Class Actions as Alternative Dispute Resolution

This article situates the action in ADR theory by viewing it as a hybrid process that draws on both the command and consensus portions of a rational dispute resolution continuum. Class action legislation does this in a number of ways, the most important being the scope it gives to courts to approve or disapprove class settlements that have been privately negotiated by defence and class counsel. The rationale is to protect the interests of absent class members and ensure that the legislative goals of class actions-access to justice, judicial economy and behaviour modification-are well served. Class actions can thereby render moot some of the private/public debate over settlement by taking disputes out of the purely private realm and placing them in the quasi-public realm. However, this places courts in an unaccustomed role and calls for the need for more empirical research on settlement quality to help judges evaluate negotiated outcomes. A recently completed study by the Rand Institute for Civil Justice is suggested as a model for fulfilling this research need in Canada. The article\u27s focus is comparative and Canadian, drawing on legislation and case law in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia

Class Actions as Alternative Dispute Resolution

This article situates the action in ADR theory by viewing it as a hybrid process that draws on both the command and consensus portions of a rational dispute resolution continuum. Class action legislation does this in a number of ways, the most important being the scope it gives to courts to approve or disapprove class settlements that have been privately negotiated by defence and class counsel. The rationale is to protect the interests of absent class members and ensure that the legislative goals of class actions-access to justice, judicial economy and behaviour modification-are well served. Class actions can thereby render moot some of the private/public debate over settlement by taking disputes out of the purely private realm and placing them in the quasi-public realm. However, this places courts in an unaccustomed role and calls for the need for more empirical research on settlement quality to help judges evaluate negotiated outcomes. A recently completed study by the Rand Institute for Civil Justice is suggested as a model for fulfilling this research need in Canada. The article\u27s focus is comparative and Canadian, drawing on legislation and case law in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia

‘A Delicate Necessity’: Bruker v. Marcovitz and the Problem of Jewish Divorce

The authors use the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Bruker v. Marcovitz as a lens for examining the problem of Jewish divorce, which pits two religious freedoms against each other: a man’s freedom not to grant a get or Jewish divorce to his wife, and his wife’s freedom to remarry according to the tenets of Judaism. The authors outline the case history starting with the decisions of the Quebec Superior Court and Court of Appeal, explain the questions that the majority and minority asked themselves in the Supreme Court of Canada, and conclude by analyzing that Court’s decision and its implications for Jewish spouses and spouses of other religious minorities going through the divorce process. First, though, the authors explain the nature of a get, the consequences of not obtaining one, and the responses of both Jewish and secular law, all crucial to understanding how Bruker v. Marcovitz was decided and how comparable cases should be decided in a multicultural society like Canada

Incorporating a Creative Component in First-Year Law

For some students, law school leads to a perception of legal education as favouring technical proficiency and structural similarity over innovation and creativity, leading to disengagement in learning. To address this, we offered a creative option in two first-year law courses, worth 20% of the grade. Students who chose this option created a diversity of artistic works, including short stories, visual arts, literary criticism, culinary art, music and lyric composition, film, a blog, a video game, and a board game. Some of these works were of startling originality; all engaged in law in unconventional ways. We assessed the work using a rubric with descriptors relating both to artistic merit and legal knowledge or law studies. Later, we surveyed all 30 students who had submitted a creative project. The survey instrument used both open-ended questions and a set of statements that students rated on a 1-5 Likert scale. When asked to rank whether the project positively contributed to their law school experience, the response was overwhelmingly in agreement. The students said that completing a creative project developed their understanding of property or tort law, the two subjects in which the option was offered; that it helped them to develop practical legal skills; and that, for some, it contributed to a sense of belonging and community, thereby assisting with overcoming some of the alienation associated with law school. Based on our experience, we enthusiastically encourage other law schools to try offering a creative option to their students, particularly in first year. Pour certains étudiants, les facultés de droit conduisent à une perception des études légales qui favorise la compétence technique et la similarité structurelle plutôt que l’innovation et la créativité, ce qui a pour résultat un désengagement envers l’apprentissage. Pour répondre à ce problème, nous avons proposé une option de créativité dans deux cours de droit de première année qui comptait pour 20 % de la note finale. Les étudiants qui ont choisi cette option ont créé une diversité de travaux artistiques dans plusieurs domaines : récit, arts visuels, critique littéraire, art culinaire, musique, composition lyrique, film, blogue, jeu vidéo et jeu de société. Certains de ces travaux étaient saisissants d’originalité; tous présentaient des rapports avec le droit de manières inhabituelles. Nous avons évalué les travaux en fonction d’un module d’évaluation comportant un système de descripteurs qui se rapportaient à la fois au mérite artistique et à la connaissance légale ou aux études de droit. Plus tard, nous avons fait un sondage auprès des 30 étudiants qui avaient remis un projet de créativité. L’instrument du sondage comportait des questions ouvertes ainsi qu’un ensemble de déclarations auxquelles les étudiants devaient répondre sur une échelle Likert de 1 à 5. Nous avons demandé aux étudiants si le projet avait contribué de façon positive à leur expérience à la faculté de droit; les réponses ont été massivement en faveur d’un tel projet. Les étudiants ont déclaré que le fait d’avoir complété un projet de créativité avait développé leur compréhension de la législation sur la propriété ou sur le droit de la responsabilité civile, les deux sujets pour lesquels l’option avait été offerte; que le projet les avait aidés à développer des compétences légales pratiques; et que, pour certains, il avait contribué à l’acquisition d’un sens d’appartenance et de communauté en les aidant à surmonter certaines des aliénations associées aux études de droit. Sur la base de notre expérience, nous encourageons avec enthousiasme d’autres facultés de droit à offrir une option de créativité à leurs étudiants, en particulier au cours de la première année d’études

Incorporating a Creative Component in First-Year Law

For some students, law school leads to a perception of legal education as favouring technical proficiency and structural similarity over innovation and creativity, leading to disengagement in learning. To address this, we offered a creative option in two first-year law courses, worth 20% of the grade. Students who chose this option created a diversity of artistic works, including short stories, visual arts, literary criticism, culinary art, music and lyric composition, film, a blog, a video game, and a board game. Some of these works were of startling originality; all engaged in law in unconventional ways. We assessed the work using a rubric with descriptors relating both to artistic merit and legal knowledge or law studies. Later, we surveyed all 30 students who had submitted a creative project. The survey instrument used both open-ended questions and a set of statements that students rated on a 1-5 Likert scale. When asked to rank whether the project positively contributed to their law school experience, the response was overwhelmingly in agreement. The students said that completing a creative project developed their understanding of property or tort law, the two subjects in which the option was offered; that it helped them to develop practical legal skills; and that, for some, it contributed to a sense of belonging and community, thereby assisting with overcoming some of the alienation associated with law school. Based on our experience, we enthusiastically encourage other law schools to try offering a creative option to their students, particularly in first year. Pour certains étudiants, les facultés de droit conduisent à une perception des études légales qui favorise la compétence technique et la similarité structurelle plutôt que l’innovation et la créativité, ce qui a pour résultat un désengagement envers l’apprentissage. Pour répondre à ce problème, nous avons proposé une option de créativité dans deux cours de droit de première année qui comptait pour 20 % de la note finale. Les étudiants qui ont choisi cette option ont créé une diversité de travaux artistiques dans plusieurs domaines : récit, arts visuels, critique littéraire, art culinaire, musique, composition lyrique, film, blogue, jeu vidéo et jeu de société. Certains de ces travaux étaient saisissants d’originalité; tous présentaient des rapports avec le droit de manières inhabituelles. Nous avons évalué les travaux en fonction d’un module d’évaluation comportant un système de descripteurs qui se rapportaient à la fois au mérite artistique et à la connaissance légale ou aux études de droit. Plus tard, nous avons fait un sondage auprès des 30 étudiants qui avaient remis un projet de créativité. L’instrument du sondage comportait des questions ouvertes ainsi qu’un ensemble de déclarations auxquelles les étudiants devaient répondre sur une échelle Likert de 1 à 5. Nous avons demandé aux étudiants si le projet avait contribué de façon positive à leur expérience à la faculté de droit; les réponses ont été massivement en faveur d’un tel projet. Les étudiants ont déclaré que le fait d’avoir complété un projet de créativité avait développé leur compréhension de la législation sur la propriété ou sur le droit de la responsabilité civile, les deux sujets pour lesquels l’option avait été offerte; que le projet les avait aidés à développer des compétences légales pratiques; et que, pour certains, il avait contribué à l’acquisition d’un sens d’appartenance et de communauté en les aidant à surmonter certaines des aliénations associées aux études de droit. Sur la base de notre expérience, nous encourageons avec enthousiasme d’autres facultés de droit à offrir une option de créativité à leurs étudiants, en particulier au cours de la première année d’études

The Impact of Traffic Emissions on Atmospheric Ozone and OH: Results from QUANTIFY

o estimate the impact of emissions by road, aircraft and ship traffic on ozone and OH of the present-day atmosphere seven different atmospheric chemistry models simulated the atmospheric composition of the year 2003. Based on newly developed global emission inventories for road, maritime and aircraft emission data sets each model performed a series of five simulations: A base scenario using the full set of emissions, three sensitivity studies with each individual sector of transport reduced by 5% and one simulation with all traffic related emissions reduced by 5%. The approach minimizes non-linearities in atmospheric chemical effects and are later scaled to 100%. The global annual mean impact of ship emissions on ozone in the boundary layer leads to an increase of ozone of 1.2%, followed by road (0.87%) and aircraft emissions (0.3%). In the upper troposphere between 200¿300 hPa both road and ship traffic affect ozone by 1.1%, whereas aircraft emissions contribute 0.9%. However, the sensitivity of ozone formation per NOx molecule emitted is highest for aircraft exhausts. The local maximum effect of the summed traffic emissions on the ozone column predicted by the models is 4.0 DU and occurs over the northern subtropical Atlantic. The impact of traffic emissions on total ozone in the Southern Hemisphere is approximately half of the northern hemispheric perturbation. Below 800 hPa both ozone and OH respond most sensitively to ship emissions in the marine boundary layer over the Atlantic, where the effect can exceed 10% (zonal mean) which is 80% of the total traffic induced ozone perturbation. In the Southern Hemisphere ship emissions contribute relatively strongly to the total ozone perturbation by 60%¿80% throughout the year (equivalent to 1¿1.5 ppbv). Road emissions have the strongest impact on ozone in the continental boundary layer and the free troposphere in summer. They also affect the upper troposphere particularly during northern summer associated with strong convection in mid latitudes. Ozone perturbations due to road traffic show the strongest seasonal cycle in the northern troposphere, and can even change sign in the continental boundary layer during winter. The OH concentration in the boundary layer is most strongly affected by ship emissions, which has a significant influence on the lifetime of many trace gases including methane. Methane lifetime changes due to ship emissions amount to 4.1%, followed by road (1.6%) and air traffic (1.0%).JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

Surface tension prevails over solute effect in organic-influenced cloud droplet activation

The spontaneous growth of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) into cloud droplets under supersaturated water vapour conditions is described by classic Kohler theory(1,2). This spontaneous activation of CCN depends on the interplay between the Raoult effect, whereby activation potential increases with decreasing water activity or increasing solute concentration, and the Kelvin effect, whereby activation potential decreases with decreasing droplet size or increases with decreasing surface tension, which is sensitive to surfactants(1). Surface tension lowering caused by organic surfactants, which diminishes the Kelvin effect, is expected to be negated by a concomitant reduction in the Raoult effect, driven by the displacement of surfactant molecules from the droplet bulk to the droplet-vapour interface(3,4). Here we present observational and theoretical evidence illustrating that, in ambient air, surface tension lowering can prevail over the reduction in the Raoult effect, leading to substantial increases in cloud droplet concentrations. We suggest that consideration of liquid-liquid phase separation, leading to complete or partial engulfing of a hygroscopic particle core by a hydrophobic organic-rich phase, can explain the lack of concomitant reduction of the Raoult effect, while maintaining substantial lowering of surface tension, even for partial surface coverage. Apart from the importance of particle size and composition in droplet activation, we show by observation and modelling that incorporation of phase-separation effects into activation thermodynamics can lead to a CCN number concentration that is up to ten times what is predicted by climate models, changing the properties of clouds. An adequate representation of the CCN activation process is essential to the prediction of clouds in climate models, and given the effect of clouds on the Earth's energy balance, improved prediction of aerosol-cloud-climate interactions is likely to result in improved assessments of future climate change