This dissertation considers sadomasochism (s/m) as an object of knowledge that incites multiple and interpenetrative discourses. I deconstruct psychiatric, feminist, and cinematic articulations of s/m, and consider the ways in which these narratives interact with each other and influence the legal regulation of s/m. My analysis is framed by Foucault’s account in the History of Sexuality, which helps to bring s/m into focus as a discursive product that emerges out of a “knowledge-power-pleasure” regime. Viewed in this light, I argue that when the scientific, feminist, cinematic and legal actors flex their power in producing truth-claims about s/m, this does not shut down pleasure, but proliferates it. To further interrogate the discursive underpinnings that uphold these truth-claims, I draw upon theories of abjection, disgust and expulsion. Part I traces the construction of s/m within the scientific realm, from the early pioneers in sexology, to the recent academic literature that challenges the pathologization of s/m in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Part II surveys the “sex wars” in the eighties and nineties, where the issue of s/m (along with other sex-related issues) violently ruptured feminist communities. In Part III, I analyze the cinematic representation of s/m in popular culture, arguing that while the prevailing tone is pejorative, the narratives nonetheless betray a desire for s/m sexuality and its imagined forbidden pleasures. Part IV reviews the legal treatment of s/m pornography in Canada, which until recently has invariably found s/m imagery to be violent, degrading and/or dehumanizing, conspicuously reflecting the anti-s/m feminist perspective. Part V examines the legal treatment of s/m practice in Canada, in which the pathologizing gaze of psychiatry gets replicated. I argue that the law, rather than being a haven of rationality and coherence in its consideration of s/m, has reflected certain essentialist notions of sexuality produced in the non-legal cultural arena. In conclusion, I posit that the reification of s/m in the socio-legal imaginary allows for multiple entries of epistemic resistance. Attempts to foreclose s/m from the realm of acceptable sexuality have ironically offered sadomasochists frameworks for asserting their own subjectivity and membership in the community.

This historical study focuses on the multilateral regulation of sugar to provide a broader institutional history of trade law. I argue that theories of development and tensions between the global North and South have always been central to the formation, function, and transformation of international trade institutions. Sugar consistently appears as a commodity throughout the history of modern trade law. The sugar trade provides an immediate way for us to work through larger questions of development, free trade, and economic world order. I examine the 1902 Brussels Sugar Convention, the 1937 International Sugar Agreement (ISA), and the 1977 ISA. These international agreements provide a narrative of the development ideas and concerns that were a central feature of the trade institutions that preceded the World Trade Organization. In the context of the sugar trade over the last century, very few challenged the idea of free trade. Instead, they debated over what free trade meant. The justification for free trade and the function of those international institutions charged to implement trade agreements has changed throughout history. Yet, despite multiple historical and doctrinal definitions of free trade, two dynamics remain consistent: trade law has always been configured by the relationship between policies of tariff reduction and market stabilization and has been defined by the tension between industrial and agricultural interests.

Contemporary ad hoc United Nations Commissions of Inquiry (UN COIs) operate during or in the aftermath of many of the world’s worst conflicts. Over the years they have met with mixed success, and a good deal of criticism, yet are thought to provide a vital and unique benefit. Today, that benefit is seen either as the promotion of accountability for criminal wrongdoing, where quasi-criminal inquiries investigate whether war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide has taken place; or, it is seen as laying the foundation for transitional justice reforms, whereby UN COIs map the social, political, legal and even economic landscape and provide “holistic” transitional justice recommendations. Yet despite these lofty goals and the perceived importance of UN COIs, there is very little research on UN COIs. That which does exist tends not to question their purposes or seriously interrogate their procedures; instead, it focuses on incremental measures to improve UN COIs’ processes and legal analyses. This dissertation seeks to provide the basis of a theoretical, principled approach to the creation and work of UN COIs, a normative platform upon which human rights monitoring methods can expand and a continuity of investigatory practice can develop. By treating UN COIs as legal bodies with legal obligations, this dissertation draws on Fuller’s conception of legality and the theory of “interactional law-making” to question the very purposes for which UN COIs are seen to exist and the procedures by which they operate. It finds that neither the holistic transitional justice purpose nor the quasi- criminal purpose is legally or practically tenable. Instead, UN COIs should operate as post-conflict bodies, and delve deeply into a relatively narrow aspect of a systemic problem. A commitment to legality and interactional law-making can also offer a curative to the most salient criticisms of UN COI procedures by improving the credibility, reliability, and impartiality – the legitimacy – of their operations and how they are created.

With the rise of the welfare state, democratic, common law governments undertook a new proactive role as social welfare manager; allocating limited health, education, and social services benefits among competing public priorities. In spite of the important impact of this role on the lives of citizens, the various political, managerial, and legal mechanisms designed to hold executive social policy-makers accountable to the legislature have largely broken down. In this dissertation, I argue that our constitutional democracy permits courts to fill this accountability gap by acting as an accountability mechanism of last resort. I propose a new doctrine of administrative review for social policy and programs in which deference is based on evidence of accountability achieved within the policy-making process. Administrative review for accountability would allow courts to evaluate the legitimacy of the process by which social policy is created rather than interfering in the substance of social policy. My dissertation seeks to develop this administrative review doctrine within existing constitutional constraints including the separation of powers.

Environmental degradation is one of the most important problems facing by Chinese people. This unsatisfactory situation majorly lies in the weak implementation of environmental laws. The essential reason causing the ineffective enforcement of Chinese environmental law is people’s distorted cognition about the relation between human being and the environment. As an important principle of international environmental law, the sustainable development principle emphasizes intra-generational and intergenerational equality, aiming to realize a balance of environmental interest and socie-economic interest, which could become the guideline of the reformation of Chinese environmental law enforcement mechanism. At last, this paper analyzes the solutions to appeared problems, which are underpinned by the sustainable development principle. The ultimate purpose is to promote rational policies and responsible conducts of governments, to foster enterprises’ voluntary compliance with environmental law and to foster citizens’ environmental awareness.

Environmental degradation is one of the most important problems facing by Chinese people. This unsatisfactory situation majorly lies in the weak implementation of environmental laws. The essential reason causing the ineffective enforcement of Chinese environmental law is people’s distorted cognition about the relation between human being and the environment. As an important principle of international environmental law, the sustainable development principle emphasizes intra-generational and intergenerational equality, aiming to realize a balance of environmental interest and socie-economic interest, which could become the guideline of the reformation of Chinese environmental law enforcement mechanism. At last, this paper analyzes the solutions to appeared problems, which are underpinned by the sustainable development principle. The ultimate purpose is to promote rational policies and responsible conducts of governments, to foster enterprises’ voluntary compliance with environmental law and to foster citizens’ environmental awareness.

Are Aboriginal rights defensible within the framework of liberalism? Liberalism's commitment to individual equality seems to preclude Aboriginal rights insofar as these rights are exercisable by only a sub-set of the Canadian population and not by all Canadians equally. Instead of asking how Aboriginal rights can be justified within the liberal state, we need to question the legitimacy of the state's assertion of sovereignty over Aboriginal peoples and territories. Of the four potentially applicable modes of acquiring sovereignty - discovery, conquest, cession and prescription - only treaties have the potential to provide a liberally-compelling basis for the legitimacy of Crown sovereignty. But historical treaties did not purport to transfer sovereignty. As such, Canadian sovereignty suffers from a normative lacuna. Aboriginal rights, as set out in mutually consensual treaties addressing the sharing of sovereignty, have the potential to fill this lacuna and thereby to ground the legitimacy of Crown sovereignty.

Contemporary ad hoc United Nations Commissions of Inquiry (UN COIs) operate during or in the aftermath of many of the world’s worst conflicts. Over the years they have met with mixed success, and a good deal of criticism, yet are thought to provide a vital and unique benefit. Today, that benefit is seen either as the promotion of accountability for criminal wrongdoing, where quasi-criminal inquiries investigate whether war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide has taken place; or, it is seen as laying the foundation for transitional justice reforms, whereby UN COIs map the social, political, legal and even economic landscape and provide “holistic” transitional justice recommendations. Yet despite these lofty goals and the perceived importance of UN COIs, there is very little research on UN COIs. That which does exist tends not to question their purposes or seriously interrogate their procedures; instead, it focuses on incremental measures to improve UN COIs’ processes and legal analyses. This dissertation seeks to provide the basis of a theoretical, principled approach to the creation and work of UN COIs, a normative platform upon which human rights monitoring methods can expand and a continuity of investigatory practice can develop. By treating UN COIs as legal bodies with legal obligations, this dissertation draws on Fuller’s conception of legality and the theory of “interactional law-making” to question the very purposes for which UN COIs are seen to exist and the procedures by which they operate. It finds that neither the holistic transitional justice purpose nor the quasi- criminal purpose is legally or practically tenable. Instead, UN COIs should operate as post-conflict bodies, and delve deeply into a relatively narrow aspect of a systemic problem. A commitment to legality and interactional law-making can also offer a curative to the most salient criticisms of UN COI procedures by improving the credibility, reliability, and impartiality – the legitimacy – of their operations and how they are created.

The liability of companies for extra-territorial human rights violations does not solely arise from human rights statutes and traditional tort law approaches, but also from the corporate and securities law domains. Securities law requires that public companies disclose any high risk activity that the company is involved in, to the extent that it may affect the viability of the corporation, and this includes possible human rights violations. Management decisions in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility must concern the long-term viability of a company, and therefore accommodating, to the extent possible, the demands of stakeholders – be they traditional shareholders, responsible shareholders, or affected communities. This thesis will analyze the legal obligations triggering such corporate decisions, as well as the industry trends which inform them. The focus will be on Canadian public mining companies.

What characteristics make a legal mother? The thesis explores some of the gendered differences in establishing legal parentage. It defends that there is no adequate conception or definition of legal motherhood in Canada. Indeed, the conception of legal motherhood is elusive or reiterates the problematic association between biological motherhood and legal motherhood. The logical leap between a biological situation and a legal status creates two main problems. First, the elusiveness of motherhood as a legal category tends to strengthen gendered assumptions in legal parentage, and it is especially burdensome on women. Second, given the fact that no guidance is provided to decision makers, the vesting of motherhood is often subjected to an evaluation of a woman’s sexuality, sexual choices, or sexual preferences. There is a need a to put forward a comprehensive analysis of legal parentage; a gender and sexuality neutral concept of stratified legal parenthood.