nation community territory which is conducive to learning about Indigenous laws. Delivery Method can include the following: The Anishinaabe Law Camp will be delivered via a hands-on experiential learning methodology.

Students will learn and explore the laws of the natural world by listening to teachings from Indigenous traditional people and Elders, participating in Indigenous cultural practices and learning from the land. 
 

This course is part of a two-year pilot for students interested in research and litigation in international law, genocide and Indigenous peoples. Students are expected to enroll in only one year of the course. The overarching goal of the course is to strategize a legal action before an international body relating to Indigenous peoples and the Canadian settler state. Students will engage in a scoping exercise with a view to assessing the viability of different kinds of international claims rooted in colonial genocide.

We will examine broad thematic questions, including: What is genocide? Why does genocide occur? What is the relationship between genocide and Indigenous peoples in settler states, such as Canada? What remedies would a claim for genocide offer Indigenous peoples in Canada? Students will spend the course engaging with the international law of genocide, the international laws of Indigenous peoples (such as Cree, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee), Indigenous women and law, and the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada. As a case study, this course will focus on the forced sterilization of Indigenous women in North America as part of the ongoing colonial project. 
 

This course will introduce students to Indigenous legal traditions that recognize the inherent laws that identified the leadership strengths and responsibilities of Indigenous women. This course will also introduce the imposition of colonial law that has had an impact upon Indigenous lives, including Indigenous women’s lives. Canada has defined Aboriginal peoples in the Constitution Act, 1982, s. 35 (1) as “Indians, Metis and Inuit” peoples. “Indians” have been renamed as “First Nations”. The focus of the second part of this course is to also understand how Canadian laws have impacted the lives of Indigenous women aka “First Nations” women. The focus of the third section of the course is to understand teachings directly from the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers and to understand these teachings as Indigenous legal traditions. 

Kawaskimhon “To Speak With Knowledge” Aboriginal Moot

Credits: 4

Indigenous Peoples, Art and Human Rights (08-98-971-64)

Credits: 3; Paper and Perspectives

This course explores human rights values through the worldview(s) of Indigenous Peoples as well as the lenses of art and law. In this time of Canada’s national truth and reconciliation project, this course considers various themes such as the meaning of truth and reconciliation as may be reflected through Indigenous perspectives as well as both Canadian and international human rights. Human rights are often contextualized as ‘universal’, thereby carrying implications in generalization. Evolving out of the United Nations in the 1940’s and favouring Western nation-states’ post-WWII interests, Indigenous Peoples were not included in the conceptualization or articulation of human rights. Indigenous Peoples, however, have had some successes of arguing in Canadian and international human rights arenas. But at what costs, if any?

The law of human rights typically focuses on exposing and cataloguing violations based on the actions of individuals, groups, agencies, corporations and governments. In other words, law’s examination of human rights is not predictive or preventative but rather a dissection of offences. Art is also often a vehicle dissecting human rights violations, but might art also be a pro-active form of engagement that promotes human rights as an instrument of inclusion and calls for action? Might art also be law? For many Indigenous Peoples, art is deeply integrated into culture.

Similarly, law is often transmitted to Indigenous Peoples through – among other things – ceremonies, stories, songs and dance as well as living in and observing the natural world. Conversely, Canadian art, like law is generated by a select group of specially trained individuals. Does artmaking, like law-making, uphold colonial mythology to the ongoing exclusion of Indigenous Peoples? Is there a right to art? If so, is it a human right? This course explores how law and art may both frame and interrupt the flow of Indigenous laws. It considers the possible roles (if any) of human rights in the context of Indigenous Peoples, art and law. 
 

Indigenous Child Welfare (LAWG-5971-38)
Credits: 3

Project Based Learning: 1492 Land Back Lane (LAWG-5933)
Project-based External Placements (PBEPs) are a component of Windsor Law’s experiential offerings, including the Externship Program and community-facing Supervised Research.  This menu of experiential opportunities shares an overarching commitment to, and analysis of, social justice.    

PBEPs are different from Externship Placements. They are directly responsive to community-identified needs. They are intended to be tailored to an emergent need identified by the community.   Placements will vary from term to term, and might include Indigenous communities, legal clinics, non-profit organizations, or non-governmental organizations. PBEPs will last for one semester.

Placements occur in a wide variety of law-related settings and will expose students to a range of competencies important for legal work. Placements share an overarching commitment to, and analysis of, the operation of access to justice. Student-specific competencies aligned with the learning outcomes are developed by the student, Placement Supervisor, Externship Director, or supervising Professors. Students are expected to develop a Learning Agreement describing these competencies and plan to meet them over the term. In addition, students complete a midterm and end-of-term evaluation. 

The work will be legal in nature. Students might complete a number of law related tasks such as legal research, legal drafting (such as memoranda, notes to file, etc.), observe lawyers litigate in court/ tribunals or during mediations and negotiations and/or meet with clients.  However, students may not give legal advice or legal opinions. Student-specific learning outcomes will be developed by the student, on-site placement supervisor and the academic supervisor.  Depending on the legal work, the placement supervisor is either a practicing lawyer or, in some cases, someone who has received legal training who works at the placement settings.  For the 2020 fall term, all work will be completed remotely. A socially distanced trip will be planned to attend Six Nations/1492 Landback Lane but the trip will be optional.

PBEP is open to students in their second or third year during either term.  There are no prerequisite courses. Student will reflect on the placement experience, its implications on communities’ experience of “justice” and the significance of collaboration with external parties and communities. Regular appointments will be scheduled between the student, placement supervisor and academic supervisor. An orientation, mid-term and debrief sessions will be scheduled with all students in PBEPs.  Students are permitted to enroll in one PBEP per academic year.

This placement course exposes students to real-world legal work in which they develop lawyering competencies and adapt to the various roles of a lawyer. Students will be given exposure to access to justice in practice and reflect on the nature and availability of justice in their specific placement context.  Placements will usually last for one term.  Students will be expected to develop a tailored Learning Agreement describing these competencies and plan to meet them over the term.   Students will work under the direct supervision of a lawyer.  Students will reflect on the placement experience, its implications on communities’ experience of “justice” and the significance of collaboration with external parties and communities. Students will be expected to abide by the Rules of Professional Conduct and will be required to maintain the confidences of placement clients (if any) at all times. 

Students will be working under the close supervision of Dr. Jacobs and Professor Rogin and will receive frequent feedback on assignments. Feedback and instruction may also derive from lawyers involved in advocating against threats to lands at 1492 Landback Lane.
 

Haudenosaunee Law Camp
This course is similar to the Anishinaabe Law camp in that it will be an intensive 4-day course to take place on the land at the Six Nations Grand River Territory.  Confirmation of this camp is in a consultation phase with the community and the administration of the law school at the present time.

More details of the camp to follow.

Indigenous Legal Orders Minor