Land grabbing meets international criminal law

The full abstract for this item is available in the body of the item, and will be available when the embargo expires

IA et maintien de l\u27ordre : rapport de synthèse des connaissances sur la gouvernance et l\u27utilisation de l\u27intelligence artificielle par la police au Canada

Les services de police de partout au Canada utilisent, ou explorent, un large éventail de technologies d\u27intelligence artificielle (IA), y compris la reconnaissance faciale, le maintien de l\u27ordre prédictif basé sur la localisation, les lecteurs de plaques d\u27immatriculation automatisés, les rapports de police assistés par IA, la reconnaissance d\u27objets et l\u27analyse vidéo, la surveillance des médias sociaux, la détection de coups de feu, le génotypage probabiliste et l\u27exploration de données. Bien que promettant des avantages en matière de productivité et de sécurité publique, ces outils soulèvent également diverses préoccupations et risques. Le Canada manque actuellement de mesures législatives et de réglementations spécifiques à l\u27IA régissant ces nouvelles technologies, n\u27ayant pas même une déclaration de principes sur la gouvernance et l\u27utilisation de l\u27IA par la police

Race and Racism in Canada’s Immigration Detention System

Race and Racism in Canada\u27s Immigration Detention System is the first comprehensive, independent study to examine race and racism in Canada\u27s immigration detention system. Grounded in rigorous legal analysis and qualitative research, the study draws on interviews with 50 participants, including people with lived experience of immigration detention, as well as lawyers, paralegals, and service providers who work in immigration detention. The research was guided by an advisory board of people with lived-experience in immigration detention and co-led by a collaborative research team

Call Off the Dogs: Rethinking Sniffer Dog Searches in Canadian Criminal Law

The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly held that police sniffer dog searches are Charter-compliant based on a low standard of reasonable suspicion because they are minimally intrusive, narrowly targeted, and can be highly accurate. Since the Court last considered their constitutionality, however, extensive empirical research has fundamentally challenged assumptions about the reliability and accuracy of police sniffer dogs, as well as the harm to individuals subjected to these searches. Moreover, the phenomenon of handler cueing can operate to transmit a police officer’s unconscious biases—even those they would consciously reject—to their dogs, further reducing accuracy and leading to false alerts and unnecessary arrests. Because this evidence has fundamentally shifted the parameters of the debate, the underlying rationale for the use of the reasonable suspicion standard no longer holds. The reasonable and probable grounds standard, which has generally been applied to search and seizure powers, should therefore apply to sniffer dog searches to ensure that power is used in accordance with Section 8 of the Charter. If that standard creates a “legislative gap” that makes sniffer dogs a less useful investigative tool, that is a matter that should be left to Parliament, which is best positioned to create a proper statutory framework regulating the training, testing, and use of police sniffer dogs

AI & Policing: Knowledge Synthesis Report on the Governance & Use of Artificial Intelligence by Police in Canada

Police services across Canada are using, or exploring, a broad range of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including facial recognition, location-based predictive policing, automated licence plate readers, AI-assisted police reports, object recognition and video analytics, social media monitoring, gunshot detection, probabilistic genotyping, and data mining. While promising productivity and public safety benefits, these tools also raise various concerns and risks. Canada currently lacks AI-specific legislation and regulations governing these new technologies, or even a statement of principles on the governance and use of AI by police

Trust in Regulation in a Time of Revolution

In a moment when big-P Politics feel practically catastrophic, the suggestion that we should be focusing on regulation could seem foolish, or worse: it could seem like some kind of self-serving effort to pretend our work rearranging deck chairs continues to matter. Regulation can feel like the opposite of resistance, and resistance is on many peoples’ minds these days, particularly in the United States. And, the goal of this paper is to argue that failing to focus on regulation – and especially on trust in regulation, in this time of revolution – would be a terrible mistake. Regulation is at the leading edge of politics in a way we sometimes fail to recognize. Regulation is where the “rubber” of policy and aspiration meets the “road” of implementation and subject-facing engagement. Regulation is the face of government for most people in their daily lives. This article examines trust in regulation as a core value and precondition of the modern liberal democratic regulatory state. It develops a concept of justified trust in regulation, grounded in regulatory trustworthiness—honesty, competence, and reliability—rather than in proxies such as partisan loyalty, blind faith, obedience, or resignation. The article situates this conception of regulatory trustworthiness within liberal democratic rule‑of‑law commitments to equal respect, fairness, and accountability, and shows how it underpinned late‑twentieth‑century imaginings of the “regulatory state.” It then contrasts this model with an emerging illiberal vision, exemplified by the current American President’s emphasis on personal loyalty, in‑group allegiance, and zero‑sum politics – all of which actively repudiate the conditions for justified trust. Using regulatory theory and examples from contemporary US governance, the article argues that mutual justified trust between regulators and regulated actors is an indispensable “capital good” for effective, flexible, and fair regulatory regimes. It concludes that rebuilding a functional regulatory state after an illiberal turn requires explicitly naming, protecting, and measuring regulatory trustworthiness as a central liberal value, alongside the rule of law, democratic accountability, and a basic commitment to equality

Food fight – evaluating the responses to the conflicting positions of the European Union and United States in trade agreements regulating geographical indications

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Giving Meaningful Effect to Victims’ Rights: The Canadian Victims Bill of Rights as Quasi-Constitutional Legislation

This research paper is the first detailed examination of the quasi-constitutional status of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights ( CVBR ) and the implications for its interpretation and application. It aims to provide a doctrinal account of this extraordinary legal recognition and to serve as a resource for scholars, judges, lawyers, and other justice system participants to ensure that the CVBR is interpreted and applied consistently with its aim of serving as a catalyst for transformative change to how the criminal justice system has historically treated victims