Arctic Justice: Criminal Justice and Movement Lawyering in Nunavut
The Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law presents:
About
McGill’s Beth Kotierk (LLM) and Nicolas Kamran (BCL/JD) will be speaking about their experience in “Arctic Justice” at the Legal Services Board of Nunavut. Beth will be chiefly discussing the question of whether social change can be furthered through strategic litigation in the Legal Aid context, while Nicolas will whether the Nunavut Court of Justice lives up to its name as Canada’s principal Gladue Court.
About the speakers
Beth Kotierk hails from Igloolik, Nunavut by way of Ottawa. She studied Sculpture and Installation and Indigenous Visual Culture at OCAD University before going on to pursue her law degree at the University of Ottawa. After completing her articles, Beth worked with Lawyers for Human Rights in South Africa on land and housing issues through the Canadian Bar Association's Young Lawyers International Program (YLIP), then returning to Nunavut to practice as a civil lawyer at Maliganik Tukisiniakvik (Legal Services Board of Nunavut) in Iqaluit. Beth is currently pursuing her LLM at McGill University.
Nicolas Kamran is a third year BCL/JD student at McGill. In Summer 2022, he completed an internship at Maliganik Tukisiniarvik’s criminal defence team, working on dozens of cases across the Baffin region. At the Faculty, Nicolas is also an assistant to the Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law, an Executive Editor at the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law, the Co-Director of the Wallenberg Advocacy Group, and a research assistant working on the sentencing of Indigenous offenders with Professor Marie Manikis. Last year, he was also a group assistant for the first-year Criminal Justice course.
