Osgoode and Lassonde will celebrate the research achievements and interests of their Faculties, Feb. 4, starting at 2:15pm at 1014 Osgoode Hall Law School, Keele campus.

“This research celebration provides a forum for members of the 91ŃÇÉ« community to learn more about the exciting opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration among these Faculties,” said Robert HachĂ© (right), vice-president research & innovation. “All members of the 91ŃÇÉ« community are welcome to attend.”

Following the welcome and opening remarks by Haché, Dean Janusz Kozinski of the Lassonde School of Engineering and Dean Lorne Sossin of Osgoode Hall Law School, a panel discussion moderated by Associate Dean of Research Poonam Puri will take place.

 Janusz Kozinski

“The convergence of engineering and law is very exciting area of interdisciplinary collaboration across a whole range of topics, and we hope this will be the first of many joint events as Osgoode and Lassonde work closely together in the months and years ahead,” said Kozinski.

"Osgoode is delighted to be moving forward with the Lassonde School of Engineering on cross-Faculty collaborations that will break new ground in the fields of law and engineering," said Sossin. "This is the first of what we know will be many celebrations of our successful joint research efforts."

Lorne Sossin

From 2:20 to 3:30pm, there will be a panel discussion highlighting the theme, “A Conversation Between Law and Engineering”. The paen will consist of the following: Dean Sossin; Professor Giuseppina D’Agostino of Osgoode Hall Law School and founder & director ofIP Osgoode; Professor  Michael Daly of the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering; Professor Shin Imai of Osgoode Hall Law School; Professor Michael Jenkin of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering; and Professor Regina Lee of the Department of Earth & Space Science & Engineering.

The panellists will discuss a diverse range of topics, including space law, intellectual property, expert testimony, professional self-regulation, ethics, mining, corporate social responsibility, corporate accountability and more. There will also be research on display in Gowlings Hall at Osgoode Hall Law School and a reception featuring opportunities for networking. Refreshments will be served.

For more information, contact Jody-Ann Rowe-Butler, research coordinator, Osgoode Hall Law School, at jrowe-butler@osgoode.yorku.ca or ext. 55771, or Gillian Moore, administrative assistant, Lassonde School of Engineering, at gmoore@yorku.ca or ext. 58215.

To RSVP, .

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Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation, and Lorne Sossin, dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, are co-hosting the event, which takes place from 12 to 2pm in Room 1014, Ignat Kaneff Building, Osgoode Hall Law School, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend the free celebration, but an RSVP is requested. You can RSVP or call Lia Cavaliere at ext. 33782. Light refreshments will be provided.

The panel features Osgoode Hall Law Professors Trevor Farrow, Giuseppina D’Agostino, Dayna Scott and Stepan Wood. Each professor will deliver a short presentation on the panel theme “Celebrating Community Engagement”.

Farrow will discuss the dilemma faced by low income Canadians who find themselves unable to access the justice system. His presentation will discuss the various research initiatives that are designed to look at the complex problems associated with accessing justice and access to legal services, as well as the related problem of not providing meaningful access to legal services in today's complex and pluralistic societies.

Trevor Farrow

 Many low income Canadians find themselves unable to access the justice system, says Farrow. Courtrooms are filled with litigants who struggle to navigate the complex demands of law and procedure – often without representation by counsel. Early and effective resolution is central to avoiding the clustering and escalation of legal problems.  However, Farrow posits, a lack of knowledge about how to seek help, coupled with a pervasive sense of powerlessness, limits meaningful action for those who need it most. The most advanced justice system in the world is a failure if it does not ultimately assist in providing justice to the people it is meant to serve, he says. A number of stakeholders have a direct or indirect connection to the issue of access to legal services, including the bench, the bar, the academy, governments, NGOs, the private sector and the public. 

Speaking in her capacity as founder and director of IP Osgoode, Osgoode Hall Law School’s flagship Intellectual Property (IP) and Technology Program, D’Agostino will outline three initiatives she spearheaded through IP Osgoode, along with their promises and challenges, to assist the University in playing a more active role in the complex IP and technology research communities in Canada and around the world.  

Giuseppina D’Agostino

She will discuss the IP & Technology Intensive Program piloted in the Fall of 2011, which provides students with on-site research opportunities in government, industry and expert organizations in IP and technology; the Ontario Centres of Excellence and IP Osgoode Innovation Clinic, a needs-based innovation-to-market legal clinic staffed by volunteer law students piloted in 2011-2012; and the first blog of its kind, the IPilogue, promoting evidence-based research and showcasing new and unexplored viewpoints to public policy discussions.

Engaged scholarship implies a different set of relationships and expectations as between a community and a university researcher. For legal scholars, these can be even more complicated dynamics. In this short presentation, Scott will share some of the tensions encountered in a four-year research partnership with the Health and Environment Community of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation. The project explored questions of environmental justice stemming from the Band's experience of chronic pollution emanating from Sarnia's nearby Chemical Valley. Scott and the research team employed participatory action research techniques and arts-based methods such as PhotoVoice, to learn from and with community members, including youth.

Dayna Scott

Wood will focus on the challenges and opportunities surrounding community-engaged research in relation to various research projects affiliated with 91ŃÇÉ«'s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS). His presentation will look at research on local community empowerment in water governance in developing world megacities, community members' perceptions of international corporate social responsibility standards in Colombia and Canada, and University-community collaboration on sustainable furniture design for the new Centre for Green Change in the Jane-Finch community.

Stepan Wood

Following the presentations, visitors will have an opportunity to engage with the panelists. Osgoode Hall’s research celebration is part of an ongoing series of events that highlight interesting and innovative research underway at 91ŃÇÉ«. For more information on each of the presenters and other research underway at the law school, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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In his new book, , Professor (right) clarifies the fundamentals and importance of CSR and details how a conscientious way of doing business is possible in today’s profit-driven world.

As a teacher of business ethics and corporate social responsibility at the School of Administrative Studies in 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Schwartz felt that students needed a book that examined the ethical obligations of a business and which approach is the most appropriate for a company.

“Business students – when they end up becoming managers, executives and CEOs of their company – are going to be making important decisions,” explains Schwartz. “It’s critical for them to have a theoretical position on this debate, which will help guide them to more ethical and socially responsible decisions.”

In his book, Schwartz focuses on several aspects to clarify CSR: the key moral standards that need to be applied in a business decision; the debate between narrow (or profit-based) CSR and broader (or ethics-based) CSR; an examination of the separate and intertwined economic, legal and ethical obligations of a company; and the belief that companies need to engage in providing goods and services that generate value to society in a balanced manner, while remaining accountable to stakeholders.

Looking at four classic, high-profile case studies – the , , and – students can apply their own ethical beliefs to decide on the best outcome. “Many students may discover their theoretical position doesn’t match what they would do when faced with a real business case,” says Schwartz. “That’s the main goal of the book: to force students or managers to realize there are implications with their position on social responsibility.”

Movie villain Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” credo and the rise of Wall Street showed us the conflict between making money and being ethical; it’s a constant struggle in business. With MBA graduates entering the workforce in unprecedented numbers, how can we expect business people to choose? In his book, Schwartz proves they don’t have to.

“Business students should make money – it’s OK to make money. I think the real question is prioritization,” says Schwartz. “Are you maximizing profit at the expense of harming others? Students need to recognize that they have ethical obligations when they go out into the workplace.”

Although Schwartz recognizes that “good CSR does not always maximize the bottom line,” it’s the long-term effects on the business, its employees, customers and the environment that should be taken into consideration. “Ethics should still take priority to the bottom line when there is a conflict,” he says.

Listen to Schwartz speak about his book:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJMpw1ebVos

CSR can be complex, with room for potential misinterpretation. By demystifying the topic, Schwartz has provided students with information they need to grasp the concepts and understand how to implement them successfully. Armed with this knowledge, students choose their own way of achieving ethics in business.

“There is a need for a greater awareness in terms of what the ethical obligations are. It’s not simply maximizing the bottom line and abiding by the law. Ethics goes beyond the law.”

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The talk will be held from 1:30 to 3pm in 305 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes Offices, Keele campus.

Campbell will argue that the structure of a traditional corporate “business case” should be supplemented by a human rights justification which permits – and may require – a corporation to act independently of its economic interests when this is necessary to fulfill its human rights responsibilities.

Right: Tom Campbell

Campbell, a law and philosophy professor whose fields of interest include justice and human rights, business ethics and the legal theory of ethical positivism, is also the author of eight books on law and ethics: Adam Smith's Science of Morals (Allen & Unwin, 1971); Seven Theories of Human Society (Oxford University Press, 1981); The Left and Rights: A Conceptual Analysis of the Idea of Socialist Rights (Routledge, 1983); Mental Illness: Prejudice, Discrimination and the Law (Dartmouth, 1991); The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism (Dartmouth, 1996); Prescriptive Legal Positivism (UCL Press/Cavendish, 2004); Rights: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 2006); and Justice (Palgrave, 2010).

This event is sponsored by the , Schulich School of Business, The Hennick Centre for Business and Law, the (CBERN) and the Ontario Legal Philosophy Partnership.

Visit the website to RSVP, or for more information contact Hilary Martin, CBERN’s research and outreach coordinator, at hmartin@cbern.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Scott, who is the director of Osgoode’s Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security, has been awarded a 2010 Ikerbasque Fellowship by the Bacsque Foundation for Sience. The foundation is a granting agency established by the Government of the Basque Country in Spain in 2008 with the mission to consolidate the Basque Country as “a European point of reference for excellence in the field of research.”

Left: Craig Scott

The fellowship will support 12 months of personal research and collaboration with the Transnational Law Research Group of the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain. Scott will build on his existing scholarship pertaining to the civil liability aspects of corporate social responsibility in relation to human rights and environmental protection, as well as interact with Deusto’s Trans-Law Research Group to widen the scope of the group’s study of economic law.

Right: Stepan Wood

Wood, who is the coordinator of Osgoode's Juris Doctor-Master in Environmental Studies Joint Program and director of the Moot Court Program, has been awarded a Jean Monnet Fellowship at the Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. Wood will complete a project titled “ISO 26000 and the Legitimation of Transnational Governance Authority in the Field of Corporate Social Responsibility” during his sabbatical next year.

Wood is the fifth Osgoode faculty member to have been chosen as a Jean Monnet Fellow at EUI, following Professors Michael Mandel, Craig Scott, Peer Zumbansen and Robert Wai.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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