The Science Community’s Movement Against Trump During President Trump’s first week in office, his administration has already started affecting the United States’ stance on climate change, including an examination of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine which information will remain on their website. As part of the examination, EPA employees have also been instructed not...
An Interdisciplinary Approach Canada has a drug problem. In many parts of the country, fatal drug overdoses are higher than deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents. In Ontario, opioid-related deaths increased from 127 in 1991, to 550 in 2010, to over 700 in 2014. Between 2011 and 2014, the nation’s spending on drugs to treat opioid addiction rose by sixty percent.[1] The...
Desperate borrowers were paying 59.99% interest to local lender, but actuaries found the “true” interest rate in high risk lending can often be much higher After a Toronto Star investigation last October into a series of judgements against people in debt to private lenders, it was announced today that judges of the Small Claims Courts of Ontario will receive training in how to effectively...
The issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) superbugs, wherein pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi develop ways to resist different drug treatments, is rapidly becoming an issue on the international stage. In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly met to discuss the issue of AMR and the G20 meeting included AMR in its closing communique, placing strong emphasis on the need to both...
What is happening with Vanessa’s Law? On 6 December 2013, Conservative Member of Parliament for Oakville, Terence Young, introduced the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act (Vanessa’s Law) in order to provide Canadians with a more stringent drug-monitoring system. Without dissent from any of Canada’s federal political parties, Vanessa’s Law received Royal Assent and became Canadian...
According to the most recent World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, Canada ranks twelfth overall out of 113 countries included in the survey. Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands rank first to fifth, respectively. Canada’s overall index score of 0.81 is tied with the UK and Australia. The US ranks eighteenth overall. Ranking twelfth out of 113 puts Canada near the top of the...
Reporting Terror in the Social Media Age The international community experienced a series of tragic attacks over the holiday break, striking fear and paranoia during a time of celebration. On December 19, Anis Amri crashed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, killing twelve and injuring fifty-six people. Also on December 19, Mevlut Mert Altintas assassinated Andrei Karlov, the Russian...
Salvaging the Two-State Solution “If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both and won’t ever live in peace.” – John Kerry In 1947 the United Nations passed Resolution 181, authorizing the division of Palestine into two states: thirty-five percent for the Arabs and fifty-five percent for the Israelis. The remaining portion, Jerusalem, was to be...
The past few years have shown exponential growth in the influence of technology. Netflix disrupted the DVD market, Uber damaged the taxi industry, alternate finance gave goose-bumps to the Venture-Capitalists and Airbnb left its mark on the hospitality industry. Interesting developments also lie ahead of us: 3D printing is on the horizon to potentially disrupt the traditional manufacturing model...
The Overuse of Segregation and the Interplay Between Mental Health and Segregation 1,560. That is how many days 23-year-old Ontario inmate, Adam Capay, spent in continuous segregation, without trial, in a small, Plexiglas-lined cell.[i] The UN Commission on Human Rights defines prolonged segregation as anything greater than fifteen days. If the segregation exceeds fifteen days, the United...
Reflections on a ‘Supreme’ Question & Answer Sabrina Molinari and I were proud to represent Osgoode Hall Law School at the Question & Answer session of Justice Malcolm Rowe. The first article of this series described the newly modified Supreme Court nomination process and some reflections on the Justice Rowe’s responses to questions. In this article, I take the opportunity to reflect—as...
A newly-released report documents hundreds of violent incidents related to Canadian mining projects in Latin America One community, four years, five brutal murders. One victim was found in a well with his fingernails removed — a telltale sign of torture. Another victim was eight months pregnant. A third victim survived the first attack, in which he was shot eight times in the back, but was...
Osgoode Students Witness Historic Q&A In August of 2016, the Trudeau Government announced a new process for appointing Justices to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), in expectation of Justice Thomas Cromwell’s retirement from the bench this past September. Aimed at promoting transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability to all Canadians, the new selection process called...
President Obama Calls for a Mission to Mars by the 2030s In a recent op-ed for CNN, U.S. President Barack Obama expressed a keen interest in sending humans to Mars by the 2030s. The President outlined his plan to deliver American astronauts to the red planet by promoting greater cooperation between government agencies and private companies – a partnership that will not only allow humans...
Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights/OBA Foundation DATE: Thursday, 24 November 2016 TIME: 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM LOCATION: Ontario Bar Association 20 Toronto Street #300 Toronto, ON M5C 2B8 Register for FREE at: About the Conference: Join Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights and the OBA Foundation for Canadian Responses to the Syrian Refugee Crisis: Reflections...
Do we always know when we’re being marketed to? Every day on our way to school, work, or home, when we are watching TV, listening to the radio, or are surfing social media, we may be exposed to pharmaceutical industry marketing campaigns, whether we know it or not. Is there anything wrong with being exposed to industry marketing? Well, it depends. In order to answer this question, we must...
Helping Haiti After Hurricane Matthew Hurricane Matthew, a powerful Category five Atlantic hurricane, devastated Central America and the southern United States between 28 September and 10 October, directly killing at least a thousand people and doing over five billion dollars’ worth of damage. One of the worst-hit countries was Haiti, an island nation in the Caribbean with a population of almost...
It’s not just home ownership Toronto has been named one of the hottest, most progressive, and most lucrative places to live in the world, offering great entertainment experiences, a fabulous mix of historic and modern architecture, employment opportunities, fancy living, and investment properties. Even Toronto’s musicians are on fire, furnishing Torontonian playlists with catchy rhythms...
Addressing the Innovation Gap in Health On September 14, a United Nations high-level panel on access to medicines published a report that discusses the gap between the research and development (R&D) of health innovations and health outcomes. Broadly, the report recommends the following: making intellectual property laws more sensitive to public priorities; creating new incentives for...
The Iran Nuclear Deal: Barack Obama and Dwight D. Eisenhower In 2015, the P5+1 powers (the UN Security Council and Germany) negotiated a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons-making capabilities. American President Barack Obama considered the JCPOA one of the major triumphs of his administration. Opponents of the agreement argued that it established a...
“You’re up!” Shalaw shouted this while he firmly placed an Ak-47 over my chest. I was nervous. As things unfolded, it seemed as though my life was becoming a modern sequel to Voltaire’s Candide. A few days earlier, I was in Istanbul. I was backpacking alone and had just finished two months of travelling in Europe and North Africa. The scenery in Turkey was a marvel handsome enough to...
…But All At A Cost It was hard for me to pick what to write about for my first article of my last year at Osgoode. I was mulling over all the topical controversial news topics we have in the media currently, from the dreaded US elections, ongoing issues in the Middle East, bans on the burkini in France, etc. However, lately I have observed one issue which has consistently...
$2.3 million in bursary money distributed in the Fall process We here at the Obiter like to think of ourselves as creative. When we realized there was going to be a shortfall in submissions for the first issue, we jumped at the chance to reprint some of the favourites from the 2015-2016 year. This is one of those articles, enjoy! One of the first real deadlines Osgoode students face at the...
Lessons from the field Human-centered design (HCD) is a design method used to develop products and services from the perspective of those who use them. It is an intentional process, but also a creative one. It involves immersing yourself in the problem you are trying to solve, working with the people experiencing the problem, experimenting with solutions, and, most importantly, lowering your...
Learning from the Interim Federal Health Program Canada is currently seeing a revitalized interest in the plight of refugees, which started in early September when the tragic photos of the Kurdi family’s attempt to escape Syria were widely published in the news and shared on social media. Since then, a large number of different non-government organizations, activist groups, and public...