Confronting (In) Security: Forging Legitimate Approaches to Security and Exclusion in Migration Law

Perceived connections between security concerns and migration are a central preoccupation of our time. This dissertation explores how the preoccupation has played out in the Canadian context and asserts that a basic and common infirmity of administrative decision-making in this domain is a lack of justification. The dissertation commences by exploring foundational debates within immigration theory about borders, exclusion, the rule of law and the role of justification in decision-making in liberal democracies, particularly in times of perceived emergency. From there, the dissertation moves on to an exploration of immigration inadmissibility determinations in Canada, with particular attention to the emergence of security concerns as a primary ground of inadmissibility. Central to this exploration is a quantitative analysis of inadmissibility determinations rendered by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, pursuant to s34 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act [IRPA]. The results of the quantitative analysis challenge the perception that migrants within Canada pose an exceptional security threat to the state, as the provisions related directly to Canadian national security and public safety have essentially never been invoked in s34 cases. Rather, the majority of those found inadmissible to Canada on security grounds tend to be asylum-seekers or Convention refugees from countries of the Global South that have undergone periods of domestic political turmoil. This fact raises important questions about the obligations of the Canadian state with respect to the principle of non-refoulement, obligations that can only be met, it is argued, through appropriately deliberative processes. To help explain the results of the quantitative data and to identify ways of enhancing security-related decision making, the dissertation proceeds to a body of scholarship on international law that places the concerns of individuals from the Global South at the centre of its analysis. This approach referred to as the Third World Approaches to International Law movement (TWAIL) emphasizes the importance of history, context and individual experience when confronting legal domains, such as the security-inadmissibility context, that affect people from the Global South. The dissertation then concludes by pairing the TWAIL analysis with an approach to administrative law that posits that legitimacy and justification in administrative decisions are contingent upon good faith exercises of dialogue between decision-makers and those who are affected by their decisions. In combining this approach to administrative law with TWAIL, the dissertation closes by putting forward a number of proposals for reform that would enhance the quality, justification and legitimacy of decisions in the security-inadmissibility context

Confronting (In)Security: Forging Legitimate Approaches to Security and Exclusion in Migration Law

Perceived connections between security concerns and migration are a central preoccupation of our time. This dissertation explores how the preoccupation has played out in the Canadian context and asserts that a basic and common infirmity of administrative decision-making in this domain is a lack of justification. The dissertation commences by exploring foundational debates within immigration theory about borders, exclusion, the rule of law and the role of justification in decision-making in liberal democracies, particularly in times of perceived emergency. From there, the dissertation moves on to an exploration of immigration inadmissibility determinations in Canada, with particular attention to the emergence of security concerns as a primary ground of inadmissibility. Central to this exploration is a quantitative analysis of inadmissibility determinations rendered by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, pursuant to s34 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act [IRPA]. The results of the quantitative analysis challenge the perception that migrants within Canada pose an exceptional security threat to the state, as the provisions related directly to Canadian national security and public safety have essentially never been invoked in s34 cases. Rather, the majority of those found inadmissible to Canada on security grounds tend to be asylum-seekers or Convention refugees from countries of the Global South that have undergone periods of domestic political turmoil. This fact raises important questions about the obligations of the Canadian state with respect to the principle of non-refoulement, obligations that can only be met, it is argued, through appropriately deliberative processes. To help explain the results of the quantitative data and to identify ways of enhancing security-related decision making, the dissertation proceeds to a body of scholarship on international law that places the concerns of individuals from the Global South at the centre of its analysis. This approach referred to as the Third World Approaches to International Law movement (TWAIL) emphasizes the importance of history, context and individual experience when confronting legal domains, such as the security-inadmissibility context, that affect people from the Global South. The dissertation then concludes by pairing the TWAIL analysis with an approach to administrative law that posits that legitimacy and justification in administrative decisions are contingent upon good faith exercises of dialogue between decision-makers and those who are affected by their decisions. In combining this approach to administrative law with TWAIL, the dissertation closes by putting forward a number of proposals for reform that would enhance the quality, justification and legitimacy of decisions in the security-inadmissibility context

Near-optimal protocols in complex nonequilibrium transformations

The development of sophisticated experimental means to control nanoscale systems has motivated efforts to design driving protocols which minimize the energy dissipated to the environment. Computational models are a crucial tool in this practical challenge. We describe a general method for sampling an ensemble of finite-time, nonequilibrium protocols biased towards a low average dissipation. We show that this scheme can be carried out very efficiently in several limiting cases. As an application, we sample the ensemble of low-dissipation protocols that invert the magnetization of a 2D Ising model and explore how the diversity of the protocols varies in response to constraints on the average dissipation. In this example, we find that there is a large set of protocols with average dissipation close to the optimal value, which we argue is a general phenomenon.Comment: 6 pages and 3 figures plus 4 pages and 5 figures of supplemental materia

Unappealing: An Assessment of the Limits on Appeal Rights in Canada\u27s New Refugee Determination System

Canada’s refugee determination system was revised in 2012. One key feature of the new process is a quasi-judicial administrative appeal, on matters of both fact and law, at the Refugee Appeal Division (RAD) of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). Under the new process, however, many claimants are denied access to the RAD. This article assesses these limits on access to the RAD, drawing mostly on quantitative data obtained from the IRB and Citizenship and Immigration Canada through access to information requests. Our aim is to provide evidence-based analysis and recommendations for reform. Essentially, our conclusions are that the bars on access to the RAD are arbitrary and dangerous, and that the system should be reformed to provide access to the RAD for all refugee claimants.The article proceeds in two parts. First, we set out the context for our research, explaining why access to the RAD matters. Specifically, we discuss the history of the RAD, explain how the process works, explore the difference between the appeal and judicial review, and overview the results from the revised system’s first two years of operation. Next, we examine in detail each of the bars on access to the RAD for claimants whose applications were refused at first-instance. The article ends by setting out our conclusions

Developing site-specific guidelines for orchard soils based on bioaccessibility – Can it be done?

Horticultural land within the periurban fringe of NZ towns and cities increasingly is being developed for residential subdivision. Recent surveys have shown that concentrations of As, Cd, Cu, Pb, and ΣDDT (sum of DDT and its degradation products DDE and DDD) in such soils can exceed criteria protective of human health.¹ Soil ingestion is a key exposure pathway for non-volatile contaminants in soil. Currently in NZ, site-specific risk assessments and the derivation of soil guidelines protective of human health assume that all of the contaminant present in the soil is available for uptake and absorption by the human gastrointestinal tract. This assumption can overestimate health risks and has implications for the remediation of contaminated sites.² In comparison, the bioavailability of contaminants is considered when estimating exposure via dermal absorption and by ingestion of home-grown produce.³ Dermal absorption factors and plant uptake factors are included in the calculations for estimating exposures via these routes

ENV-654: NUMERICAL MODELLING OF SMOULDERING COMBUSTION TO OPTIMIZE EX SITU SOIL TREATMENT SYSTEM DESIGN

There is widespread soil contamination at thousands of cites in Canada resulting from the historical improper storage and disposal of industrial liquids (Story et al., 2014). Large financial resources are allocated to remediation efforts due to the human and environmental health risks associated with exposure to such contamination, with over $582 million CAN spent on remediation in 2014-15 by the Canadian government alone (Treasury Board of Canada, 2016). Our scientific understanding of site remediation has evolved greatly over the past decades and it is now widely accepted that remediation of the contaminant source zone is necessary to achieve a high level of long-term remediation (Kueper et al., 2014). Non-aqueous phase liquids, or NAPLS, are one of the most prevalent contaminants at contaminated sites and are challenging to remediate due to their highly recalcitrant nature (Kueper et al., 2003). Although many remediation technologies have been developed over the past decades, the challenge in source zone remediation of NAPLs persists. The application of smouldering combustion to treat NAPL contaminated soils has been proven as an effective technology with both the laboratory experiments and applied in situ at a field site (Switzer et al., 2009, Pironi et al., 2011, Switzer et al, 2014, Salman et al., 2015, Scholes et al., 2015). This technology, titled “Self-sustaining treatment for active remediation”, or STAR, utilizes the high calorific value of NAPLs to ignite and sustain a smouldering oxidation reaction, effectively destroying the contaminant in the process. A phenomenological model developed by MacPhee et al. (2012) uniquely combined a multiphase flow model, perimeter expansion model, and analytical expression for the forward smouldering front velocity. This model is able to predict the propagation of the reaction front in response to the interplay between a heterogeneous distribution of permeability and the time-dependent distribution of air flux. After subsequent calibration by Hasan et al. (2014), the model was shown to correctly predict the ultimate extent and time of remediation during treatment for 2D lab scale experiments

The Evolution of Complex DNAPL Releases: Rates of Migration and Dissolution

A series of local and bench scale laboratory experiments and bench and field scale numerical simulations were conducted to develop a better understanding of the interrelationship between nonwetting phase (NWP) source zones and downgradient aqueous phase concentrations in saturated porous media contaminated by immiscible organic liquids. Specific emphasis was placed on the factors governing the rate of NWP source zone evolution and the factors governing the rate of mass transfer from the NWP to the aqueous phase. Hysteretic NWP relative permeability-saturation (krN-SW) relationships were measured at the local scale for six sands to examine the relationship between krN-SW functions and porous media type. Parameterization of the measured constitutive relationships revealed a strong correlation between mean grain diameter and the maximum value of NWP relative permeability. The measured krN-SW relationships, were validated through a bench scale experiment involving the infiltration, redistribution, and immobilisation of NWP in an initially water saturated heterogeneous porous medium. This match of simulation to experiment represents the first validation of a multiphase flow model for transient, fixed volume NWP releases. Multiphase flow simulations of the bench scale experiment were only able to reproduce the experimental observations, in both time and space, when the measured krN-SW relationships were employed. Two-dimensional field scale simulations of a fixed volume NWP release into a heterogeneous aquifer demonstrate the influence of spatially variable krN-S relationships correlated to porous media type. Both the volume of the NWP invaded porous media, and the length of time during which NWP is migrating, will be under predicted if variable (correlated) kr,N is not accounted for in the numerical model iv formulation. This under prediction is exacerbated as the mean intrinsic permeability of the release location decreases. A new, thermodynamically-based interfacial area (IFA) model was developed for use in the single-boundary layer expression of mass transfer as an alternative to existing empirical correlation expressions. The IFA model considers consistency and continuity of constitutive relationships, energy losses, effective specific interfacial area for mass transfer, and dissolution of residual NWP. A bench scale experiment involving the release and dissolution of a transient NWP source zone in heterogeneous porous media was conducted to evaluate the appropriateness of the developed IFA model when utilised to predict NWP dissolution rates. Comparison of measured downgradient dissolved phase concentrations and source zone NWP saturations in time and space with those from numerical simulations of the experiment reveal that the proposed IFA model is superior to both a local equilibrium assumption and existing empirical correlation expressions. This represents the first mass transfer model validated for the dissolution of a complex NWP source zone. Twodimensional simulations at the field scale of multiphase flow and dissolution suggest that employing existing mass transfer expressions instead of the IFA model lead to incorrect predictions of the life spans of NWP source zones, downgradient dissolved phase concentrations, and the rate of mass flux through a downgradient boundary. The practical implication of this research is that accurate numerical predictions of the evolution of a transient NWP source in porous media require consideration of krN-S relationships and NWP / aqueous phase IFA, as these factors dictate the rates of the key subsurface contaminant processes of migration and dissolution, respectively