Author Archives: AG

Live-Stream of Marlee Kline Lecture

If you would like to hear Bonnie Sherr Klein deliver the 2014 Marlee Kline Lecture in Social Justice, but can’t make it to Allard Hall, you’re in luck! The lecture will be live-streamed at the following link:

http://mediasitemob1.mediagroup.ubc.ca/Mediasite/Play/2e740b9d2e9e416193b67657b86735161d

The feed will become active at 6:00 PM on Thursday, 30 January.

Bonnie Sherr Klein is a documentary filmmaker and long-time activist in the feminist and disability movements. In this lecture she shares her lived experience of disability as documented in her journal entries and film. She points out that disability inevitably touches us all, and proposes that human rights for people living with disabilities is not `merely’ a justice issue but an opportunity for all of us to be our most human.

Date: Thursday, 30 January 2014
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: UBC Allard Hall (1822 East Mall), Room 104

Click here to view the event poster (pdf).

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Lecture: “Governments as Litigators in Human Rights Cases: Guarantors or Opponents of Rights?”

What are the obligations of governments and their lawyers, as respondents in human rights litigation? What are the implications of current litigation efforts being made by governments to exempt their conduct as service-providers from compliance with their human rights legislation? Equality rights litigator Gwen Brodsky will focus on the case of First Nations Child and Family Caring Society v. Canada, a challenge to under-funding of on-reserve child welfare services. This case is currently before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Gwen Brodsky, Distinguished Visiting Scholar, UBC Law 

Gwen Brodsky is a leading national and international expert on equality rights and the Charter.  She has extensive experience arguing equality rights cases before tribunals and courts, and has acted as counsel in leading cases in the Supreme Court of Canada, including Andrews, Swain, Mossop, Thibaudeau, Gould, Vriend, Meiorin, Gosselin, Keays, and Moore.  She has also appeared before commissions and treaty bodies of the UN and the Americas.  She was the first Litigation Director of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF).

For the past decade, Dr. Brodsky’s work has focused on the inter-connections between equality rights, social and economic rights, and Aboriginal rights, and on the means of fulfilling them in constitutional and human rights contexts.  She is counsel to the petitioners in McIvor v. Canada, a challenge to sex discrimination against Aboriginal women and their descendants under the Indian Act.  This case, which is ongoing, has already resulted in law reform which has had the effect of making 45,000 Aboriginal women and their descendants newly eligible for Indian status.  She represented the Native Women’s Association of Canada on the issue of the murders and disappearances of Aboriginal women and girls before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in BC.

Tuesday, 21 January @ 12:30 PM
Room 122, Allard Hall (1822 East Mall) 

View the current lecture schedule here.

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Lecture: “Prostitution Law and Policy after Bedford v. Canada”

On December 20, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in Bedford v. Canada.  The Supreme Court held that the criminal prohibitions on bawdy houses, communicating in a public place for the purposes of prostitution and living on the avails of prostitution violated s. 7 of the Charter and were of no force or effect.  The declaration of invalidity was suspended for 12 months to give Parliament time to respond with new laws.

Janine Benedet, Faculty Director, UBC Centre for Feminist Legal Studies

Christine Boyle, QC, Professor Emeritus, UBC

Janine Benedet and Christine Boyle, QC each acted as co-counsel for women’s groups who intervened in Bedford, Professor Benedet for the seven groups making up the Women’s Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution and Professor Boyle for the Asian Women’s Coalition Ending Prostitution.  Each will offer some reflections on their participation in the case and the role of racism and sexism in constructing and maintaining the prostitution industry.  Professor Benedet will also offer some thoughts on possible next steps in the legal response to prostitution in Canada.

Tuesday, 14 January @ 12:30 PM
Room 122, Allard Hall (1822 East Mall) 

View the current lecture schedule here.

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2014 Marlee Kline Lecture in Social Justice – “I Am Who You Are”

Join us on 30 January for the 2014 Marlee Kline Lecture in Social Justice, being given by Bonnie Sherr Klein.

Bonnie Sherr Klein is a documentary filmmaker and long-time activist in the feminist and disability movements. In this lecture she shares her lived experience of disability as documented in her journal entries and film. She points out that disability inevitably touches us all, and proposes that human rights for people living with disabilities is not `merely’ a justice issue but an opportunity for all of us to be our most human.

The one-hour lecture will be followed by a reception. Please RSVP to eventassistant@law.ubc.ca.

Date: Thursday, 30 January 2014
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Place: UBC Allard Hall (1822 East Mall), Room 104

Click here to view the event poster (pdf).

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Dr. Gwen Brodsky, Distinguished Visiting Scholar

Dr. Gwen Brodsky is in residence at UBC Law this year as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar.  She is currently teaching Law 309C, a seminar on “Sexism in the Law as a Tool of Colonialism” in our JD program (Fall 2013).

Dr. Brodsky (LLB, Victoria; LLM, Harvard; PhD, Osgoode) is a leading national and international expert on equality rights and the Charter. She has extensive experience arguing equality rights cases before tribunals and courts, and has acted as counsel in leading cases in the Supreme Court of Canada, including Andrews, Swain, Mossop, Thibaudeau, Gould, Vriend, Meiorin, Gosselin, Keays, and Moore.  She has also appeared before commissions and treaty bodies of the United Nations and the Americas, and was the first Litigation Director of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF).

For the past decade, Dr. Brodsky’s work has focused on the inter-connections between equality rights, social and economic rights, and Aboriginal rights, and on the means of fulfilling them in constitutional and human rights contexts. She is counsel to the petitioners in McIvor v. Canada, an ongoing challenge to sex discrimination against Aboriginal women and their descendants in the Indian Act, and represented the Native Women’s Association of Canada on the issue of the murders and disappearances of Aboriginal women and girls before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in British Columbia.

Dr. Brodsky has written extensively about equality rights theory, social and economic rights, the Charter, the duty to accommodate, and access to justice problems experienced by members of disadvantaged groups. She has taught in the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia and in the Akitsiraq Law Program in Iqaluit.

If you wish to get in touch with Dr. Brodsky, her contact information while at UBC is as follows:

Dr. Gwen Brodsky
Distinguished Visiting Scholar
Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia
tel: 604 874 9211
gbrodsky@mail.ubc.ca

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