In planning Obiter Dicta’s first in-person event earlier this year, I found myself in the student paper’s basement office leafing through past print issues dating well back to the 1960s. As we phrased it to one another on the management team, we planned this event with the goal of reminding the Osgoode community that Obiter exists and that it does interesting, creative things. We used...
Editor’s Note: Using our platform to discuss the Israel-Hamas war The Israel-Hamas war is a highly sensitive and important topic, given the recent hostilities and long-standing conflict within the region. Due to the sensitivity and complexity of this matter, we have decided not to cover it in this issue given the personal impact of the violent conflict on many members of our community...
There’s one thing that Obiter Dicta and its editor-in-chief (nice to meet you) have in common this year: they’re both arguably in their angsty teen eras, despite both being far too old to warrant such a state. I’m this newspaper’s 95th editor-in-chief: a title that comes with the capacity for simultaneous uncertainty and opportunity (I’m also about five years too old to claim any label with...
Amid North Korea’s recent cruise missile test, United States and South Korean officials held a simulated tabletop discussion over the possibility of a North Korean nuclear strike on 23 February 2023. In January 2023, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un ordered the “exponential” expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal and the furtherance of the deliverability of intercontinental ballistic...
In December 2021, a group of unhoused persons began setting up tents on a vacant piece of municipally-owned property in downtown Kitchener. Over the next ten months, the encampment grew to over fifty persons, and in October 2022, the Region of Waterloo filed an application to injunct the residents from camping on the land for breaching its bylaws. In the ordinary course of events, this would have...
Each year of law school is so vastly different from the one that precedes it. I would even go as far as to say that each semester takes on a life of its own. Amidst the chaos, it is easy to wonder whether your particular experience is the common one; you may wonder if everyone found 1L as difficult as you did, or you may be curious to know if you’re the only 3L who still hasn’t ordered their...
Written and Drawn by: Maria-Claire
When I first heard, all the way back in April, that Elon Musk was putting in a takeover bid to purchase Twitter, I was skeptical that the plan would ever even materialize. So far removed from Musk’s typical business ventures, I frankly did not understand the profitability scheme he was envisioning with the acquisition. It felt more like a statement than a serious offer. My hunch was proven...
This short editorial is for the 2Ls. Specifically, the 2Ls that have very likely been bending over backwards to secure interviews and positions in the 2L recruit.
>Life slowly returns to Osgoode Hall Law School. Photo credit: Rachel Weitz
I’ll admit that after two years of attending almost-exclusively online zoom lectures, I did not have the greatest things to say about Osgoode Hall Law School. I was angry. I yearned to meet my fellow Section A classmates but had almost no opportunity to do so...
“It is better, however, to get no return than to confer no benefits. Even after a poor crop one should sow again; for often losses due to continued barrenness of an unproductive soil have been made good by one year’s fertility. In order to discover one grateful person, it is worthwhile to make trial of many ungrateful ones.” In his eighty-first letter to Lucilius above, Seneca touches upon the...
Dear Osgoode — This issue is our last as co-editors-in-chief. We are excited to pass the baton to three of our senior editors: Tomislav Milos, Lauren Graham, and Alice Liu. They will be taking over the management of Obiter shortly, and we are confident that, in their hands, the paper will remain a forum for expression on issues that matter to the Osgoode community. We know, of course, that they...
I’ve been writing for Obiter for all of my three years at Osgoode, and I decided pretty early on that I would write like I was speaking to a friend, and not like I was trying to win a Pulitzer. For the most part, it’s been rewarding. For the most part, I feel like I’ve done what I said I would. While I’m sad that this is the last time you’ll need to see, read, or skip over...
In the first two Parts of this series we introduced the SPAC, explored some examples and highlighted some concerns. The very nature of the SPAC attracts private companies that either do not have the money or the time to access the public markets through the ordinary IPO process. But are such companies suitable for the public markets? Being a public company comes with its own sets of challenges...
Innovation has been the defining feature in equipping the international community to fight back against COVID-19. As the race for a vaccine shaped much of last year and as vaccinations continue to ramp up across the world this year, it has become increasingly vital to contextualize the strategy of the different players in the intellectual property and pharmaceutical patent scene. In particular...
On February 26th, Health Canada officially approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine (called ChAdOx1) following clinical trials that displayed a 62.1% efficacy rate in reducing symptomatic cases of COVID-19. Health Canada’s approval followed a series of national regulators authorizing the vaccine for administration across the EU, the UK, India and Mexico. Through a global vaccine-sharing...
Ryan: Hi all — since many of our 1L and 2L staff members and readers are in the midst of planning their summers, I thought it would be good for us to reflect on our 1L and 2L summers and provide some perspective. I’ll start by asking about the differences between the summer after 1L and the summer after 2L. How did you approach the two? Did anyone do the 1L recruit? Laura: I certainly felt...
At this point into the academic year, the race to the finish line is already underway. It doesn’t take an academic veteran to know that this time of the year is crucial; Marsian energy is officially in full swing. For my non-astrologically inclined folks, this time of the year during a pandemic that has seized in-person interaction at all universities and transformed our living spaces to...
This article will be the first of a three part series and will take a look at the Jane-Finch community from a land use perspective. Shannon Holness, MES(Pl.) is an urban planner from the Jane-Finch community and her lived experience informs her approach to the practice. There are so many changes being introduced to the built environment of the Jane-Finch community. The Finch West LRT will spur...
Note: This article was written in response to Charn, J. (2013). “Celebrating the “null” finding: Evidence-based strategies for improving access to legal services” Yale Law Journal, 122, 2206. Charn takes an analytical approach in deconstructing the value of the right to counsel. Drawing on empirical studies of how litigants represented by lawyers fared in comparison to litigants with...
How the internet tried to get back at Wall Street by harming people the same way Wall Street does Historically it has been the big traders with deep pockets who have bullied little traders in the markets, but the rise of retail investing has shifted the firepower. GameStop is the latest demonstration of strength by retail dollars, causing institutional short sellers to get burned and abandon...
In our last issue of the 2019-2020 academic year, I wrote a note on how the COVID-19 pandemic would, beyond its obvious devastation, leave the world a better place. This time last term, I wrote about the ways in which our world needed to change, and how it seemed like it would. I wasn’t the first, nor the last, but it was the only thing important enough to start the year off by saying. What the...
Understandably, there is a sea of conflicting information going around about the safety, efficacy, and reliability of all of the available COVID-19 vaccine candidates. Much of that uncertainty stems from the novel scientific methods being used to generate immunity in two of the current contenders being administered and bought on the public market. In an effort to clarify some of the complex...
The international community received a welcome dose of optimism earlier this week when Moderna Inc., a Massachusetts-based biotech company, released encouraging evidence of its progress in developing a vaccine effective against COVID-19. According to early data released by the company, the Moderna vaccine has proven to be 94.5% effective against COVID-19 upon evaluation by members of the Data...
Connor Campbell is an articling student at McMillian LLP in Toronto, Ontario, and Editor Emeritus of Obiter Dicta. Connor previously served as a staff illustrator for Obiter during his 1L year at Osgoode, before serving as Editor-in-Chief during his 2L and 3L years. Connor was also the staff cartoonist for The Varsity, the school paper at the University of Toronto. Connor graduated from Osgoode...