Events from 2015 to 2016

November 2, 2016 - McGill University, Faculty of Law 

The LLDRL and the Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law hosted a lecture by Dr. Janelle Diller, Paul Martin Sr. Professor of International Affairs and Law at the University of Windsor, on workers' rights and corporate social responsibility. At the time of this lecture, Dr. Janelle Diller was on leave from her post as Senior Counsellor to the Deputy Director-General for Policy of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Ms. Diller's career has been extremely prolific: ​Janelle Diller is the former Legal Advisor of the ILO and legal director of the NGO International Human Rights Law Group, based out of Washington, D.C. She has regularly advised governments, regional organizations, and UN bodies on international human rights and labour law. Ms. Diller worked with the ILO to develop the multi-stakeholder arrangement for compensation for several thousand victims of the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh, contributed to the international law analysis leading to development of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and authored the complaint on forced labour in Myanmar that led to a commission of inquiry and ILO sanctions. She has represented human rights victims before UN regional bodies and tribunals and acted as amici curiae on human rights law issues before the US Supreme Court and Federal courts. 

October 26, 2016 - McGill University, Faculty of Law 

This lecture by O'Brien Fellow in Residence Mr. Faisal Siddiqi, organized jointly by the LLDRL and the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, provided students, practitioners, and scholars with an unparalleled opportunity to learn more about the legal ramifications of the Baldia Factory Fire in Pakistan - which took the life of 255 workers - from the very man who advocated on behalf of victims. As counsel for the Baldia Factory victims, and more generally as a practicing lawyer of the High Courts and Supreme Court of Pakistan specialized in pro-bono human rights litigation, the former Advisor/Consultant to the Attorney General for Pakistan, and Board Member of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in Karachi, Mr. Siddiqi shared his unique expertise with audience members. Tracing the national and international struggles and litigation that followed the tragedy, Mr. Siddiqi asked and answered: "What has been learned? What progress has been made?" His respondents were Dr. Zobaida Khan and Me Danny Kaufer, Ad. E.

October 24, 2016 - McGill University, Faculty of Law

As part of the Slavery and the Law Seminar, historian Carolyn Fick, Associate Professor in the Department of History at Concordia University, was invited to participate in an Author-Meets-Readers session to discuss her book The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below (University of Tennessee Press, 1990). The session provided students an opportunity to engage with the history of slave resistance in Haiti and its many social, cultural, and personal forms, and to learn about the Haitian slaves that paved the way to their own freedom and the independence of their nation. 

This lecture was part of the 2015 Author-Meets-Readers seminar series in the Slavery and the Law Seminar. To learn more about this seminar series, visit our "Courses" page.

September 19, 2016 - McGill University, Faculty of Law 

As part of the Slavery and the Law Seminar, scholar, historian, poet and James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies at the University of Dalhousie, Professor Afua Cooper was invited to partake in an Author-Meets-Readers session to discuss her book The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal (University of Georgia Press, 2007). Professor Cooper's book tells the astonishing story of Marie-Joseph Angélique, a slave woman convicted of starting a fire that destroyed a large part of Montréal in April 1734 and condemned to die a brutal death. During the session, students began to uncover the role of law and the state in creating and sustaining the legal and socio-economic institution that was slavery in Canada, and learned about the immense courage of a woman who refused to accept her indentured servitude and resisted this institution. 

This lecture was part of the 2015 Author-Meets-Readers seminar series in the Slavery and the Law Seminar. To learn more about this seminar series, visit our "Courses" page. 

April 14, 2016 - McGill University, Faculty of Law

As part of the Critical Race Theory Seminar, Professor Audra Simpson, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, was invited to partake in an Author-Meets-Readers session to discuss her book Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States (Duke University Press, 2014). During this session, Professor Simpson invited students to engage critically with the fields of Native studies and anthropology and to reflect on the difficulties of articulating and maintaining political sovereignty in Indigenous communities considering centuries of settler colonialism, which she herself poignantly does in her book through her example of the Mohawk of Kahnawà:ke, a reserve community in what is now southwestern Quebec.

Professor Simpson’s visit was co-sponsored by the Law Teaching Network and the Annie MacDonald Langstaff Series and was supported by the Margot E. Halpenny Fund. 

This lecture was part of the 2016 Author-Meets-Readers seminar series in the Critical Race Theory Seminar. To learn more about this seminar series, visit our "Courses" page. 

March 18, 2016 - McGill University, Faculty of Law 

During this lecture, Professor Osagie Obasogie, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law and Senior Fellow at the Center for Genetics and Society, discussed his paper "Race as a Risk Factor in Public Health." He presented his findings that race is a risk factor for particular diseases and traced how race is conceptualized in the literature. Professor Natalie Stoljar (IHSP, Philosophy) chaired the session. Professor Obasogie was named one of 12 Emerging Scholars in Academia under 40 by Diverse Issues in Higher Education. His research and writing spans constitutional law, bioethics, sociology of law, and reproductive and genetic technologies. He has written for Slate, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, and New Scientist.

Professor Obasogie’s visit is co-sponsored by the Labour Law and Development Research Laboratory, the Law Teaching Network, the Institute in Comparative Law, and the Institute for Health and Social Policy. 

This lecture took place as part of the Institute for Health and Social Policy Seminar Series. 

March 17, 2016 - McGill University, Faculty of Law

As part of the Critical Race Theory Seminar, Professor Osagie Obasogie, Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law and Senior Fellow at the Center for Genetics and Society, was invited to partake in an Author-Meets-Readers session to discuss his book Blinded by Sight: Seeing Race Through the Eyes of the Blind (Stanford Law Books, 2013). During this exchange, Professor Obasogie engaged students with the question "So what does this mean for how we live and the laws that govern our society?" Obasogie delved into these questions and uncovered how colour blindness in law, public policy, and culture does not lead us to any imagined racial utopia. 

Professor Obasogie’s visit was co-sponsored by the Law Teaching Network, the Institute in Comparative Law, and the Institute for Health and Social Policy.

This lecture was part of the 2016 Author-Meets-Readers seminar series in the Critical Race Theory Seminar. 
To learn more about this seminar series, visit our "Courses" page. 

February 19, 2016 - McGill University, Faculty of Law 

The LLDRL hosted a lecture on economic development and free trade in Sub-Saharan Africa with Dr. Élise Panier, post-doctoral researcher at the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT). During this lecture, Dr. Panier presented her research findings on the creation of export-process zones and the implementation of economic development policies in Ghana, Togo, and Benin. She offered reflections on the controversy and dilemmas over work and regulation in these three West African countries. 

October 21 to 22, 2015 - UQAM 

In October 2015, the Réseau québecois en études féministes (RéQEF) organized an international conference on feminist perspectives on domestic work and exploitation. The conference was organized in partnership with the Labour Law and Development Research Laboratory (LLDRL), Institut de recherches et d’études féministes (IREF), Centre d'études sur le droit international et la mondialisation (CEDIM) and Groupe interuniversitaire, interdisciplinaire de recherche sur l’emploi, la pauvreté et la protection sociale (GIREPS), and received the support of UQAM's Faculty of Political Science and Law, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Law and Department of Sociology.

The conference was led by prominent feminist labour law scholars, invited to share their research on topics such as "Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program," "Combatting Abuse? Domestic Migrant Workers, Unfreedom and Trafficking," "Subordination or Servitude in the Domestic Work Relationship? Understanding Domestic Workplace Law" and "Filipina Domestic Workers Subjected to the Live-in Care Program."

The conference's full bilingual programme is available here.

October 13, 2015 - McGill University, Faculty of Law

As part of the LLDRL Speaker Series, Dr. Einat Albin was invited to present her research on intimate work, domestic work, and service work. Dr. Einat Albin is a Lecturer in Law and the Academic Director of the Clinical Legal Education Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She holds a PhD from Oxford University, where she started working on the regulation of the service economy in her thesis on workers in the hospitality sector. Her research focuses on domestic workers, service work, intimate work, and the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the workplace. Einat has written numerous articles in leading law journals and made important contributions in edited books, including Migrant at Work (OUP, 2014) and The Right to Work (Hart 2015); she has won numerous prestigious awards. 

May 20, 2015 - McGill University, Faculty of Law

As part of the LLDRL Speaker Series, Professor Lorena Poblete was invited to present her research on new regulations for domestic workers put in place in Argentina. Professor Poblete is a researcher at Argentina’s National Research Council (CIS-CONICET/IDES) and Associate Professor at the National University of San Martín (IDAES-UNSAM). Her current project, “Regulatory Innovations: the Influences of the ILO Domestic-Workers Convention in Latin America,” involves the analysis of the mechanisms of labor standards diffusion and the local translations of the ILO's recommendations. Poblete’s research focuses on labor regulations, social protections, and social stratification. 

April 17, 2015 - McGill University, Burnside Building

As part of the Slavery Old and New: Labour Exploitation Through the Ages and Around the Globe Seminar Series, Ryszard Cholewinski was invited to present the ILO's perspective on the rights of migrant workers. Ryszard Cholewinski works at the Labour Migration branch of the Conditions of Work and Equality Department at the International Labour Organization in Geneva.

This event was made possible thanks to the generous support and contributions of the LLDRL, the Hans and Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law, the Harriet Tubman Institute and the Institute of Comparative Law. 

April 10, 2015 - McGill University, Faculty of Law 

As part of the Critical Race Theory Seminar, Professor Glen Coulthard, Assistant Professor in the First Nations Studies Program and the Department of Political Science at the University of British Colombia, was invited to partake in an Author-Meets-Readers session to discuss his book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (University of Minnesota Press, 2014). Professor Coulthard's book focuses on indigenous experiences in Canada and is immediately applicable to understanding the false promise of recognition, liberal pluralism, and reconciliation at the heart of colonial relationships between indigenous peoples and nation-states elsewhere. During this Speakers-Meets-Readers, Professor Glen Coulthard shared his remarkably distinctive and provocative look at issues of power and opposition in Canada, as well as the false promise of recognition. 

Professor Coulthard's visit was co-sponsored by the Law Teaching Network, the Aisenstadt Community Justice Initiative, the Pearson Chair in Civil Society, and the LLDRL. It was made possible thanks to the collaboration of the Aboriginal Law Students' Association and the Women of Colour Collective, two student-led organizations at McGill University's Faculty of Law.

This lecture was part of the 2015 Author-Meets-Readers seminar series in the Critical Race Theory Seminar. To learn more about this seminar series, visit our "Courses" page. 

March 10, 2015 - McGill University, Faculty of Law 

As part of the Critical Race Theory Seminar, Professor Tanya Hernandez of the Faculty of Law at Fordham University was invited to partake in a Speaker-Meets-Readers session and discuss her book Racial Subordination in Latin America: The Role of the State, Customary Law, and the New Civil Rights Response (Cambridge University Press, 2013). 

The event was organized in partnership with the Black Law Students' Association of McGill and the Women of Colour Collective, two student-led groups at the Faculty of Law at McGill University. It was made possible thanks to generous contributions from the Law Teaching Network and the LLDRL.

This lecture was part of the 2015 Author-Meets-Readers seminar series in the Critical Race Theory Seminar. To learn more about this seminar series, visit our "Courses" page.