How would you feel if after having spent many years incarcerated for a crime that you did not commit and when finally you are released to a broken life where there is nobody to respond effectively to all the damages that you have and that you will continue to endure due to an unfortunate miscarriage of justice? In Canada, compensation for wrongful convictions is a legal issue which has yet to find a solution for those who the government has denied to pay compensation for and the damages such wrongful conviction brought to their lives. This thesis will analyze the legal problem of compensation for wrongful convictions in Canada from a tort law perspective and will present an alternative to the existing regime to serve justice to those who have been victims of miscarriages of justice.

Universal suffrage is a guiding principle of democracy. However, it has a long history of being selectively denied. While many of these exclusions have dissipated in twentieth century rights revolutions’, the right to vote is still widely withheld for prisoners. This paper looks at criminal disenfranchisement, its origins, development, and contemporary manifestations. Part I will discuss the history of criminal disenfranchisement to trace its development from a tool of social exclusion to a collateral consequence of criminal conviction. Part II will look at the judicial treatment of contemporary disenfranchisement laws through a selection of representative case studies. Part III will consider how the representative cases form a trend towards criminal enfranchisement, and the implications of this trend for future constitutional challenges in jurisdictions where such laws persist. This paper argues that this trend, while tangible, is tentative and its force may be strengthened through a transnational judicial dialogue.

At first sight in copyright, moral rights seem to form a less significant part compared with economic rights. However, new technology has strongly overwhelmed traditional moral rights regime and consequently, inherent but concealed conflicts between moral rights and other legitimate interests have become increasingly prominent. Notwithstanding recognition of moral rights doctrine shows much unevenness both theoretically and in legislation with different jurisdictions in the world, the rush of economic and informational globalization has prompted the convergence of sentiment on moral rights worldwide. There can be no doubt that the essence of copyright, whether moral part or economic part, is to keep a “balance”. How to strike such a balance in moral rights system is thus becoming the main task of this thesis. Drawing from typical countries’ legislation, this thesis applies a restrictive perspective, to depict the picture of a “balanced” moral rights regime to fit in current trend of globalization.

The emerging technologies of prenatal human genetic enhancement give to third parties the unprecedented power to design newborn genetic traits such as eye and skin color, intelligence, and emotional profile. The literature has not provided any answers to the question as to why these genetic enhancement technologies are prohibited by the European Biomedicine Convention. This thesis will demonstrate, by way of legal theory, that the prohibition on prenatal genetic enhancement is thoroughly justified on grounds that it violates the human right to dignity, as expressed in Kantian philosophy. In light of Kant’s Philosophy, genetic interventions for designing identity-related characteristics treat human beings instrumentally, to satisfy the desires of others, as mere means and not as ends in themselves. This thesis offers a deeper understanding of the law and policy regarding the prohibition on human genetic enhancement in order to safeguard future generations in the wake of a brave new world.

This thesis will reassess the traditional doctrine of diplomatic protection in light of two significant and related developments in modern international law: (i) the proliferation of international human rights law and its granting of rights to individuals as subjects of international law; and (ii) the evolving conception of State sovereignty as including responsibility pursuant to the U.N.’s “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. It will argue that the traditional doctrine – which holds that States have a discretionary right to espouse claims on behalf of their own nationals for wrongs committed against them by other States, but that the individuals harmed have no right to protection – is outdated and that these developments should lead to the recognition of a limited individual right and concomitant State obligation to provide diplomatic protection in certain circumstances. Responsibility to protect thus confirms a duty to protect using diplomatic means.

This thesis compares franchising regulation in the Russian Federation with that of Canada. In order to be the most profitable, and function in the most efficient way, franchising must be properly regulated. Russia is currently experiencing a stagnation of franchising. This is partly because of the inefficient and outdated nature of the legislation that governs franchise relations in the country. In comparison, franchising business is flourishing in Canada. Canadian franchising legislation, reinforced by Canadian case law, represents a more developed system of regulation. The goal of this study is to reveal the strengths of Canadian franchising regulation as well as the weaknesses of Russian franchising regulation. This thesis also suggests ways to improve Russian franchising law and practice.

The enactment of civil asset forfeiture legislation by Alberta and Ontario in the fall of 2001, followed by the passage of similar legislation in five other provinces, has signalled a dramatic change in the way Canadian constitutional law ought to be understood. This thesis builds on American legal scholarship by highlighting how deficiencies in Canada’s constitutional law could create space for more invasive civil forfeiture statutes. Following a historical overview of forfeiture law in Canada, the thesis (i) examines how the Supreme Court of Canada mischaracterized this legislation as a matter of property and civil rights; (ii) considers whether the doctrine of federal paramountcy should have rendered the legislation inoperable and the consequences of the failure by the Court to do so; and (iii) evaluates iiithe impact of the absence of an entrenched property right in the constitution, in regard to this matter.

This thesis proposes a model for legalized Physician-Assisted Suicide [PAS] for adoption into Canadian legislation. The basis of this model is one which respects the individual freedom to make end-of-life decisions free from state interference. The research herein supports the provisions contained in Oregon legislation where PAS has been legalized on the basis that the Oregon model is consistent with the guarantees afforded under s.7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Oregon maintains strict regulatory barriers which protect against the threat of abuse which the Supreme Court reasoned in Rodriguez outweighed her s.7 rights to autonomy. This thesis will engage in the theories of Ronald Dworkin who supports the preservation of the sanctity of human life which Sopinka J. held prevailed over s. 7 violations in Rodriguez and seeks a model which respects individual freedom without compromising that sanctity or value of life.

This thesis uses our lived experience of speech online to analyse the most common justification for freedom of speech: the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor. It opens with an account of a conversation in the feminist blogosphere that explicitly addressed the operation of social power in discussion. The lessons of that conversation is compared to accounts of the marketplace of ideas metaphor offered by theorists like Sunstein, Fiss, and Boyd White, as well as more internet-oriented theorists like Lessig, Benkler and Balkin. From that, and building on the insights of critics like Fraser and Mansbridge, the thesis argues that we ought to reject the "liberal-economic" paradigm of the function of speech and deliberation in a democracy, and proposes that we replace the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor with that of a "critical democratic culture." The thesis concludes by illustrating the usefulness of that new metaphor through the example of hate speech.

Recent Inter-American Court of Human Rights jurisprudence has resulted in major amendments to Mexican military justice law that were previously thought to be impossible, considering the historical role of the armed forces and Mexico's civil-military pact. Yet, with a recent Supreme Court decision, Mexican law has been modified to bring it into compliance with the Inter-American Court's decisions. However, their efficacy has been undermined by aspects of the decisions which were not made on a principled basis.