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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The Climate Justice and Politics Workshop is part of the Climate Justice II Workshop Series, “Bringing a Democratic Canadian Perspective to the Climate Change Conference in South Africa: Taking Action on Climate Change.” The event will take place Oct. 26, from 1 to 4pm, 305 91ŃÇÉ« Lanes, Keele campus. It is hosted by 91ŃÇɫ’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability () and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (), and co-ordinated by Mihae Ahn, a student in 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), and JP Sapinski, a PhD student at the University of Victoria.

The workshop will feature five student panelists with follow-up commentary by guest discussant 91ŃÇÉ« FES Professor Ellie Perkins. It will also be virtually available for those outside the University to participate. For instructions on how to connect, . The idea is to help spark discussion about people who are already marginalized – women, dispossessed classes, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and citizens of poorer countries – and who are bearing the brunt of the consequences of a warming world.

The workshop is just one of the events being organized by IRIS and APECS in advance of the United Nations climate change conference, , in Durban, South Africa, in November. It is an opportunity to meet and share ideas with like-minded climate justice activists and academics. It is also intended to solicit input from the audience to inform the work of the 91ŃÇÉ« delegates, some of whom will participate in an exhibit booth intended to highlight Inuit experiences and perspectives of climate change. "We are also waiting to hear about the approval of our side event, 'Bridging Knowledges: Communicating on Climate Change Experiences to Build Resilient Communities'," says Rachel Hirsch, a FES post-doctoral fellow and IRIS executive member at 91ŃÇÉ«.

Two of the delegates are youth from Arviat, Nunavut. It is important to have the voice of the Arviat youth at COP17, says Hirsch, as they are one of the groups most affected by climate change. The whole idea is to create dialogue. The booth is a joint effort between 91ŃÇÉ«, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the Nanisiniq Project. “Bringing people to COP17 is one way to get people’s voices heard regarding climate change, but it has become a pan-Canadian initiative,” says Hirsch. The result is that “we all want this to be an ongoing network for continuing dialogue. It has become something so much bigger.” 

The five panelists will discuss climate justice and politics from perspectives ranging from ethics and philosophy to critical discourse analysis to the political economy of global warming. FES student Aaron Saad will discuss, “Just and Unjust Solutions to Climate Change and Human Displacement,” Ahn will look at “Climate Change and Hybrid Ethics: A Review of Four Ethical Theories,” University of Toronto students Rachel 91ŃÇÉ«-Bridgers and Paul 91ŃÇÉ« will discuss “Animals and Climate Change,” Sapinski will talk about “Capitalism, Climate Change and the Discourse of Ecological Modernization” and University of Ottawa student Chris Bisson will look at “Resilient Cooperation – A (Re)new(ed) Alternative to Sustainable Development." Sapinski and Bisson will join the workshop virtually.

“Such a workshop is crucial because it challenges the way that climate change is currently addressed at the global level. The impacts of climate change on people force them to migrate to other countries or regions (climate refugees) or change their whole way of life (First Nations and Inuit people, especially in the North), among others,” says Sapinski. “However, the issue of climate justice is not limited to the impacts of climate change, as injustices and inequalities also come from the way governments deal with the issue.”

For more information on the workshop, its presenters and their abstracts, visit the website. For more information about the Arviat youth, visit the website.

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

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