The lack of clarity of Canadian insolvency legislation with respect to the treatment of environmental claims has left Canadian courts wondering whether they should advance the public order policies embodied in the environmental legislation or promote creditors' interests and the private relief afforded by bankruptcy. This thesis examines the state of the law on the question and provides a critical assessment of the legislation and the relevant case law. The author points to the flaws of the legislation and its judicial interpretation, while uncovering the underlying reasons for the existence of such a confused body of jurisprudence. Building on these findings, the author proposes a reform of the insolvency legislation that would uphold the protection of the environment as a fundamental value in Canadian society.

This thesis explores the participation of children within legal discourse by looking at how laws and policies engage or disengage children. The basic premise is that to understand children’s participation is to confront the discourse of children and childhood where we uncover underlying assumptions, interests and agendas that inform our conception of who the child is and what the experience of childhood entails. Specifically, the thesis examines child participation within the Philippine legal framework by looking at the status, conditions and circumstances of children in four contexts: family, educational system, work environment and youth justice system. It argues that our conceptions of children and childhood are not only produced from a particular discourse but in turn are productive of a particular construction and practices reflected in the legal system. In its examination, the thesis reveals a complex Philippine legal framework shaped by competing paradigms of children and childhood that both give meaning to and respond to children’s engagements. On the one hand, there is a dominant discourse based on universal patterns of development and socialization that views children as objects of adult control and influence. But at the same time, there is some concrete attraction to an emerging paradigm influenced by childhood studies and the child rights movement that opens up opportunities for children’s participation. In advocating for broader acceptance of the emerging paradigm, the thesis identifies distinctive understandings of this paradigm in the Philippine context. A central argument is that in reconstructing the legal discourse of children and childhood, children’s participation grounded on the emerging paradigm does not necessarily introduce “new” understandings of children and childhood in the Philippines but, in fact, confirms existing beliefs and practices that articulate deeply held indigenous relational values. Within this contextualized understanding of the emerging paradigm, the thesis articulates children’s participation as: recognition of children as rights-bearers; acknowledgment of children’s realities as lived and experienced by them; and respect for the meaningful and constitutive relationships that children establish. Consequently, the intrinsic quality and meaning of actions of the child and towards the child take on a significant legal, social and moral value.

In 2000, Jordan signed the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement) and a free trade agreement with the US (USJFTA). Both commitments have required Jordan to comply with various obligations, including full compliance with the minimum standards for the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) under the TRIPS Agreement and TRIPS-Plus IP standards set out under the terms of the USJFTA. Enticed by views that strong IP protection would create prosperity in the Kingdom by promoting technological innovation and inducing transfer and dissemination of technology to Jordanians, Jordan implemented the provisions of TRIPS and the USJFTA to the letter. However, Jordan focused little attention on important “TRIPS flexibilities”. In particular, Jordan has qualified parallel importation and limited the grounds of compulsory licenses. In addition, Jordan provides pharmaceutical testing data with data exclusivity. This thesis focuses on the Jordanian experience in the pharmaceutical sector. It argues that strong patent protection has not been conducive to the promotion of technological innovation and the transfer and dissemination of technology. Moreover, this protection has resulted in adverse outcomes such as increased drug prices, unavailability of essential medicines in some public hospitals for serious diseases, and a dwindling local pharmaceutical industry, in part, as a consequence of its inability to access advanced, patented technology on reasonable commercial terms. The thesis also investigates the legitimacy of establishing certain grounds of compulsory licensing by Jordan, even in light of the TRIPS-Plus obligations under the USJFTA. It advocates that such grounds contribute to the promotion of technical innovation, lead to the transfer of advanced technology, and above all improve access to affordable medicines. Finally, the thesis explores Jordan’s obligations to protect pharmaceutical testing data under TRIPS and USFTA arguing that neither of these two instruments requires data exclusivity as claimed by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and some developed countries.

This thesis advances a feminist critique of Canadian legal responses to disputes over frozen in vitro embryos and embryo donor anonymity. It argues that current laws that provide spouses or partners with joint control over the use and disposition of embryos created from their genetic materials, that mandate the creation of agreements setting out these parties intentions in the event of a disagreement or divorce and that protect donor anonymity without providing mechanisms to allow donors, recipients and donor offspring to voluntarily exchange information do not adequately account for the lived experiences of women who undergo in vitro fertilization treatment or who serve as embryo donors. This thesis provides recommendations for how Canadian laws and policies might better support the express objectives and intentions of Canadian federal and provincial statutes to protect the rights, interests and health of women who seek to build their families through assisted reproductive technologies.

The involvement of individuals with mental illness in the criminal justice system is receiving increased attention. Under the current law, the court or jury makes a special verdict of “Not Criminally Responsible on Account of Mental Disorder” if the accused did not at the time of the offence appreciate what he or she was doing, or that it was wrong, due to a mental disorder. This paper will outline the current Criminal Code mental disorder regime, before examining how Bill C-54, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, proposes to build on the existing law. By exploring the provisions of Bill C-54 aimed at enhancing public safety, this thesis will discuss whether the reforms are supported by empirical evidence, and will likely achieve its stated objective. This paper will also consider the possibility of constitutional challenge in light of the ‘twin goals” statutory framework and Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Geo-immersive technologies digitally map public space for the purposes of creating online maps that can be explored by anyone with an Internet connection. This thesis considers the implications of their growth and argues that if deployed on a wide enough scale they would pose a threat to the autonomy of Canadians. I therefore consider legal means of regulating their growth and operation, whilst still seeking to preserve them as an innovative tool. I first consider the possibility of bringing invasion of privacy actions against geo-immersive providers, but my analysis suggests that the jurisprudence relies on a reasonable expectation of privacy approach that makes it virtually impossible for claims to privacy in public to succeed. I conclude that this can be traced to an underlying philosophy that ties privacy rights to an idea of autonomy based on shielding the individual from the collective. I argue instead considering autonomy as relational can inform a dialectical approach to privacy that seeks to protect the ability of the individual to control their exposure in a way that can better account for privacy claims made in public. I suggest that while it is still challenging to craft a private law remedy based on such ideas, Canada’s data protection legislation may be a more suitable vehicle. I criticize the Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s current approach to geo-immersive technologies as inadequate, however, and instead propose an enhanced application of the substantive requirements under Schedule 1 of PIPEDA that is consistent with a relational approach to privacy. I suggest this would serve to adequately curtail the growth of geo-immersive technologies while preserving them as an innovative tool. I conclude that despite criticisms that privacy is an inadequate remedy for the harms of surveillance, in certain commercial contexts the fair information principles can, if implemented robustly, serve to regulate the collection of personal information at source in a fashion that greatly restricts the potential for those harms.

Geo-immersive technologies digitally map public space for the purposes of creating online maps that can be explored by anyone with an Internet connection. This thesis considers the implications of their growth and argues that if deployed on a wide enough scale they would pose a threat to the autonomy of Canadians. I therefore consider legal means of regulating their growth and operation, whilst still seeking to preserve them as an innovative tool. I first consider the possibility of bringing invasion of privacy actions against geo-immersive providers, but my analysis suggests that the jurisprudence relies on a reasonable expectation of privacy approach that makes it virtually impossible for claims to privacy in public to succeed. I conclude that this can be traced to an underlying philosophy that ties privacy rights to an idea of autonomy based on shielding the individual from the collective. I argue instead considering autonomy as relational can inform a dialectical approach to privacy that seeks to protect the ability of the individual to control their exposure in a way that can better account for privacy claims made in public. I suggest that while it is still challenging to craft a private law remedy based on such ideas, Canada’s data protection legislation may be a more suitable vehicle. I criticize the Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s current approach to geo-immersive technologies as inadequate, however, and instead propose an enhanced application of the substantive requirements under Schedule 1 of PIPEDA that is consistent with a relational approach to privacy. I suggest this would serve to adequately curtail the growth of geo-immersive technologies while preserving them as an innovative tool. I conclude that despite criticisms that privacy is an inadequate remedy for the harms of surveillance, in certain commercial contexts the fair information principles can, if implemented robustly, serve to regulate the collection of personal information at source in a fashion that greatly restricts the potential for those harms.

The arbitration legislation of Kazakhstan has no direct answer to the problem of possible participation of the third parties therein. The analysis of the Kazakhstani legislation and practice, as well as the comparison of the Kazakhstani approach with international approaches regarding the problem of the third parties have revealed the necessity in the legislative reforms to be taken in Kazakhstan. These reforms are required for stabilization and equilibration of the position of third parties with all rest parties of the arbitration proceedings. Thus, the main aim of this thesis is to elaborate a series of suggestions on the potential development of the arbitration procedural legislative system and to address some of the gaps in the existing arbitration legislation.

The lack of clarity of Canadian insolvency legislation with respect to the treatment of environmental claims has left Canadian courts wondering whether they should advance the public order policies embodied in the environmental legislation or promote creditors' interests and the private relief afforded by bankruptcy. This thesis examines the state of the law on the question and provides a critical assessment of the legislation and the relevant case law. The author points to the flaws of the legislation and its judicial interpretation, while uncovering the underlying reasons for the existence of such a confused body of jurisprudence. Building on these findings, the author proposes a reform of the insolvency legislation that would uphold the protection of the environment as a fundamental value in Canadian society.

The arbitration legislation of Kazakhstan has no direct answer to the problem of possible participation of the third parties therein. The analysis of the Kazakhstani legislation and practice, as well as the comparison of the Kazakhstani approach with international approaches regarding the problem of the third parties have revealed the necessity in the legislative reforms to be taken in Kazakhstan. These reforms are required for stabilization and equilibration of the position of third parties with all rest parties of the arbitration proceedings. Thus, the main aim of this thesis is to elaborate a series of suggestions on the potential development of the arbitration procedural legislative system and to address some of the gaps in the existing arbitration legislation.