Bourgeois,"Race, Space, and Prostitution: The Making of Settler Colonial Canada"

Robyn Bourgeois of Brock University has published "Race, Space, and Prostitution: The Making of Settler Colonial Canada" in Race, Gender, and Law: A Tribute to the Scholarship of Sherene Razack - Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 30.3, 2018.

This article examines the fundamental role that prostitution has played in securing settler colonial domination over Indigenous peoples and lands in the historical and ongoing making of the Canadian nation-state. Using the theoretical and methodological framework developed by critical anti-racist feminist scholar Sherene Razack, this article offers a spatial analysis tracing how prostitution has been deployed, repeatedly and in distinctly racialized and gendered ways, to secure settler colonial domination in Canada. This analysis focuses on four key examples: (1) early settlement in British Columbia; (2) the Indian Act; (3) the Pass System; and, more recently, (4) Vancouver's Missing Women. It also focuses on how these settler colonial deployments of prostitution contributed (and, in some ways, continue to contribute) not only to violence against Indigenous women and girls but also to the justification, legitimation, and erasure of this violence and, thus, its normalization within settler colonial society.

New from UBC Press: Disabling Barriers: Social Movements, Disability History, and the Law

Disabling Barriers

Social Movements, Disability History, and the Law

Edited by Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isitt

SERIES: Disability Culture and Politics

UBC Press

Disabling Barriers analyzes issues relating to disability at different moments in Canadian and American history. In this volume, legal scholars, historians, and disability-rights activists demonstrate that disabled people can change their social status by transforming the political and legal discourse surrounding disablement.

Traditionally, disabled people were regarded as objects of pity and condescension. The rise of the social model of disablement – which identifies barriers, rather than physiological impairments, as the main problem facing people with disabilities – has resulted in a dramatic reconfiguration of how we regard political and legal structures affecting people with disabilities. Employing tools from the fields of law and history, this volume explores how disabled people have been portrayed and treated in a variety of contexts, including within the labour market, the workers’ compensation system, the immigration process, and the legal system (both as litigants and as lawyers).

This original contribution deepens our knowledge of the role of people with disabilities within social movements in disability history. The contributors encourage us to rethink our understanding of both the systemic barriers disabled people face and the capacity of disabled people to effect positive societal change.

This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of disability studies, disability history, and disability law, as well as to disability activists in Canada and the United States.

Endowed Chair in Criminology and Criminal Justice--St. Thomas University, Fredericton

St. Thomas University is an undergraduate, liberal arts institution with a full-time enrolment of 1800. Its students graduate with Bachelor of Arts, Applied Arts, Education, and Social Work degrees. The faculty members are distinguished teachers, researchers and scholars, and the university holds two Canada Research Chairs.

Through a special endowment in Criminology and Criminal Justice, St. Thomas University is able to host the position of Endowed Chair in Criminology and Criminal Justice for a maximum of four months each year. The Endowed Chair is offered to a scholar with a well-established record of research. Candidates for an Endowed Chair appointment would normally have a PhD in Criminology or related field. Those appointed to the Chair are expected to teach one undergraduate course mutually agreed upon by the Department and the Chair holder, conduct research in criminology/criminal justice, and/or participate in a special symposium in their area of expertise.Appointment to the Chair includes travel and living expenses while in Fredericton, a research allowance, and a stipend of $24,000.00.

Additionally, an application under the Endowed Chair could be for a shorter time period and a specific activity that could include, but is not limited to: a workshop, conference, public lecture, series of class presentations, engagement with government agencies and non-profit agencies including, but not limited to: Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Public Safety New Brunswick, Correctional Services of Canada, John Howard Society, Elizabeth Fry Society, etc.

St. Thomas University is soliciting applications for either the January-April term or the September-December term. We are particularly interested in applications from researchers with expertise in the following areas: Crime Reduction Strategies, Effective Correctional Programming, Evidence-based Crime Prevention, Indigenous Peoples and the criminal justice system, Female Offenders, Senior Offenders, Cultural Criminology, Justice Involved & Youth, Organized Crime, Policing, Drug Policy, Cyber Security, Hate Crime & Hate Speech, Wrongful Convictions, or other areas of expertise in criminology and criminal justice.

Applications should include a statement of the research and other activities that will be conducted during the term of the Chair, including the course that would be offered, the term that would be most suitable for the appointment, a curriculum vitae, samples of scholarly writing, and arrange to have three letters of reference sent directly to Dr. Kim Fenwick, Vice-President (Academic & Research), St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB, Canada, E3B 5G3. Electronic applications may be sent to vpacademic@stu.ca.

Closing date: April 15th, 2019, or when the position is filled. Applicants are responsible for ensuring that their completed applications, including letters of reference, are received by this date.

An equal opportunity employer, St. Thomas University is committed to employment equity for women, Aboriginal peoples, members of visible minority groups, and persons with disabilities. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Kirkby, "Reconstituting Canada: The Enfranchisement and Disenfranchisement of ‘Indians’, c. 1837-1900"

Coel Kirkby, of University of Sydney Law School, has posted  "Reconstituting Canada: The Enfranchisement and Disenfranchisement of ‘Indians’, c. 1837-1900" on SSRN. The article is forthcoming in the University of Toronto Law Journal.

Abstract

The constitutional history of Canada and First Nations is often told as the promise fulfilled of Aboriginal rights and treaties. I will challenge this dominant story by recovering the story of the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of ‘Indian’ subjects in the first three decades of Canadian confederation. Far from forgotten actors in a foretold play, ‘Indian’ voters were crucial to determining the outcome of three closely-contested federal elections and challenging settler ideas of the nascent Canadian nation. The question of the ‘Indian’ franchise was always embedded in competing constitutional visions for Confederation. The Canadian dream of transforming and assimilating Indigenous peoples would give way to a cynical idea of segregation under the permanent regime of the Indian Act. If the Indian franchise was the apotheosis of assimilation, its revocation marked the start of racial segregation. I juxtapose these Canadian constitutional visions with two alternative possibilities. The Anishinaabe-dominated Grand General Council accepted the franchise as part of its vision of reconciling membership in both their treaty-recognized nations and the Canadian state. The Confederacy Council of the Six Nations, in contrast, rejected the franchise as an existential threat to Haudenosaunee self-rule mediated by a treaty relationship with the Canadian and imperial governments. Recovering the constitutional contests driving Indian enfranchisement and disenfranchisement shows us of how the successful imposition of a single vision of a white democracy silenced alternative visions of a multi-national coexistence. It also reminds us of the multiplicity of constitutional possibilities for a common constitutional future.

McMillan, Truth and Conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi’kmaw Quest for Justice

The UBC Press has published Truth and Conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi’kmaw Quest for Justice, by L. Jane McMillan, as part of its terrific Law and Society Series.

The name “Donald Marshall Jr.” is synonymous with “wrongful conviction” and the fight for Indigenous rights in Canada. In Truth and Conviction, Jane McMillan – Marshall’s former partner, an acclaimed anthropologist, and an original defendant in the Supreme Court’s Marshall decision on Indigenous fishing rights – tells the story of how Marshall’s fight against injustice permeated Canadian legal consciousness and revitalized Indigenous law.

Marshall was destined to assume the role of hereditary chief of Mi’kmaw Nation when, in 1971, at the age of seventeen, he was wrongly convicted of murder. He spent more than eleven years in jail before a royal commission exonerated him and exposed the entrenched racism underlying the terrible miscarriage of justice. Four years later, in 1993, he was charged with fishing eels without a licence. With the backing of Mi’kmaw chiefs and the Union of Nova Scotia Indians, he took the case all the way to the Supreme Court to vindicate Indigenous treaty rights in the landmark Marshall decision.

Marshall was only fifty-five when he died in 2009. His legacy lives on as Mi’kmaq continue to assert their rights and build justice programs grounded in customary laws and practices, key steps in the path to self-determination and reconciliation.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in the Donald Marshall story, Indigenous peoples encounters with the law, and social justice issues.

Kent Roach, Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case

New from McGill-Queen's University Press:

Kent Roach, Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley and Colten Boushie Case

Putting Gerald Stanley's acquittal for killing Colten Boushie in the context of Canada's colonial and systemic discrimination against Indigenous peoples.

---

In August 2016 Colten Boushie, a twenty-two-year-old Cree man from Red Pheasant First Nation, was fatally shot on a Saskatchewan farm by white farmer Gerald Stanley. In a trial that bitterly divided Canadians, Stanley was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter by a jury in Battleford with no visible Indigenous representation.

In Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice Kent Roach critically reconstructs the Gerald Stanley/Colten Boushie case to examine how it may be a miscarriage of justice. Roach provides historical, legal, political, and sociological background to the case including misunderstandings over crime when Treaty 6 was negotiated, the 1885 hanging of eight Indigenous men at Fort Battleford, the role of the RCMP, prior litigation over Indigenous underrepresentation on juries, and the racially charged debate about defence of property and rural crime. Drawing on both trial transcripts and research on miscarriages of justice, Roach looks at jury selection, the controversial “hang fire” defence, how the credibility and beliefs of Indigenous witnesses were challenged on the stand, and Gerald Stanley's implicit appeals to self-defence and defence of property, as well as the decision not to appeal the acquittal. Concluding his study, Roach asks whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's controversial call to “do better” is possible, given similar cases since Stanley's, the difficulty of reforming the jury or the RCMP, and the combination of Indigenous underrepresentation on juries and overrepresentation among those victimized and accused of crimes.

Informed and timely, Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice is a searing account of one case that provides valuable insight into criminal justice, racism, and the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada.

D

List of Osgoode Society books available for sale until Monday the 3rd

I was hoping to post the entire list, but the formatting was messed up.
You can search on the osgoodesociety.ca website, or try this link.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aRhHu5C9enCa6X-y2Pgd7ZKSzKhe2ijNPpBBL0nPYgs/edit?usp=sharing

Hutchison, "Corporate Law Federalism in Historical Context: Comparing Canada and the United States" on SSRN

Camden Hutchison of the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, has posted "Corporate Law Federalism in Historical Context: Comparing Canada and the United States" on SSRN (forthcoming in the McGill Law Journal.)

Although American and Canadian corporate law share many similarities, they are also marked by important institutional differences. Among the most notable are the differing roles of federal versus state/provincial policymaking in the two countries: While American corporate law has been deeply influenced by jurisdictional competition among the states, Canadian law has instead been shaped by federal legislative activity, as seen today in the standardizing influence of the Canada Business Corporations Act. These different institutional histories have led to distinct evolutionary paths, with important substantive consequences for contemporary corporate law.

Despite considerable academic attention to the subject of corporate law federalism, these historical differences between Canada and the United States are not well understood. Drawing on historical evidence, this article explains why jurisdictional competition arose in the United States but not Canada by examining the "Great Merger Movement" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Specifically, this article makes three related arguments: (1) In the United States, the rise of jurisdictional competition was driven not by corporate governance issues, as is often assumed, but rather by the desire to avoid state and federal antitrust restrictions; (2) For a variety of reasons, cartelization and price fixing were more viable in Canada than the United States, delaying the onset of consolidative mergers; and (3) When the Canadian merger movement finally arrived, Canadian federal company law readily facilitated industrial consolidation, reducing the incentives for individual provinces to compete to attract company charters.

Given the permissiveness of Canadian company law and the availability of a federal statute, there was little demand for provincial governments to liberalize their own companies acts. In this respect, the different experiences of Canada and the United States reveal an intriguing historical irony — while Canadian corporate law is sometimes criticized as lacking in competitive responsiveness, the roots of this complacency are closely tied to the turn-of-the-century merger movement, in which Canadian law was more permissive than its traditional American counterpart.

Spitz, "More or Less Human: Colonialism, Common Law, and the Social Construction of Humanity on Vancouver Island, 1849-1864" on SSRN

Laura Spitz, of the University of New Mexico School of Law, has posted 

"More or Less Human: Colonialism, Common Law, and the Social Construction of Humanity on Vancouver Island, 1849-1864" on SSRN.

Focusing on the colony of Vancouver Island in the mid-nineteenth century and the colonization efforts of James Douglas, this paper seeks to make three separate but related points about the meaning and relevance of being “human” in that place, at that time. First, practices of humanization and dehumanization were used in the construction of a consequential set of legal categories, including alien, Indian, corporation, white and citizen. In some sense, this period marked the beginning of colonial legal ‘sorting’ or ‘ordering’ in the region. Many of the most visible categorical contests surfaced through or in connection to contests about land and citizenship, but there was another story there, too: a much more basic story about who counted as fully human in the nascent colony. Second, notwithstanding colonial/settler practices of dehumanizing Indigenous people in the process of colonization, James Douglas believed that they were in fact human, and this was evident in his land policies and practices, including treaty-making. While Douglas is sometimes valorized for having recognized Aboriginal title in unceded land, however, the underlying assumption that Indigenous people were in fact human does not reveal a robust and nuanced view of humanity, nor was it especially progressive except in contrast to the even more discriminatory views of others. Rather, it was fundamentally liberal in the sense that it recognized that Indigenous people could be legal persons, capable of holding and exercising rights in property. Conceived thus, human being was a status which entitled the status-holder to something like membership in humankind; and humanity was essentially the totality of human beings. Finally, this conception of what it meant to be human would likely not have made sense in the context of Coast Salish justice systems and other traditions. Being human was not so much a status to which legal rights attached, as a largely relational way of being in the world, and even then, potentially transitional or temporary, and invariably subordinate to more powerful, nonhuman forces. In that view, humanity was not so much the totality of human beings, or at least not just that, but something one expressed towards others, both human and nonhuman. Ultimately, this disconnect between Douglas’s and Coast Salish understandings not only complicated treaty-making, it had lasting impact on the evolution of laws in the territory we now call British Columbia.

Legal History Workshop schedule Winter 2019

OSGOODE SOCIETY LEGAL HISTORY WORKSHOP, 2018-2019

WINTER TERM SCHEDULE TO DATE

Wednesday January 16: Nicholas Rogers, York University: 'Murder on the Middle Passage: The trial of Captain Kimber 1792.'

Wednesday January 30: AVAILABLE

Wednesday February 13: Jackson Tait, Osgoode Hall Law School: 'In Search of the Lex Mercatoria:  Canadian Legal Interpretation of Atlantic Marine Insurance Contracts, 1860 - 1924'

Wednesday February 27: Eric Reiter, Concordia University: ‘Robinson v. CPR (1882-92):  Law, Society and Wrongful Death in Quebec’  [tentative title]

Wednesday March 13: Mark Walters, McGill Law School: TBA

Wednesday March 27: Colin Grittner, University of British Columbia: ‘Elective Legislative Councils and the Privileges of Property across Mid-Nineteenth-Century British North America’

Wednesday April 3: Patricia McMahon, Torys: TBA

Berger, "Assessing Adler: The Weight of Constitutional History and the Future of Religious Freedom" on SSRN

Benjamin Berger of Osgoode Hall Law School has posted "Assessing Adler: The Weight of Constitutional History and the Future of Religious Freedom" on SSRN. The article is forthcoming in the National Journal of Constitutional Law. 

Abstract: This article approaches Adler v Ontario as a distinctively useful perch from which to survey the history and future of the constitutional interaction of law and religion. The case is positioned at a provocative place in the arc of the development of this interaction and the article uses the reasons in Adler to expose and explore some themes that shape not only our religion jurisprudence, but Canadian constitutionalism more generally. The article begins by examining what the majority’s heavy reliance on religion’s place in constitutional history suggests about the competing logics at work in Canadian constitutional life. That discussion leads to a reflection on the central role that religion has played in Canadian nation-building and federalism, a role that is abiding, not just historical. The article then looks forward from Adler, exploring the central place of issues surrounding the education of children in the development of law and religion jurisprudence in the years after Adler, before turning to consider the question of the group or community aspect of religion — a point that was exposed in Adler, but that, after a period of relative abeyance, has reemerged as a central question for the future of law and religion in Canada. The article concludes by suggesting that, in addition to serving as an entry point into understanding key elements of the history and development of law and religion in Canada, reassessing the holding in Adler might itself be part of our constitutional future.

Gilding, "The Silent Framers of British North American Union: the Colonial Office and Canadian Confederation, 1851-67"

Note: currently open access

Ben Gilding of Cambridge University has published "The Silent Framers of British North American Union: The Colonial Office and Canadian Confederation, 1851–67" in the Canadian Historical Review.

Abstract:

One hundred and fifty years after the creation of the “Dominion” of Canada, it is notable that historians have often downplayed the role of the British Colonial Office in initiating and guiding the process that brought about the union of the colonies of British North America. In the traditional narrative, the British government and Colonial Office were forced to accept the Quebec Resolutions drafted by North American representatives as a fait accompli. This view tends to exaggerate the importance of Confederation as a singular constitutional event, and it does not take into account the active pursuit, by numerous colonial administrators over the course of the years prior to Confederation, to organize some form of union of the British North American colonies and the considerable influence they exercised over the nature of the union created in 1867. This article examines the intentions of the various British colonial administrators and their visions for a federal or legislative model for the governance of the new Dominion. It argues that while the Colonial Office heavily favoured a strong legislative union, the British North America Act of 1867 was ultimately a product of compromise resulting in the strong ambiguities that gave rise to the later notion of a “compact theory.” These ambiguities were further reflected in the innovative designation of “Dominion” to the newly united provinces; however, this article warns that it is crucial that scholars are wary of anachronistically imposing Canada's eventual quasi-independent Dominion status upon the circumstances of 1867.

Cent cinquante ans après la création du « dominion » du Canada, on remarque que les historiens ont souvent minimisé le rôle du Colonial Office britannique dans l'enclenchement et l'orientation du processus qui a mené à l'union des colonies de l'Amérique du Nord britannique. Selon le récit traditionnel, le gouvernement britannique et le Colonial Office ont été forcés d'accepter comme un fait accompli les résolutions de Québec rédigées par des représentants nord-américains. Cette interprétation tend à exagérer l'importance de la Confédération en tant qu'événement constitutionnel singulier et elle ne tient pas compte du long travail en amont effectué par de nombreux administrateurs coloniaux, durant les années précédant la Confédération, pour trouver une forme quelconque d'union des colonies britanniques d'Amérique du Nord ni de l'influence considérable qu'ils ont exercée sur la nature de l'union créée en 1867. Le présent article traite des intentions des divers administrateurs coloniaux britanniques et de leurs visions du modèle de gouvernance fédéral ou législatif du nouveau dominion. L'auteur soutient que bien que le Colonial Office ait été hautement favorable à une solide union législative, l'Acte de l'Amérique du Nord britannique de 1867 a finalement été un compromis qui s'est soldé par d'importantes ambiguïtés qui ont plus tard donné naissance à la notion de « théorie du pacte fédératif ». Ces ambiguïtés se reflètent en outre dans l'appellation novatrice de « dominion » utilisée pour désigner les nouvelles provinces unies; l'auteur met toutefois en garde les chercheurs contre accoler au Canada de 1867 le statut de dominion quasi-indépendant, car ce serait un anachronisme.

CFP: Canadian Law and Society Midwinter Meeting, Winnipeg, Jan. 19-20 (deadline Nov. 27)

CALL FOR PAPERS / APPEL À COMMUNICATIONS The midwinter meeting of the Canadian Law and Society Association will be held at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law on January 19-20, 2019. The call for papers is here.The deadline for submission of proposals is November 27, 2018. Le colloque d’hiver de l’Assocation canadienne Droit et Société se tiendra à la Faculté de droit de l’Université du Manitoba les 19 et 20 janvier 2019. L’appel à communications est ici. La date limite de soumission est le 27 novembre 2018.

York University Job Posting in Law & Society: Socio-legal Studies, Indigeneity, and Indigenous Peoples

Position Information

Position Rank: Full Time Tenure Stream - Assistant/Associate/Full Professor
Discipline/Field: Law & Society: Socio-legal Studies, Indigeneity, and Indigenous Peoples
Home Faculty: Liberal Arts & Professional Studies
Home Department/Area/Division: Social Science
Affiliation/Union: YUFA
Position Start Date: July 1, 2019
Department of Social Science
The Law and Society Program in the Department of Social Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts &
Professional Studies invites applications for a professorial stream tenure-track appointment at
the rank of Assistant/Associate/Full Professor in the area of Socio-Legal Studies, Indigeneity,
and Indigenous Peoples to commence July 1, 2019. Information about the Law and Society
Program can be found here: http://laso.sosc.laps.yorku.ca/. Information about the affiliated
Graduate Program in Socio-Legal Studies can be found here: http://slst.gradstudies.yorku.ca .
Required qualifications include a completed PhD (or near completion) with specialization in
Socio-Legal Studies, Law, Indigenous Studies or a relevant related field. This position is open to
candidates from all areas of expertise, with preference for expertise in Indigenous Peoples and
law (Canadian focus); law, social justice and Indigenous knowledge; arts, culture and social
change, and/or socio-legal history. Candidates must demonstrate excellence or promise of
excellence in scholarly research, teaching and service as well as demonstrate a willingness to
take a leadership role in program/curricular innovation. Candidates are expected to have
produced publications relevant to the field of Law and Society appropriate to their stage of
career. The position will involve undergraduate teaching as well as graduate teaching and
supervision. Pedagogical innovation in high priority areas such as experiential education and
technology enhanced learning is preferred. Candidates must demonstrate engagement with
Indigenous communities in their research and teaching with knowledge of indigenous
methodologies and pedagogies. The successful candidate will be expected to teach
interdisciplinary courses in their own areas of expertise as well as core courses in the Law and
Society Program. The successful candidate must be eligible for prompt appointment to the
Faculty of Graduate Studies.
York University acknowledges its presence on the traditional territory of many Indigenous
Nations. The area known as Tkaronto has been care taken by the Anishinabek Nation, the
Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron-Wendat, and the Métis. It is now home to many
Indigenous Peoples. We acknowledge the current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the New
Credit First Nation. This territory is subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt
Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the Great Lakes region. York

University supports Indigenous research and education through its Indigenous Framework for
York University, the Centre for Aboriginal Student Services, the York Aboriginal Council, and
Skennen'kó:wa Gamig, or the House of Great Peace, a space for Indigenous faculty, staff, and
students. York is committed to fostering understanding of, respect for and connections with
Indigenous communities; and the University is working to support the recruitment and success
of Indigenous undergraduate and graduate students, the integration of Indigenous cultures,
approaches and perspectives into curricular offerings and research, collaboration with
indigenous communities, and recruitment and retention of Indigenous faculty and staff.
This selection will be limited to Aboriginal (Indigenous) peoples. York University values diversity
and encourages candidates from Aboriginal (Indigenous) communities to self-identify as a
member of one or more of the four designated groups: Aboriginal (Indigenous) Peoples,
women, visible minorities (members of racialized groups) and persons with disabilities.
Qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens, Permanent

Residents and Indigenous peoples in Canada will be given priority. Applicants wishing to self-
identify can do so by downloading, completing and submitting the forms found at:

http://acadjobs.info.yorku.ca/ . Please select the "Affirmative Action" tab under which forms
pertaining to Citizenship and Affirmative Action can be found.

Applicants should submit a signed letter of application outlining their professional experience
and research interests, an up-to-date curriculum vitae, a sample of their scholarly work, a
teaching dossier, and arrange for three signed confidential letters of recommendation to be
sent to: Professor Amanda Glasbeek, Chair, Department of Social Science, S754 Ross Building,
York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M3J 1P3. Email: soscjobs@yorku.ca
(subject line "LASO appt").

The deadline for receipt of completed applications has been extended to January 12, 2019.
Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. All York University positions
are subject to budgetary approval.
Posting End Date: January 12, 2019

4th Evening of Legal History, Nov. 19: Heidi Bohaker speaking on Canada by Treaty: Indigenous Legal Traditions and the Common Law of Property in the Agreements that Shaped a Country

Join us for our fourth evening session of Legal History for Legal Professionals.  On November 19th Professor Heidi Bohaker will present the fourth lecture in our lecture series (5:30 at Osgoode Hall, Toronto) Canada by Treaty: Indigenous Legal Traditions and the Common Law of Property in the Agreements that Shaped a Country A central fact of the Canadian historical experience is that the French and subsequently British colonization of Indigenous lands was effectively peaceful, and accomplished through treaties, at least for the 50% of the Canadian land mass covered by those agreements prior to 1923. While the colony of New France was conquered militarily and ceded to Great Britain by the 1763 Treaty of Paris, there was no military conquest of France’s Indigenous allies, not then, and not really at any subsequent point. Indeed, The Royal Proclamation of 1763, which was the first British constitution for the former French colony of Quebec, recognized Indigenous title to and jurisdiction over their own lands, and laid out the rules by which subsequent generations of British settlers would acquire it.  The Proclamation forbade any private person from acquiring title to any land, limiting such purchases from the “several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom We are connected” only to the Crown, and only at “some public Meeting or Assembly” that was convened by “the Governor or Commander in Chief.” In other words, such purchases of land were to be undertaken at the level of government to government, or nation-to-nation. And many such purchases were made beginning in 1768 – each purchase called a treaty. While the text of the documents are standard British title deeds, the associated council minutes reveal different legal traditions at work – the creation and renewal of alliance relationships according to Haudeonsaunee and Anishinaabeg customary law. Examination of treaties negotiated between 1768 and 1862 for lands in North America’s eastern Great Lakes Region (including what is now Ontario) reveals the enduring presence of Indigenous legal traditions in such “purchase” agreements, where one party sought to acquire title, and the other to affirm or renew an alliance relationship. This essential historic and cross-cultural context is crucial to making sense of contemporary treaty litigation and ongoing challenges in Indigenous-Crown relationships across Canada today. * approval pending for 40 minutes EDI Professionalism Credit from the Law Society for Ontario.

This lecture is for Osgoode Society members only Join or rejoin the at osgoodesociety.ca/membership YOU CAN ALSO REGISTER BY PHONE AT 416-947-3321 OR E-MAIL

Please renew your membership for 2018 if you haven't already done so, or join now for the first time. Membership brings many benefits:  2018 members book, which will be A History of Law in Canada Volume I: 1500 to 1866 by Philip Girard, Jim Phillips, and Blake Brown Lectures and Events Quarterly newsletter with information on the Osgoode Society and Canadian legal history.

Osgoode Society one of 20 recipients of LFO Catalyst grants!

Thank you so much to the Law Foundation of Ontario for awarding a three-year Catalyst grant to the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History! The core funding we receive will go to support our work recording oral histories, and scholarly research and publishing by graduate students, historians, lawyers, judges, and other scholars interested in the legal past(s) of our country.

It is an honour to be selected, and particularly so in the company of such admirable and inspiring organizations.

The Law Foundation has helped fund our work for a number of years, and we are delighted that they continue to recognize the Osgoode Society's contribution to the critical understanding of law as a profound force in our society, one which is complicated, always changing and contested, and which should never be assumed or taken for granted. We are grateful that the Foundation appreciates the importance of history in fostering a commitment to access to justice. Thank you again, LFO!

Cavanagh, "The Imperial Constitution of the Law Officers of the Crown: Legal Thought on War and Colonial Government, 1719–1774"

Edward Cavanagh has published  "The Imperial Constitution of the Law Officers of the Crown: Legal Thought on War and Colonial Government, 1719–1774" in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History;

Abstract:
The rule of conquest came to receive different applications for different parts of the British Empire. How this happened, and who was responsible for it happening, are the interests of this article. Calling upon court reports, parliamentary records, and correspondence between various officeholders in the early Hanoverian government, attention will be drawn in particular to the attorney general and the solicitor general (the law officers of the crown) and the advice they offered upon the governance of colonies between 1719 and 1774. Focusing upon the conventions that pertain to war and conquest in Ireland, the Caribbean, India, and North America, this article reveals inconsistency in doctrine, but consistency in the procedures by which law officers of the crown acquired influence over proceedings in the houses of parliament and in the courts of common law and equity. Just as often in their formal capacities as in their informal capacities, the attorney general and the solicitor general were pivotal to the development of the imperial constitution, in constant response, as they were, to the peculiar demands of various colonies and plantations in the British Empire.

CFP: Second Postgraduate Conference in Comparative Legal History, 27–29 June 2019, Augsburg University, Germany

Second Postgraduate Conference in Comparative Legal History 27–29 June 2019, Augsburg University, Germany 

Call for Papers

The European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH) is pleased to announce its Second Postgraduate Conference. The ESCLH invites PhD-students (beyond their first year) and post-doctoral-researchers who work in the field of comparative legal history to participate in the conference. The conference will be held from 27 to 29 June 2019 at Augsburg University, Germany.

The ESCHL wants to overcome the narrow nationalism and geographical segregation of legal history in contemporary European scholarship and professional organisations. The society, thus, aims to promote comparative legal history, the explicit comparison of legal ideas and institutions in two or more legal traditions.

The Second Postgraduate Conference of the ESCLH will give advanced PhD-students and post-doc- toral-researchers the opportunity to present their research in the field of comparative legal history to a panel of six leading experts. Furthermore, the conference will give all participants the opportunity to build academic networks. The experts on the panel cover a broad range of subjects: Ulrike Babusiaux (Zürich), Mia Korpiola (Turku), Annamaria Monti (Milano), Wim Decock (Leuven), Matthew Dyson (Oxford), and Aniceto Masferrer (Valencia).

The ESCLH invites advanced doctoral candidates and post-doctoral researchers to submit abstracts for presentation. The abstract should be of no more than 300 words and give the title of your research project, your field of research, and your personal data (full name, email address, affiliated university, CV) to:

phillip.hellwege@jura.uni-augsburg.de

The conference language is English and abstracts must be submitted in English. The closing date for receipt of abstracts is 15 January 2019. 12 applicants will be selected and invited to participate in the conference. Successful applicants will be informed by 15 February 2019.

Participants are expected to cover their own travel expenses. Accommodation and catering will be provided without charge.

Barrington Walker on Jim Crow in Canada: a few places available!

Amanda Campbell of the Osgoode Society advises me that although this evening's legal history session is well subscribed, we can squeeze a few more chairs in. Email or call her (416) 947-3321
amanda@osgoodesociety.ca.

Here's the notice:

Please note the lecture will take place at 5:30 at Osgoode Hall in the Museum Room. Refreshments will be available. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you. LEGAL HISTORY LECTURE Re-Visiting Jim Crow in Canada: Reflections on the Law and the Black Experience * On October 29, 2018, Professor Barrington Walker of the History Department at Queen's University will speak about the Black experience with law in Canadian history, and what it means for the present and the future. Although Canadian law did not engage in the kind of formalised legal discrimination as the American south, Professor Walker will discuss how Canadian law did little to turn formal legal equality into substantive equality, and allowed opportunities for unequal treatment. For example, from 1858 through the 1960s, Ontario law permitted school boards to create separate schools if local residents asked for them. Professor Walker will discuss this and other issues historically, reflecting also on their continuing legacy. Join us at 5:30 p.m. in the Museum Room at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West. * approval pending for 40 minutes EDI Professionalism Credit from the Law Society for Ontario.

Stokes dissertation, "Law, Autonomy, and Local Government: A Legal History of Municipal Corporations in Canada West/Ontario, 1850-1880"

Mary Stokes successfully defended her PHD dissertation, "Law, Autonomy, and Local Government: A Legal History of Municipal Corporations in Canada West/Ontario, 1850-1880" October 15, 2018 at Osgoode Hall Law School. Thanks to supervisor Eric Tucker, supervisory committee members Paul Craven and Doug Hay, defense chair Bruce Ryder, external examiner Jeff McNairn of Queen's University, and internal external Jennifer Stephen of York University Department of History.

Jim Crow in Canadian legal history?

Evening of Canadian Legal History

Oct 29, 2018 - 5:30pm at Museum Room at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West

On October 29th Professor  Barrington Walker will present the third lecture in our lecture series.

Professor Walker will review the Black experience with the law in Canadian history, and what it means for the present and the future. In particular, he will examine whether Canada has a “Jim Crow” legal history. Although Canadian law did not engage in the kind of formalised legal discrimination like the American south, Professor Walker will discuss how Canadian law did little to turn formal legal equality into substantive equality and allowed opportunities for unequal treatment. For example, Ontario law permitted school boards to create separate schools if local residents asked for it until from 1858 until the 1960s. Similarly, while Canada may not have had segregated housing districts, private law achieved this through restrictive covenants while socio-economic inequality and informal actions effectively designated some areas of urban communities as “for the blacks.” Professor Walker will discuss these issues historically and also reflect on their continuing legacy.

Professor Walker is well positioned to discuss these issues because of his past scholarship. He is the author of Race on Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario’s Criminal Courts, 1858-1958 (U of T Press and Osgoode Society, 2010) and the editor of The African-Canadian Legal Odyssey: Historical Essays (U of T Press and Osgoode Society 2012).

* approval pending for 40 minutes EDI Professionalism Credit from the Law Society for Ontario.

Join us at 5:30 p.m. in the Museum Room at Osgoode Hall, 130 Queen Street West.

This event is free provided you are an Osgoode Society Member – please register below.

If you have any questions or require any further information please contact Amanda Campbell at 416-947-3321 or at amanda.campbell@osgoodesociety.ca.

Are you a 2018 Osgoode Society Member?    No    Yes

Are you a fan of Canadian Legal History?

We have a lot of fans. Our main twitter account has passed the 1000 mark--not a lot relative to those of celebrities, journalists and politicians, but quality is more important than quality!

Many of you are members (or lapsed members) of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. We would like to invite those who aren't, or whose membership has lapsed to join (or re-join.) The membership categories are available on our website, and are all quite reasonable. For the cost of your membership you get a copy of this year's members book--more about this below. You will receive an  invitation to our book launch (always a great party at Osgoode Hall, where you can rub shoulders with some of the luminaries of the profession and judiciary, as well as leaders of the future) and the right to attend our legal history evenings, also held at Osgoode Hall, only available to members. You will also have the ability to purchase from our past catalog at a 25% discount (pending website update to allow differential pricing.) And the knowledge that you are supporting fascinating research in the field, including our always expanding oral history database.

This year is a great one for the Osgoode Society, as it marks the publication of volume one of A History of Law in Canada, by Philip Girard, Jim Phillips and R. Blake Brown, three of the most distinguished and talented legal historians working in Canada today.  We are so proud of this project,  the culmination of forty years of remarkable scholarship, much of it published by the society.

Honestly, it's a great read, good for dipping into or reading straight through. It should be a staple of the library of all lawyers and those interested in our legal past.

Visit our website and become a member today!

Call for papers on prisons, prisoners and prison records in historical perspective

(via Don Fyson)

A WORKSHOP TO EXAMINE PRISONS, PRISONERS AND PRISON RECORDS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

April 23‐24 2019 University of Guelph, Canada

The rise of the prison as an institution of mass incarceration for offenders has for long fascinated researchers. In part, this is due to the unusually detailed nature of most prison records. The wide availability of somewhat similar sources across diverse European and European‐derived societies provides criminologists, social and economic historians, demographers and other social scientists with rich collections of personal information that have been analysed intensively since the 1970s. The increasing power of software and hardware and the accumulation of very large quantities of prison data, some of it linked to other sources, offers challenges and opportunities for researchers today. The workshop responds to the challenge of harnessing criminal justice records by bringing together scholars in different disciplines and countries to share information about their sources, methodologies of classification and analysis, and to reconceptualize research paradigms.

This workshop welcomes researchers with an interest in one or more of several broad discussions.

1. What research is now ongoing in Canada and elsewhere to examine prison and prison‐like institutions and their populations, and how does it fit into the rich history of research since the 1970s? Literature reviews and case studies that draw from ongoing research programmes are welcome. 2. What difficulties are encountered as we try to understand the life experience of the incarcerated using records generated by an institution without permission from the incarcerated and often without their knowledge? 3. What conceptual and methodological challenges are encountered in constructing and using databases that result from a digitization process and that describe an entire population of prisoners? How do we ensure that digitized resources created today will survive and be useful for future generations? 4. Can we organize information about institutions in a way that will facilitate comparative analysis of

prosecution, conviction and incarceration practices and experiences across jurisdictions? 5. What does social science analysis of historical criminal justice records, criminology in the past, offer

to scholars and policy‐makers responding to current and future challenges?

Researchers who might like to offer a paper or simply join the discussion are encouraged to express their interest. Graduate students are especially welcome. The organizing committee consists of Catrien Bijleveld (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement), François Fenchel (Université Laval), Donald Fyson (Université Laval), Barry Godfrey (University of Liverpool), Kris Inwood (University of Guelph) and Hamish Maxwell‐Stewart (U of Tasmania).

Please direct a 250 word abstract and a brief cv by September 30 to Kris Inwood kinwood@uoguelph.ca.

ATELIER DE RECHERCHE: PERSPECTIVES HISTORIQUES SUR LES PRISONS, LES PERSONNES INCARCÉRÉES ET LES ARCHIVES DES PRISONS

23‐24 avril, 2019 Université de Guelph, Canada

La constitution de la prison comme institution d'incarcération de masse a longtemps attiré l'intérêt des chercheurs. La nature exceptionnellement détaillée de la plupart des archives carcérales explique en partie cet attrait. Des sources similaires sont aisément disponibles dans les sociétés européennes et leurs colonies, ce qui permet de rassembler une grande quantité d'informations personnelles sur les individus incarcérés. L'analyse détaillée de ces données, débute dès les années 1970; elle est le fait autant des criminologues que des spécialistes de l'histoire sociale et économique, des démographes et d'autres chercheurs en sciences sociales. La puissance croissante des logiciels et du matériel informatique ainsi que l’accumulation de très grandes quantités de données sur les prisons, dont une partie est jumelée à d’autres sources, offrent aux chercheurs de larges perspectives, mais constituent aussi un défi. Cet atelier sera l'occasion d'approfondir ces questions portant sur l'exploitation des archives de la justice pénale. Il permettra de réunir des chercheurs de différentes disciplines et différents pays pour confronter leurs sources et leurs méthodes (classement, analyse, etc.) et pour réévaluer les paradigmes de la recherche.

L'atelier est ouvert aux chercheurs qui sont intéressés par une ou plusieurs des questions suivantes:

1. Quels projets de recherche sont en cours, au Canada et ailleurs, sur l'histoire des établissements carcéraux et de la population carcérale? Comment ces projets se situent‐ils dans à la recherche sur l'histoire des prisons menée depuis les années 1970 ? Les synthèses historiographiques et les études de cas tirées de projets de recherche en cours sont les bienvenues. 2. Quelles sont les difficultés rencontrées dans l'analyse des expériences de vie des personnes incarcérées, laquelle est fondée sur des documents institutionnels, et est réalisée sans la permission des détenu‐e‐s et souvent à leur insu ? 3. Quels défis conceptuels et méthodologiques posent la construction et l'utilisation de bases de données à partir d'archives numérisées, qui décrivent une population entière de prisonniers‐ères ? Comment s'assurer de la pérennité des ressources numériques créées aujourd'hui et garantir leur accès aux générations futures? 4. Comment organiser l'information sur les institutions de manière à faciliter l'analyse comparée des pratiques et des expériences en matière de poursuite, de condamnation et d'incarcération, dans différents types de juridictions ? 5. Qu'apporte l'analyse par les méthodes des sciences sociales des archives de la justice pénale ‐‐ c'est à dire, la criminologie historique ‐‐ aux chercheurs et aux décideurs politiques, par rapport aux défis actuels et futurs ?

Les chercheurs qui souhaitent proposer un communication, ou qui désirent simplement participer aux discussions, sont invités à manifester leur intérêt. Les étudiant‐e‐s gradué‐e‐s sont particulièrement les bienvenu‐e‐s. Le comité scientifique et organisateur est composé de : Catrien Bijleveld (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement), François Fenchel (Université Laval), Donald Fyson (Université Laval), Barry Godfrey (University of Liverpool), Kris Inwood (Université de Guelph) et Hamish Maxwell‐ Stewart (University of Tasmania).

Veuillez envoyer un résumé de 250 mots et un court CV, avant le 30 septembre, à: Kris Inwood kinwood@uoguelph.ca.