Faculty Research Update - Spring 2020

In 2019, Professor Aoun published:

• “Conflicted Regulation, the Public Interest and Canadian Patent Agency – Patent Agent Regulation at a Crossroads (Part 1)”, (2019) 32 I.P.J. 7 Wissam Aoun

Professor Aoun also received a $25,580 grant from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), which will support the creation of a Certificate in Patent Practice program and a patent drafting textbook.

In 2019, Professor Berryman published:

• “Remedies for Contract Breach in Canada,” a chapter prepared for David Campbell and Roger Halson eds. Research Handbook in Private Law Remedies (UK: Edward Elgar, 2019) 368-387.
• “Remedies for Breach of Privacy in Canada” in Jason NE Varuhas and Nicole Moreham eds. Remedies for Breach of Privacy (London: Hart Publishing, 2018) 323-348.
• “Equity in the Age of the Internet: Google Inc. v. Equustek Solutions Inc.”, (2019) 31 Intellectual Property Journal 311-326.

In October 2019, Professor Chapdelaine co-organized the Media & Space Symposium. The day-long conference reflected on the challenges posed by the regulation of digital media platforms as spaces that undermine clear distinctions between public and private. “Media & Space: The Regulation of Digital Platforms, New Media & Technologies” brought together scholars from disparate disciplines, including but not limited to law, communication, media, the arts, geography, and political science.

The program ran in the Multimedia Studio in the Alan Wildeman Centre for Creative Arts, followed by a reception where artist Alex McKay presented Treaty Canoe, his performance/sculpture/installation piece that incorporates treaties penned onto handmade linen paper. The Symposium organizing committee included University of Windsor professors Pascale Chapdelaine, Michael Darroch, Vincent Manzerolle, and law student Philip Morais.

In 2019, Professor Conklin published:

• “Derrida’s Kafka and the Imagined Boundary of Legal Knowledge” in Law, Culture and the Humanities 15 (No 2) (2019): 540-566.
• “Constitutionalism and Nomadic Peoples” in Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
• “The Nomadic  Sense of Law in the International Constitutionalism” in Max Planck Yearbook of UN Law (The Hague: Brill, 2019): 234-283.

In 2019, Professor Irish published:

• "The Trade Facilitation Agreement: Is the Doha Development Round Succeeding?" (2019) 11:1 Trade, Law and  Development 38-51.

The Trade Facilitation Agreement contains new provisions on special and differential treatment that allow developing and least-developed countries to make their obligations conditional on the receipt of technical assistance from other member-countries.

In November 2019, Professor Irish presented a working paper on foreign arbitral awards at a National Judicial Institute conference in Toronto. Her ongoing research projects are on Canada’s export controls and other areas of Canadian trade law.

In May, 2019, Associate Dean Laverne Jacobs organized the inaugural Southwestern Ontario Disability Scholars Workshop. This workshop brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who are committed to research respecting people with disabilities to share their latest work. The event attracted not only scholars from universities in the southwestern Ontario region but also from as far away as the University of Manitoba and the University of Victoria. The interdisciplinary group presented on panels addressing representation and erasure of people with disabilities in the areas of law, history, literature and popular culture.

Laverne Jacobs was honoured with the Outstanding Individual Award at the 4th Windsor-Essex Accessibility Awards in May, 2019.

Jacobs, along with a team of research colleagues at the University of Calgary, also completed the fieldwork portion of a major CIHR funded project on the experiences of capacity assessment from the perspective of people with disabilities.

Finally, Associate Dean Laverne Jacobs was invited to give a lecture to the IRB Refugee Appeal Division National Training Seminar and presented a paper titled, “An Administrative Justice Framework for Accessibility & Inclusion” in November, 2019. The presentation focused on administrative law’s impact on diverse users of the administrative justice system and how adjudicators can be better equipped both procedurally and substantively.

In July 2019, Professor Kalajdzic co-authored the final report for the Law Commission of Ontario’s Class Action Project. Professor Kalajdzic also wrote two blogs (one for Jotwell and the other for the Class Action Clinic Blog).

Professor Kalajdzic presented at the Ontario Bar Association's Class Action Colloquium in December 2019, at a Stanford University Roundtable on the Globalization of Litigation in April 2019, and at the Public and Private Justice Seminar in Dubrovnik in May 2019. 

Following the launch of the Class Action Clinic in October 2019, Professor Kalajdzic was interviewed about class action related matters by the CBC, CTV, Global News, the Windsor Star, Radio-Canada, Law Times, The Lawyers Daily, Blackburn Radio, and iHeart Radio.

Lastly, Professor Kalajdzic organized the annual Canadian Association for Legal Ethics Conference which took place at the University of Windsor's Windsor Hall.

In October 2019, professors Kianieff and Shanthi Senthe co-convened the fourth annual Commercial Law Symposium. The symposium took place at the Art Gallery of Windsor and featured presentations and discussions with leading commercial lawyers from across North America. Professor Kianieff's book, Blockchain Technology and the Law: Opportunities and Risks (Routledge, 2018) was also published. It is one of the first texts to offer a critical analysis of Blockchain and the legal and economic challenges faced by this new technology.

Under Professor Julie Macfarlane's direction, the National Self Represented Litigants Project (NSRLP) published several reports including:

• Self-Represented Litigants Intake Report 2018/19
• Self-Represented Litigants and Legal Doctrines of 'Vexatiousness"
• Access to Justice Annotated Bibliography version 6
• NSRLP's Five Year Dialogue Event Report

In December 2019, Professor Macfarlane was appointed to the Order of Canada as a member in recognition of her contributions as a lawyer and mediator, and for her advocacy of self-represented litigants. Created in 1967, the Order of Canada is one of our country’s highest honours.

In July, 2019, Brian Manarin was appointed Windsor Law’s 2019 – 2020 Ianni Fellow.  His book, Canadian Indigenous Peoples and Criminal Jury Trials: Remediating Inequities (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada Inc.) was published in 2019.

In April 2019, retired faculty member Moira McCarney, Professor Ruth Kuras, Law Librarian Annette Demers and Osgood Law Professor Shelley Kierstead published their book The Comprehensive Guide to Legal Research, Writing and Analysis (3rd) (Emond, 2019). 

In 2019, Professor Moon published:

• “LSBC v. TWU: Complicated Answers to a Simple Question”, 94 Supreme Court Law Review 335 (2019)
• "Conscience in the Image of Religion” in John Adenitire (ed.), Religious Beliefs and Conscientious Exemptions in a Liberal State (Hart,/Bloomsbury, 2019).

Professor Moon also served as a (pro bono) expert witness during an investigation by the Senate Ethics Commissioner into whether a Senator had engaged in hate speech on her Senate website: http://sen.parl.gc.ca/seo-cse/PDF/Inquiry-Beyak2019-e.pdf

How can the legal profession deliver better and more accessible value to clients and society?  This question continues to animate Professor Semple’s research. “Measuring Legal Service Value,” which was published in the University of British Columbia Law Review, explores ways to objectively measure how good different law firms are. 

In 2019, Professor Semple’s popular columns on the Slaw.ca blog touched on the ethics of legal fees, on tort responses to climate change, and on the SNC-Lavalin Affair, among other topics.  

Professor Semple has also taken advantage of tenure to launch a completely new research project. He is studying welfare-consequentialism: the idea that all public policy decisions should be made by predicting, and attempting to optimize, effects on individual welfare. This has generated three conference papers to which publications will follow in 2020. 

In 2019, Professor Senthe co-authored an article with former Windsor Law Professor Jeffrey Hewitt: https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/dlj/vol42/iss2/3/

In October 2019, professors Senthe and Muharem Kianieff co-convened the fourth annual Commercial Law Symposium. The symposium took place at the Art Gallery of Windsor and featured presentations and discussions with leading commercial lawyers from across North America. 

In addition, Professor Senthe designed and developed the Sports Law Lecture Series.

In 2019, Professor Sheldon co-edited the latest edition of Public Health Law and Policy in Canada: https://store.lexisnexis.ca/en/categories/shop-by-jurisdiction/federal-13/public-health-law-policy-in-canada-4th-edition-skusku-cad-00698/details

In the fall of 2019, Professor Smit led a group of Windsor Law faculty members to create the Windsor Law Centre for Cities (www.windsorlawcities.ca). With 13 affiliated  faculty members, this will be a vessel for highlighting and developing research, teaching and community engagement on the legal and policy aspects of creating sustainable and inclusive cities. With a soft launch in 2019, the Centre will hold a formal opening in Fall 2020. 

In November 2019, Professor Smit received the Centre’s first major grant - a Cities and Climate Action Fund grant of $125,000 from Environment and Climate Change Canada - with Dr. Patricia Galvão Ferreira and supported by a team of Windsor Law and community colleagues. The grant funded the creation of the Cities and Climate Action Forum, with Windsor Law students at its core, whose mandate is to support meaningful and collaborative climate action at the local level across Canada. Research output from this project, created in collaboration with Windsor Law in a dedicated experiential learning course, includes a number of open-access resources on legal and policy tools for municipalities seeking to mitigate the effects of climate change and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2019, the team of faculty and students presented workshops to municipal policy-makers and to high school students as well as providing direct research assistance to local municipalities seeking to improve their climate mitigation policies and plans.

Throughout 2019, Professor Smit has also been part of a research and community engagement collaboration with colleagues at the University of Windsor’s School of Creative Arts (SOCA) and the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF), on the use of filmmaking as a tool of local community-level advocacy. The team received a $25,000 SSHRC Partnership Engage grant, “Screen Arts, Culture and Community Building in the Motorcity: Developing The Windsor International Film Festival’s Year-Round Impact” to support this work, which will include a series of consultations with community group partners, including organizations with a social justice focus, in 2020. 

In 2019, Professor Tawfik published her book with Karima Bawa The Intellectual Property Guide: IP Literacy and Strategy Basics for Supporting Innovation – published by Brush Education Grants.

Professor Tawfik was also appointed to the Provincial Expert Panel on IP Commercialization of Research (pro bono) by the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities and Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. She is also a member of the successful team selected to establish and run Canada’s first patent collective (the $30 million project is anticipated to begin in 2020).

Professor Tawfik delivered the keynote presentation “For the Encouragement of Learning: Copyright in Historical Context” at Zurich University of the Arts and was interviewed by Michael Geist for his podcast Cows, Cars and Copyright: A Conversation with Myra Tawfik on the IP Concerns with Implementing Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement, Podcast: Michael Geist's Law Bytes, 2019. She participated in a number of panels and workshops on Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and IP and Gender, International Law and Innovation.

In addition, Professor Tawfik was named Tech Researcher of the Year by Windsor's WETech Alliance.

In 2019, Professor Thomasen published “Robots, Regulation, and the Changing Nature of Public Space” in the Ottawa Law Review (Vol. 51, No 2)

She also co-authored a paper with Ryan Calo (University of Washington) titled “Why Must We Go To Extremes? Comparative Dystopia as Robotics Law.” The article was accepted to be presented at the We Robot Conference, a leading North American conference on robotics law & policy.

Professor Thomsen has a forthcoming, co-authored chapter with Suzie Dunn (University of Ottawa) titled “Reasonable Expectations of Privacy in an Era of Drones and Deepfakes: Expanding the Supreme Court of Canada’s Decision in R v Jarvis” which will be published (subject to peer review) in the book Technology-Facilitated Violence and Abuse: International Perspectives and Experiences (Jane Bailey, Asher Flynn, Nicola Henry eds) Emerald Group Publishing.

In 2019, Professor Venkatesh published "Confronting Myths: Agricultural Citizenship and Temporary Foreign Worker Programs" in the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 2019 comparing the history of temporary agricultural worker immigration programs and citizenship in Canada and Israel. She also presented a paper on racial capitalism and labour migration at the Labour Law Research Network Conference in Valparaiso, Chile which is part of an ongoing research project. 

Professor Venkatesh conducted two investigative pilot studies in preparation for large empirical research projects. The first was on Bangladeshi migrants in the United Kingdom to inform her racial capitalism and migration project. The second was on the legal mobilisation around the Acteal massacre of 45 Indigenous people in the Chiapas, Mexico by paramilitaries in 1997. The latter has resulted in a partnership project with the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (FrayBa) where Professor Venkatesh will be conducting a law and social movements analysis on the legal actions in Mexican Courts and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and its Court. 

In addition, Professor Venkatesh received a grant (with Justicia for Migrant Workers) of $86K from the Law Foundation of Ontario. Along with students from the Migrant Workers Legal Clinic that Professor Venkatesh started last year, the team prepared their first draft of the research report on the law of migrant work in Ontario. The team will be submitting their report at the end of this year. Professor Venkatesh also represented the IAVGO injured workers community legal clinic in their challenge against the cuts by Legal Aid Ontario, providing both research support on procedural fairness and comparative workers compensation law as well as preparing oral and written submissions at the hearing, which resulted in a substantive reduction in the cuts (reduction of around $225K).

In 2019, Dean Waters was a co-author of P.M. Saunders & R. Currie, et al., Kindred’s International Law: Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied in Canada (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2019).

Dean Waters also published his and Robert L. Nelson's article "Slow or Spectacular Death: Reconsidering the legal history of blockade and submarines in WW1"(2019) 69 University of Toronto Law Journal 473.

In 2019, Professor Sujith Xavier was part of a team that successfully represented Alexander Vavilov before the Supreme Court of Canada in a case that will alter how courts oversee decisions of administrative officials and public bodies. 

Professor Xavier was also part of a team of scholars that launched a new journal concerned with issues in international law related to the Global South in its broad conception: Third World Approaches to International Law Review. He continues to serve on its editorial collective.