Clare Shrybman

Dissertation Title

A Dissolving Dichotomy: Recognizing Positive Rights to Life, Liberty and Security of the Person Under Section 7 of the Charter

Dissertation Topic

Human rights scholarship has continuously critiqued the traditional dichotomy between positive and negative rights, while simultaneously finding courts fail to recognize a positive right or engage socio-economic aspects of the right to life or security of the person. Given the overlap between the two groupings of rights, at what point in the jurisprudence does the claim to right to life or security of the person move from a negative rights infringement to a claim for a positive rights entitlement? This research examines human rights claims which engage the socioeconomic aspects of the right to life and security of the person advanced under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Specifically, this research will consider how courts in Canada have determined what state action or inaction constitutes a deprivation of the rights under the Charter, and whether that determination perpetuates the historic distinction between positive and negative rights. This research will try to pry open the door to more expansive and progressive interpretations of section 7 of the Charter by discussing the potential for socioeconomic protections within the section. Of consideration will be, how, when, and why claims to right to life or security of the person move from a question of whether someone’s negative rights have been infringed to a question of whether someone is entitled to positive rights.

Education

LLM - Osgoode Hall Law School, 2021

JD - University of Ottawa, 2020

BJ - University of King's College, 2014

BA - Concordia University, 2012

Teaching Experience

Teaching Assistant, Law 1300/1301, Legal Process

Professional Experience

Panel Lawyer, Ministry of the Attorney General, June 2022 - Present

Articling Student, Ministry of the Attorney General, Family Responsibility Office, 2021-2022

Researcher in the Office of Senator Marilou McPhedran, Senate of Canada, 2020-2021

Law Student to Senator Marilou McPhedran, Senate of Canada, 2020

Research Assistant to Professor Heather McLeod-Kilmurray, University of Ottawa, 2019-2020

Summer Student, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, 2019

Research Assistant, Special Rapporteur on Housing Leilani Farha, UN Human Rights, 2016

Awards
  • Harley D. Hallet Scholarship, Osgoode Hall Law Schoool, 2022-2023
  • Harley D. Hallet Scholarship, Osgoode Hall Law School, 2020-2021
  • Alison Dewar Scholarship in Women’s Equality, Labour and Human Rights Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, 2019
  • Social Justice Fellow, University of Ottawa, 2019
  • University of Ottawa, Juris Doctor, Cum Laude 2020
  • University of Ottawa, Dean's List, 2020
  • University of King's College, President's List, 2014
Publications
Articles
  • Clare Shrybman, Health insurance, a false dichotomy and a negative right to abortion in Canada’s Maritime provinces (LLM Thesis, York University, 2021) [unpublished].