Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / John Keller / The purpose of this thesis is to discover whether disability access regulations are being met and whether the regulations fulfill their intended purpose. Is Kansas State University Campus in Manhattan, Kansas ADA compliant (follows the current law) and convenient (user-friendly)? This inquiry can be split into two research questions: (1) Do the main entrances (entry experience being the sidewalk, ramp, and door) to buildings on the Kansas State University campus comply with current ADA guidelines? (2) Do students on campus find the access to these buildings user-friendly? This study has two main questions, and therefore multiple research methodologies: a focus group, audit, and guided activity. The focus group was made up of physically disabled students at KSU who are therefore familiar with access on the campus. The second method involved a yes-no checklist to test whether the buildings meet code. The third involved disabled and non-disabled students using a wheelchair for a day, with post-event survey to test public opinion of access on campus. My hypothesis anticipated that Kansas State University is code compliant, but not user-friendly. The conclusion is that no structure is fully sidewalk/ramp/door compliant, but two structures’ doors are fully compliant. According to the audit: ramps are mostly not needed (only 35 percent of structures need a ramp), sidewalks are 66 percent compliant, and doors are 63 percent compliant. According to the survey: doors are in the best condition, with ramps next, and sidewalks last. When comparing the checklist (compliance) and survey (convenience) results, sidewalk results were different, the ramp results were non-conclusive, and the door results were similar. This means that sidewalks meet code, but people do not find them accessible. Because ramps are not always needed, it made the checklist and survey difficult to compare. The analysis did not result in a clear “Similar” or “Different” result, therefore the comparison was non-conclusive. Doors were in the best condition on the checklist, and most people felt they were in good conditions. The application of this project allows other universities and communities to test whether their structures adequately provide access to students with a disability in a way that is user-friendly.

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In recent decades, the truth commission has become a mechanism used by states to address historical injustices. However, truth commissions are rarely used in established democracies, where the commission of inquiry model is favoured. I argue that established democracies may be more amenable to addressing historical injustices that continue to divide their populations if they see the truth commission mechanism not as a unique mechanism particular to the transitional justice setting, but as a specialized form of a familiar mechanism, the commission of inquiry. In this framework, truth commissions are distinguished from other commissions of inquiry by their symbolic acknowledgement of historical injustices, and their explicit “social function” to educate the public about those injustices in order to prevent their recurrence. Given that Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on the Indian Residential Schools legacy, I consider the TRC’s mandate, structure and ability to fulfill its social function, particularly the daunting challenge of engaging the non-indigenous public in its work. I also provide a legal history of a landmark Canadian public inquiry, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, run by Tom Berger. As his Inquiry demonstrated, with visionary leadership and an effective process, a public inquiry can be a pedagogical tool that promotes social accountability for historical injustices. Conceiving of the truth commission as a form of public inquiry provides a way to consider the transitional justice literature on truth commissions internationally along with the experiences of domestic commissions of inquiry to assemble strategies that may assist the current TRC in its journey.

Universities have traditionally stood as bastions of academic freedom and forums for open discourse and free expression. In recent years, however, this role has been questioned in instances where university administrators have, either directly or complicity, denied students the opportunity to express certain viewpoints they deem “controversial”. This research paper explores whether a university, or its delegates, should be allowed to deny students access to campus facilities and resources solely on the basis of ideological viewpoint. The relevance of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, statutory human rights provisions, and common law doctrines to the student-university relationship are explored in turn. It is argued that, notwithstanding the fact that universities may be “private” actors to whom the Charter does not directly apply, they are institutions invested with a public interest, and as such ought to be subject to special duties of non-discrimination.

Special and differential treatment (SDT) provisions in GATT were created to assist developing countries achieve economic progress while assimilating into the multilateral trading system. Despite these intentions, global trade imbalances still persist. Within this context, I focus on the region of East Asia which has experienced astounding growth in just several decades, propelling it far beyond other developing country regions. Although international trade continues to be the crucial factor driving growth in the region, reliance on SDT has in certain circumstances hindered development. As such, East Asia should seek alternatives to SDT. In that vein, I argue that sustainable growth and trade liberalization can be achieved by enhancing integration through a regional trade agreement. I further discuss various proposals for an East Asian trade agreement such as ASEAN+3, FTAAP, and EARTA. Finally, I highlight the importance of governance and identify several institutions essential for a successful regional arrangement.

The aim of this thesis is to provide an analytic framework for the governance of suspended declarations of invalidity in Canadian constitutional law. A suspended declaration is a remedial device by which a court strikes down a constitutionally invalid law, but suspends the effect of its order such that the law retains force for a temporary period. While introduced to Canadian law under circumstances of exigency, suspended declarations have grown to be used liberally by the courts, and the principles that previously confined them have been abandoned. As a result, constitutional rights have sometimes been suspended without just basis. I propose a means to reverse this trend: by adopting proportionality, a core feature of the analytic method used to adjudicate limitations on Charter rights, as a remedial principle guiding the use of suspended declarations. I review the jurisprudence of South Africa’s Constitutional Court to illustrate the merits of this approach.

This thesis will discuss the role of government in venture capital market and illustrate the national difference of that through a comparative study of government expenditure supporting policies of venture capital investment in the USA, Canada and China. Firstly, the prototype programs designed by Small Business Administration (SBA) of the United States and Canadian policies by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) will be discussed. Secondly, the current Chinese government expenditure supporting policies will then be studied in the context of the Chinese venture capital market’s unique political, economical and legislative background. Ultimately, potential improvements in the future expenditure incentive programs in China will be explored.

In this thesis I examine the status of the rights recognised in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in New Zealand‘s domestic law. I contrast that status with the constitutional guarantees that Brazil, South Africa and Finland provide for these rights, and critique the principal objections made in New Zealand and elsewhere against them. I argue that greater domestic legal protection of economic, social and cultural rights is necessary and propose that they be incorporated into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Despite Brazil’s importance in the world economy and its increasing participation in foreign trade, there is considerable legal uncertainty regarding the law applicable to international commercial contracts involving Brazilian parties because Brazilian judicial courts do not respect parties’ freedom to choose the governing law, thus this determination is only made by a judge, according to Private International Law rules of the forum. Applying these rules, this study demonstrates that there are at least three potential legal regimes: the Brazilian law, the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, and a foreign domestic sales law. Making use of the American law as the foreign law, a comparative analysis of these three legal regimes regarding contract formation demonstrates that their approaches are very distinct, and this confirms the legal uncertainty. In order to reduce this problem, three different strategies are proposed to the Brazilian government.