Law, Society & State: Derivatives Law & Crypto Contracts

Introduction course – Derivatives products have exploded in the last 30 years from being used for important risk hedging in the institutional sector to large speculative trading.  We are now seeing a similar explosion of activity for retail investors particularly in the crypto trading area.
 
This is a two hour weekly seminar that provides a history of the development of derivatives,  and overview and explanation of derivatives and derivatives regulation in Canada and internationally, including crypto assets and the regulation of crypto trading, from the perspective of a regulator. We will review the Ontario Securities Act, regulations and policies, as it relates to derivatives and also look at futures oversight under the Commodity Futures Act and have an in-depth discussion of the post financial meltdown derivatives regulatory reform.  We will also provide an introduction to documentation of OTC derivatives.
 
We will examine blockchain technology and how it is used in crypto contracts and currencies, Defi, NFT’s, stablecoins, and staking. We will review the developing oversight regimes for these products and participants in Canada and internationally.  We will discuss the gaps in regulation in this area and look at the Canadian Quadriga and the FTX collapse examples to assess the risks involved in trading in these markets and the role of regulation to prevent further investor losses.
   
In a fast developing new area of the law this will provide students an up to date discussion that will be adjusted through the course to accommodate new developments, particularly as it relates to the oversight of the crypto markets.  We will also ask questions regarding these new volatile markets like: Is there anything underlying these assets?  Is this the present day version of tulip mania? Will crypto currencies be around for decades or will they be short term speculative investments that benefit some to the detriment of many?  Or are they the future that will replace sovereign currencies and provide cheaper sources of payment that will remove the costs associated with financial intermediation from Banks?  Who should invest in these products?  Who shouldn’t?
The goal is to have students leave the course with a solid grounding in derivatives and crypto trading and the related areas of law.  We will use a multi media approach using a variety of related printed and online materials.  There will also be expert guest lecturers for some of these topics.

Indigenous Perspectives and Realities

This course will introduce students to fundamentals of knowledge systems that inform  
Indigenous understandings of law, justice, governance and treaties.  It is intended to provide students with a deeper understanding and appreciation of the lived experience of Indigenous peoples in Canada.   This course is offered as an experiential education opportunity that will assist students in gaining familiarity, in a variety of contexts, with the diversity of Indigenous worldviews, ontologies and epistemologies that frame Indigenous reality.  The course will examine major political, educational, economic, legal, and cultural issues facing Indigenous peoples and communities in Canada in both present-day and historical contexts.  Course material will be drawn from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Ipperwash Inquiry, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and Murdered Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry; as well as other materials that provide insights into the contemporary reality of Indigenous peoples. As the main goal of the course is for students to demonstrate a sound appreciation for the perspectives and realities of Indigenous peoples, students will learn directly from Indigenous peoples through guest speakers and assigned multi-media.  Students will be required to participate in land based  and experiential activities outside of the law school; there will be a remote option for students to fulfill these requirements remotely.   The course will be framed around the concept of ‘place’ (e.g., urban  
Toronto) and explore relationships to place from a variety of experiential perspectives (e.g., Indigenous, ally, settler Canadian, newcomer).

Comparative Law: Indigenous Legal Traditions

This seminar will introduce students to non-state Indigenous legal orders. Using a transsystemic pedagogical model and a wide range of reading materials (legal cases, methodology, pedagogy, anthropology, theory) students will critically explore the theories and practices of indigenous legal traditions through analysis and substantive treatment of: indigenous sources of law; oral histories and traditions (as legal archive); legal cases and precedent; modes of reasoning and interpretation; and authority and legitimacy.

Comparative Law: International & Comparative Labour Law

Artificial Intelligence and management-by-algorithms are reshaping the modern world of work in industrialized and developing countries. This is exemplified by the rise of platform work in the so-called gig-economy but is spreading in every sector and affects both blue-collar and white-collar occupations. Besides the intuitive risks in terms of automation of jobs, this seminar will focus specifically on less-known challenges, including algorithmic discrimination, augmented work surveillance, privacy invasion, increase in non-standard forms of work, and disruption of collective rights. We will look at these challenges from an international and comparative standpoint. We will focus specifically on international labour law and developments concerning the International Labour Organization, and other regional and national developments at the European level to compare them with the Canadian legal landscape.

Foreign, Comparative & International Legal Research

This course introduces students to basic concepts of foreign, comparative, and international law in the context of legal research. It teaches them to identify, select, evaluate and analyze sources and tools for researching foreign, comparative and international law. This is a hands-on skills oriented course with practical exercises and projects to help students understand the available tools and the appropriate research methodologies for given types of research projects. Students will learn to use a variety of resources including essential print collection and electronic databases to research foreign law of other jurisdictions. They will also learn to use available tools to identify applicable sources for public and private international law.

Law & Social Change: Corporate Responsiblity

This course provides students with perspectives into corporate social responsibility both as a governing mechanism for businesses as well as a form of business practice. The course will examine the theoretical paradigms surrounding the corporate objective and corporate accountability, international movements in corporate social responsibility led by organizations such as the OECD and the UN, as well as the legal frameworks in human rights protection and corporate risk management. The course will devote a significant proportion of time to the role of corporations in human rights and furthering social welfare and will discuss key critical perspectives on other social rights, including labour and the environment. This course will challenge students into viewing the role and responsibility of the corporation from perspectives beyond the traditional paradigm of shareholder primacy and is well placed to complement traditional corporate law and regulation courses as well as courses in international law.

Law & Social Change: Technology, Ethics and International Law

Technology has great potential to change and shape law, including international law, in significant ways.  Various building blocks of international law ranging from norm-making and norm-application to its functions, and processes and actors, are and could further be impacted by technological advancement.  But is this a new phenomenon and are these changes structural?  Speculations about the consequences of emerging technologies and digitalization for law are all-the hype in legal scholarship and practice today, but is it really different this time around and are we in fact facing unprecedented possibilities, promises and perils?

Inspired by these questions, this course offers a bird’s eyes review of the ways in which technology has impacted the evolution and function of international law and whether and how the latter has succeeded in adapting to the changes resulting from technological advancement over time.  To do so, it takes a step back and first asks what ‘technology’ is by tracing the footprint of various examples of innovation in the development of international law such as the introduction of new methods and machinery of warfare, exploration of space and so on. To avoid abstract generalizations, it examines the development of a number of doctrinal fields of international law separately in their encounter with technology.  To that end, we will borrow from both secondary literature and existing jurisprudence, and seek to ground our hope or anxiety about the future of emerging technologies in realism and lessons of the past and present instead of speculating about what may come.

More specifically, we will consider how technology has changed and will continue to change actors in international law; how it impacts fundamental characteristics of its rules; and how it will shape its normative values.  We will pursue these questions in the context of doctrinal fields as varied as territoriality in a digital age, the new forms of non-intervention and use of force and cyberspace, weaponization of social media and its impact on inter-state relations, the technology of war, corporate responsibility against the backdrop of new interactions facilitated by further digitalization, international health law and digitalization, climate change and emerging technologies, Biometric data and counterterrorism, future of labour in a digital time and its relationship to socio-economic rights, distribution of global goods such as humanitarian assistance and human rights education in a digitally-connected world, and technology-race and the future of the global order.

Globalization & the Law

This course critically examines the phenomenon of globalization in its connection with law from various angles.  The main objective of investigation is to ask: if globalization is really a relatively new phenomenon and what it means to relocate it in historical perspective; if it is uniformly visible and equally significant in different spheres of social life; what is the connection, if any, between the globalization of ideas and material objects in the social world; whether globalization has necessarily been reaffirmed by increase of digital connections; what is the role of technology, emerging or old, in shaping our understanding of global versus local; whether law merely reflects and adapts to the inevitability of globalization or it has an active role in the formation of the concept; if and in what ways the surge of populism which at times is accompanied by nationalism might be a threat to globalization, and more.  In this pursuit, we will take aid from other disciplines just as from in-depth readings, discussions, potential guest speakers, and collective, in-class exercises.

Immigration Law

This course begins with an overview of the Canadian immigration system and international migration patterns with the objective of understanding who is coming to Canada and why. The basic features of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Regulations will then be discussed including: family sponsorship, economic immigration and inadmissibility. Embedded in this discussion will be an overview of how immigration decision-making takes place and the reviewability of immigration administrative decisions. A portion of the course will be devoted to looking at current topics in immigration law.

Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law

This course will provide a critical survey of state law as it relates to Indigenous peoples in Canada. The focus will be on the following topics: the historical context and constitutional framework; Aboriginal rights and title; self-government; treaties and treaty rights; and introduction to the Indian Act; and the authority and obligations of the federal and provincial governments.

This course fulfills the prerequisite requirements for the Intensive Program in Indigenous Lands, Resources and Governments.