PANEL ONE: Rethinking Legal Conversation
Thursday, 29 May 2014 – 1:45 to 3:15
Chair: Professor Shauna Van Praagh
Sabrina Germain
Sabrina Germain is a J.S.D. candidate at Cornell Law School and a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include law and society and social justice. She holds a DESS for SciencesPo Paris and an LL.M. from Cornell University.
Carlos Rubio
Carlos Rubio is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois, College of Law. His research focuses on the current practice and discourse of legal scholarship, particularly in the area of copyrights. His dissertation, titled Look Who’s Talking! The Ironical Property-talk of the Public Domain, focuses on how the contentious digital and networked era impacts copyright scholarship, the communication between academics and their audiences, and most importantly, the body of ‘legal knowledge’ that is being produced as a result.
Jeffrey Smith
Jeffrey Smith is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law at McGill University. A lawyer and oceanographer, he was previously counsel to the United Nations in East Timor and is now principal legal advisor (the jurisconsult) to the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. His publications and research areas include the law of the sea, international environmental law and treaty performance evaluation.
PANEL TWO: Re-examining Regulation
Thursday, 29 May 2014 – 3:30 to 5:00
Chair: Professor Allison Christians
Tanveer Ahmad
Md Tanveer Ahmad is pursuing Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) degree at the Institute of Air & Space Law, McGill University under the supervision of Professor Dr. Paul Stephen Dempsey. Currently, he holds the ICAO Assad Kotaite Fellowship and Boeing Fellowship in Air & Space Law. He obtained his master of laws (LLM) degree from the Institute of Air & Space Law, McGill University and bachelor of laws (LLB) (honours) degree from the University of London, UK. His doctoral thesis concentrates on emissions from international civil aviation that contribute to climate change and global warming. Before commencing his doctoral studies, he taught at the School of Law, BRAC University, Bangladesh.
Ada Kachan
Ada Kachan studied self-regulation while completing her undergraduate degree at Kiev National University. She subsequently conducted a year of research at Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, Germany, and worked on legislative proposals on self-regulation for the Ukrainian parliament. Ada recently received an LL.M degree from Boston College and is now preparing to take the New York Bar Exam in July. She has published several articles on self-regulation in Ukrainian, Russian, and German.
Maddy Conway
Maddy Conway is an LL.M student at McGill University. Originally from New Zealand, Maddy worked at a top New Zealand law firm before commencing her postgraduate studies, specializing in civil litigation and employment law. She will be returning to New Zealand in September to take up a job in the public law team at the New Zealand Crown Law Office.
PANEL THREE: Reassessing Impacts of Resource Extraction
Friday, 30 May 2014 – 9:30 to 11:00
Chair: Professor Richard Janda
Paulina Sikorska
Paulina E. Sikorska is a LLB Business Law graduate of Aberystwyth University, Wales, The United Kingdom and a current LLM Candidate in Air and Space Law in the Institute of Air and Space Law, Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
Michael Mantle
Michael Mantle completed his undergraduate degree in history (with distinction) at the University of Guelph in 2009 and later attended the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law where he graduated in 2013. Studying under the tutelage of Justice Allen Linden and Professor Lynda Collins, Michael became increasingly interested in the area of toxic torts and the difficulties associated with reconciling science and the law. His current LLM thesis is on cancer clusters in the oil sands development which is what he will be discussing today.
Stéphanie Roy
Stéphanie obtained her bachelor’s degree in law at Laval University in 2010. She was admitted to the Bar of Quebec in 2011, and she practiced in insurance law and professional liability at Langlois Kronström Desjardins before entering McGill to complete her LL.M specialized in environment.
PANEL FOUR: Reconsidering Issues in Criminal Law
Friday, 30 May 2014 – 11:15 to 12:45
Chair: Professor Frédéric Mégret
Michal Gilad
Michal is currently a Doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her focus is on interdisciplinary research of law and the social sciences, addressing legal issues affecting children. Formerly, she practiced law as a public prosecutor specializing in juvenile justice and crime against children, and clerked for the Honorable Justice Edna Arbel of the Israeli Supreme Court. She has also served as a policy attaché for the State Attorney of Israel, leading extensive policy-oriented interdisciplinary research on issues of criminal law and social sciences. She holds an LLB from Tel-Aviv University and a Masters in Criminology and an LLM from the University of Pennsylvania.
Marika Giles Samson
Marika is a British-born, Canadian-trained lawyer with an interest in international criminal justice, international human rights and the rule of law. She is currently exploring the phenomenon of judicial persecution, that is, the use of the courts to undermine political opposition and individual human rights, under the supervision of Professor Frédéric Mégret.
Vincent Dalpé
Vincent graduated from Université Laval in 2012. He has passed the Québec Bar and completed his articling in 2013. He is now finishing his LLM at McGill University and will begin his DCL next year.
PANEL FIVE: Re-evaluating Rights – Three Case Studies
Friday, 30 May 2014 – 2:00 to 3:30
Chair: Annyssa Bellal, O’Brien Fellow in Residence
John Hursh
John Hursh completed his LL.M. at McGill University Institute of Comparative Law, where his thesis addressed women’s rights and women’s land rights in postcolonial Tunisia and Morocco. Most recently, he authored a book chapter assessing water scarcity, environmental narrative, and community voice in Morocco for Columbia University Press. He will travel to Tunisia to conduct interviews with leaders of Tunisia’s feminist movement later this year through a research grant provided by Harvard Law School Institute for Global Law and Policy.
Gabrielle Caceres
Gabrielle Caceres obtained a Master’s degree in Law (Public Law) in June 2010 from the Free University of Brussels (U.L.B.). In September 2010, she joined the Concerted Research Action "Outsiders in Europe: The Foreigner and the ‘Other’ in the Process of Changing Rules and Identities" (2006-2011) coordinated by the Interdisciplinary Center « Migration Asylum Multiculturalism » (M.A.M.). Since October 1, 2011, as part of a Research Fellowship F.R.S.-FNRS carried out at the Law Department of the Institute for European Studies and at the Perelman Centre for Philosophy of Law (U.L.B.), she writes a Ph.D. thesis titled « The reasonable accommodation on the grounds of religion: can the North American example serve the European experience? », under the supervision of Prof. Emmanuelle Bribosia and Prof. Isabelle Rorive.
Barbara (Basia) Andraka
Basia holds a law degree from Indiana University-Bloomington and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Florida. Basia is currently continuing her graduate education as a Ph.D. student in Law & Social Science at Indiana University-Bloomington. Her primary research interests include pharmaceutical regulation, improving research and development into neglected diseases, and social construction of contested illnesses. She is also a consultant for the software development firm Enfoglobe, Inc., as well as Chair of Public Health & Charities for the Polish-American Chamber of Commerce of the Eastern United States.