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This paper focuses on the contributions of Tim Edgar as a major comparative law scholar. It reviews the major debates and theoretical directions in comparative law scholarship and offers a case study of Edgar's contributions in the light of the major debates in comparative law. Edgar's development as a comparatist is traced through three defined phases. His identification of the policy problem to be resolved is highlighted as a major feature of his contribution.

Given contemporary attention to diversity and inclusion on Canadian university campuses, and given human rights protections for sexual orientation and gender identity, it is tempting to believe tha...

Since European settlement, many granivorous birds of northern Australia's savanna landscapes have declined. One such example, the partridge pigeon (Geophaps smithii), has suffered a significant range contraction, disappearing from at least half of its pre‐European range. Multiple factors have been implicated in this decline, including the loss of traditional Aboriginal burning practices, grazing by large exotic herbivores and predation by feral cats (Felis catus). While populations of partridge pigeon on the Tiwi Islands may be particularly important for the long‐term persistence of this species, they too may be at risk of decline. However, as a reliable method to detect this species has not yet been developed and tested, we lack the ability to identify, at an early stage, the species' decline in a given location or region. This severely limits our capacity to make informed management decisions. Here, we demonstrate that the standard camera trapping approach for native mammal monitoring in northern Australia attained an overall probability of detecting partridge pigeon greater than 0.98. We thus provide a robust estimate of partridge pigeon site occupancy (0.30) on Melville Island, the larger of the two main Tiwi Islands. The information presented here for the partridge pigeon represents a critical first step towards the development of optimal monitoring programmes with which to gauge population trajectories, as well as the response to remedial management actions. In the face of ongoing biodiversity loss, such baseline information is vital for management agencies to make informed decisions and should therefore be sought for as many species as possible.

Comparative law offers scholars a fascinating lens through which to discover new insights about the world, but only if we take on comparative law projects. Few legal scholars devote a substantial strand of their research to comparative study, and so their work fails to benefit from the active and prolonged debates in comparative law. This Article makes a singular, but hopefully substantial, contribution: it seeks to render more accessible the comparative law scholarship with the aim of facilitating easier access to comparative law insights for tax (and hopefully other) law scholars. Put another way, the Article seeks to engage taxcomparatists (or would-be comparatists) in a “co-operativeenterprise” where we are more likely to engage with each other with the “goal of improving understanding.” In short, it seeks to enhance the discipline of comparative tax law by enabling other tax scholars to write better comparative tax law scholarship. The Article develops a taxonomy of the purposes of comparative tax scholarship. Understanding comparative tax law scholarship according to its purposes assists scholars in their thinking about how to make and evaluate decisions about their comparative choices. The purpose of a scholarly project dictates some, if not all, of the decisions about what and how things should be compared. Articulating and refining the purpose of a project achieves two goals for authors. First, it provides the scholar with a benchmark against which to make decisions about the scope of the inquiry; which units (countries) should be chosen; how many countries are necessary for comparison to be robust; and how detailed a knowledge of each country’s tax laws, practices, and context is required for an effective study. These are the decisions that generate most of the debate among comparative law scholars. Second, and perhaps most importantly, it provides the scholar (and readers) with the ability to evaluate the quality of the work.

Age and growth data are central to management or conservation strategies for any species. Circumstantial evidence suggests that male whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) grow to asymptotic sizes much smaller than those predicted by age and growth studies and consequently, there may be sex-specific size and growth patterns in the species. We tested this hypothesis by using stereo-video and photo-identification studies to estimate the growth rates of 54 whale sharks that were resighted over a period of up to a decade at Ningaloo Reef. We found that male growth patterns were consistent with an average asymptotic total length (TL) of approximately 8–9 m, a size similar to direct observations of size at maturity at aggregation sites world-wide and much smaller than the sizes predicted by earlier modeling studies. Females were predicted to grow to an average asymptotic length of around 14.5 m. Males had growth coefficients of K = 0.088 year–1, whereas limited resighting data suggested a growth coefficient of K = 0.035 year–1 for females. Other data including re-sightings of an individual male over two decades, records of sex-specific maximum sizes of individuals captured in fisheries and data from juveniles growing in aquaria were also consistent with the suggestion of sex-specific growth profiles for the species. We argue that selection for sex-specific growth patterns could explain many of the otherwise enigmatic patterns in the ecology of this species including the tendency of the species to form aggregations of juvenile males in coastal waters.

This article discusses a pedagogical and creative approach to designing a mixed-media, live dance performance. By involving undergraduate students in the process, the authors were able to examine the contemporary phenomenon of selfies and the effect of the “online self” and “mediated self” on dance performance. The performance combined the work of dance and digital media design faculty members, self-reflective contributions from students, a music composer, and a costume designer. Even the audience participated, as the students’ selfies and images of audience members taken by the dancers early in the performance were then also projected onto a media screen. Some of the choreographed movements were developed by student dancers following journaling and small group explorations of self and identity as seen in the selfies. Postperformance interviews revealed the value of complicating more traditional dance-making practices through role interdependence and of teaching the creative integration of multime...

Leading Canadian scholar Ruth Sullivan describes the act of statutory interpretation as a mix of art and archeology. The collection, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions, affirms her assessment. If the act of statutory interpretation requires us to deploy our interdisciplinary talents, at least somewhat unmoored from the constraints of formal expressions of legal doctrine, why haven’t feminists been more inclined to write about statutory interpretation? Put another way, some scholars acknowledge that judges “are subtly influenced by preconceptions, endemic privilegings and power hierarchies, and prevailing social norms and ‘conventional’ wisdom.” Those influences become the background for how judges read legislation. Yet, there is surprisingly little literature about how feminists (or feminist decision-makers) do or could approach statutory interpretation projects. This essay offers some preliminary reflections on what feminist statutory interpretation entails, using the eleven decisions (and the attendant commentaries) presented in the collection as source material. Ten principles are proposed as a way of generating discussion about an undertheorized area of feminist scholarship (statutory interpretation).

Cases might be valuable for more than the legal lessons they offer. This paper argues that cases present an archive of evidence that can help us reason backward to better understand the fissures in the ways humans interact and how our social, political, and economic systems generate tensions in their lives. More specifically, the paper looks through a small window into the lives of the people who find themselves caught between our collective and individual expenditure aspirations. It explores the circumstances in which individuals find that their outstanding tax debts pose a threat to their ability to maintain ownership of their home. Resume: Les affaires judiciaires peuvent etre interessantes a plusieurs egards au-dela de leur utilite comme enseignements a tirer. L’auteur soutient que les affaires judiciaires presentent une veritable archive de preuves nous permettant de raisonner en amont afin de mieux comprendre les fissures dans les interactions humaines et comment notre systeme social, politique et economique est cause de tension dans la vie des gens. Plus precisement, l’article donne un coup d’œil sur la vie des gens qui se trouvent coinces entre nos aspirations de depense collectives et individuelles. Il examine les circonstances dans lesquelles les personnes constatent que leurs dettes fiscales menacent leur capacite a demeurer proprietaires de leur residence.

As robotic systems are moved out of factory work cells into human-facing environments questions of choreography become central to their design, placement, and application. With a human viewer or counterpart present, a system will automatically be interpreted within context, style of movement, and form factor by human beings as animate elements of their environment. The interpretation by this human counterpart is critical to the success of the system's integration: knobs on the system need to make sense to a human counterpart; an artificial agent should have a way of notifying a human counterpart of a change in system state, possibly through motion profiles; and the motion of a human counterpart may have important contextual clues for task completion. Thus, professional choreographers, dance practitioners, and movement analysts are critical to research in robotics. They have design methods for movement that align with human audience perception, can identify simplified features of movement for human-robot interaction goals, and have detailed knowledge of the capacity of human movement. This article provides approaches employed by one research lab, specific impacts on technical and artistic projects within, and principles that may guide future such work. The background section reports on choreography, somatic perspectives, improvisation, the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System, and robotics. From this context methods including embodied exercises, writing prompts, and community building activities have been developed to facilitate interdisciplinary research. The results of this work is presented as an overview of a smattering of projects in areas like high-level motion planning, software development for rapid prototyping of movement, artistic output, and user studies that help understand how people interpret movement. Finally, guiding principles for other groups to adopt are posited., Under review at MDPI Arts Special Issue "The Machine as Artist (for the 21st Century)" http://www.mdpi.com/journal/arts/special_issues/Machine_Artist

Queen's University's Faculty of Law is home to Feminist Legal Studies Queen's (FLSQ), a research group that expands awareness and development of scholarship in feminist legal studies, enables the development of feminist legal scholars at Queen's, and fosters connections among feminists with an interest in law. In the fall of 2014, I had the privilege of returning to Queen's Law to give the first seminar in FLSQ's 2014–15 lecture series. I was tasked with providing some reflections on why feminist legal theory matters. Some of the people attending the talk were also enrolled in the Queen's Feminist Legal Studies Workshop. The readings assigned for those students were (1) Toni Pickard's (retired Queen's law faculty member) wonderful introduction to law students at Queen's from 1987, 1 (2) Patricia Monture's (a graduate of Queen's) 2004 piece, “Women's Words,” 2 and (3) Ruthann Robson's (lesbian legal theorist and class critic) piece “To Market, To Market.” 3 What follows is the text from that talk.

Schwartz, M.H., Hess, G.F., & Sparrow, S. M. (2013). What the Best Law Teachers Do. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Pages: 355. Price: 29.95 USD (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-674049-14-7After almost 15 years of teaching, I am still flummoxed by the earnest, engaged student who takes the class off kilter. You know the scene. You pose a question for the class to consider, a question rooted in the materials students were asked to prepare in advance. EES (our earnest, engaged student) throws up her hand. She says she does not want to weigh in on that question, but has a different point she would like to make.1 Where does that moment go? On the one hand, you do not want to quash EES's enthusiasm; on the other hand, you want to keep the class focused at a particular point because it's an important building block.Enter Sophie Sparrow. She doesn't look like a rock star. #ThinkSparrow is not trending (in contrast to #ThinkTink). But Sophie has been recognized as one of the 25 most influential leaders in legal education in 2012, 2013, and 2014, and she was an inaugural recipient of the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism.In 2014 and 2015, I had the pleasure of working with Sophie Sparrow and Gerry Hess at a progressive teaching workshop at our faculty. They were the most graceful teachers I have seen in action: subtle, funny, focused, organized, thoughtful, and other-oriented.So, when one of my colleagues, let's call that person EES, volunteered a reply to a query Sophie and Gerry had put to our group that took us in another direction, I was rapt: How would this moment unfold? Sophie looked at EES and said in a calm voice, "That is not the question we are asking." She then turned to another colleague with her hand up and asked her to respond. It was so simple. I don't think EES felt suppressed, rebuked, or embarrassed because EES continued to engage actively through the workshop. As a member of the class, I wasn't distracted by the exchange, which was brief and unapologetic. Nor did not take us, and the discussion, off course. It was elegant.That is what it is like to be in the room with great teachers. You'll get a taste of this experience when you read What the Best Law Teachers Do. The book borrows from the genius of Ken Bain's classic, What the Best College Teachers Do (Bain, 2004). While re- searching the book, Michael Schwartz, Gerry Hess, and Sophie Sparrow toured the United States to meet and learn about the talents of 26 excellent law teachers. As the authors succinctly state, the project had three goals: to identify outstanding law teachers, to synthesize the principles that guide their teaching, and to document those principles in a way that is useful to others (Schwartz, Hess, and Sparrow, 2013, p. 4).What the Best Law Teachers Do has 10 chapters. Seven chapters focus on documenting how exceptional law teachers engage in the learning process. These chapters include evidence of how they relate to their students, set expectations, prepare to teach, engage students, provide feedback and assessment, and develop strategies for ensuring students learn lasting lessons. These chapters and another on the personal qualities of excellent teachers form the core of the book. Flanking the focus on the teachers' practices is an opening chapter that develops a working definition of exceptional learning and a closing chapter that offers some suggestions for how the book might be used.It cannot have been easy to narrow the field of professors to 26. The authors gathered nominations from law students, professors, deans, and alumni. They had a website with a call for nominations and reached out on listservs. They asked each of the over 250 people who were nominated to provide evidence of their sustained, salutary effect on students, a statement of their teaching philosophy, and two years' of student evaluations. That request narrowed the pool to about 110 teachers. …

This article has a modest aim—to engage feminists and progressive international tax scholars in a shared dialogue about the importance of protecting and enhancing the state’s revenue-raising and international revenue distribution roles. To this end, the article reviews some of the feminist and critical race scholarship that might assist international tax scholars and policy makers concerned with issues of international revenue distribution; explains the role of tax treaties in allocating tax revenues between nations; applies a feminist analysis to the problem of this international revenue allocation project; and offers some tentative thoughts about a feminist approach to allocating a greater portion of international tax revenues to low-income countries.

Over the last twenty years, feminists interested in law reform have struggled with the difficulty of reaching consensus on a method for valuing women's unpaid work in the home. This article highlights the significance of Fobel v. Dean as a defining moment in legal recognition of the value of women's unpaid labour in the home in tort law. It reviews the reasons why Fobel v. Dean presents a breakthrough in the case law on damage awards in tort for women's unpaid work in the home. It also suggests changes to the methods adopted by courts to quantify the value of women's unpaid work in the home that might be endorsed in cases that will become future defining moments. Durant les vingt dernieres annees, les feministes qui s'interessent a la reforme du droit ont eu beaucoup de difficultesa trouver un terrain d'entente sur une methode pour evaluer le travail domestique non remunere accompli par les femmes. Le present article met en lumiere l'importance de l'arret Fobel c. Dean qui marque la reconnaissance judiciaire, en droit de la responsabilite civile, de la valeur du travail non paye des femmes a la maison. L'article explique en quoi l'arret Fobel c. Dean represente une percee dans la jurisprudence touchant les dommages accordes en responsabilite civile pour le travail non remunere des femmes. L'auteure suggere egalement des modifications aux methodes adoptees par les tribunaux pour quantifier la valeur du travail domestique non remunere accompli par les femmes en vue d'assurer que la jurisprudence en cette matiere continue de progresser.

The campaigns for same-sex marriage currently being fought across the world rely (increasingly successfully) on two arguments: that love between adults is a universal sentiment, goal and human right; and that marriage, being based on love, should, therefore, be open to any adult couple, regardless of sexuality or gender identity (e.g., Osterlund 2009; Grossi 2012). Love, in these arguments, is constructed both as a universal feeling and state of being and a socially constructed set of behaviours and regulatory mechanisms. Whereas the former is understood in essentialist terms as part of the human condition, the latter is seen to be flexible, changeable and responsive to changes in societies. Thus are governments exhorted to change with the times and make marriage more inclusive (see Osterlund 2009). In this chapter, love is problematized, and by extension marriage, in order to draw attention to a gap that has appeared in the debates about equality for those in same-sex relationships.

Tax treaties and international investment agreements (“IIAs”) have much in common. They share the same purpose of facilitating foreign direct investment (“FDI”), and they provide similar legal protections, such as prohibitions of discriminatory treatment of non-nationals and access to binding dispute resolution. Among other objectives, they are intended to reduce risk and create security and predictability, allowing investors to plan and carry out commercially viable activities under the protection of an international legal regime . In this sense, they both contribute to ensuring the sustainability of FDI and the legal regimes that support it. There are other similarities as well. Tax treaties and IIAs have proliferated in tandem during the recent period of intensified globalization. Indeed, they are often negotiated with the same country in close temporal proximity. The same international organizations, the OECD and the UN, have been instrumental in setting standards and drafting models. This chapter examines the interaction of tax treaties and IIAs from a Canadian and international perspective. co-author: Martha O'Brien

Tax treaties and international investment agreements (“IIAs”) have much in common. They share the same purpose of facilitating foreign direct investment (“FDI”), and they provide similar legal protections, such as prohibitions of discriminatory treatment of non-nationals and access to binding dispute resolution. Among other objectives, they are intended to reduce risk and create security and predictability, allowing investors to plan and carry out commercially viable activities under the protection of an international legal regime . In this sense, they both contribute to ensuring the sustainability of FDI and the legal regimes that support it. There are other similarities as well. Tax treaties and IIAs have proliferated in tandem during the recent period of intensified globalization. Indeed, they are often negotiated with the same country in close temporal proximity. The same international organizations, the OECD and the UN, have been instrumental in setting standards and drafting models. This chapter examines the interaction of tax treaties and IIAs from a Canadian and international perspective.

Chapter 1. Introduction, Robert Leckey and Kim Brooks Part 1: Constitution Chapter 2. Queer Theory, Neoliberalism and Urban Governance, Jon Binnie Chapter 3. Regulating 'Perversion': The Role of Tolerance in De-Radicalizing the Rights Claims of Sexual Subalterns, Ratna Kapur Part 2: Representation Chapter 4. Cinema of Queer Desires: Bombay Cinema and Emergent Sexualities, Shohini Ghosh Chapter 5. Post-Apartheid Fraternity, Post-Apartheid Democracy, Post-Apartheid Sexuality: Queer Reflections on Jane Alexander's 'Butcher Boys', Jaco Barnard-Naude Chapter 6. The Judicial Virtue of Sexuality, Leslie J. Moran Part 3: Regulation Chapter 7. Reproductive Outsiders - The Perils and Disruptive Potential of Reproductive Coalitions, Jenni Millbank Chapter 8. Queer/Religious Potentials in US Same-Sex Marriage Debates, Jeffrey A. Redding Chapter 9. What's Queer about Polygamy?, Margaret Denike Part 4: Exclusion Chapter 10. An 'Imperial' Strategy? The Use of Comparative and International Law in Arguments about LGBT Rights, Nicholas Bamforth Chapter 11. Reproducing Empire in Same Sex Relationship Recognition and Immigration Law Reform, Nan Seuffert Chapter 12. UnSettled, Ruthann Robson

Relative to at least some high-income countries, Canada has been willing to negotiate tax treaties that leave greater jurisdiction to tax (ie. more source jurisdiction) to low-income countries in its tax treaties. Nevertheless, Canada's tax treaty policy has not been overwhelmingly generous. This essay takes as its starting point Alex Easson's 1988 paper, "The Evolution of Canada's Tax Treaty Policy Since the Royal Commission on Taxation." Focusing on the evolution of Canada's tax treaty policy since 1988, the essay examines three aspects of Canada's tax treaties that might increase the scope for source-based taxation by low-income countries. First, it examines the ways in which Canada has expanded the scope for source taxation of business income: for example, by lowing the threshold for taxation of business profits, expanding the scope of what profit should be allocated to an enterprise, allowing the taxation of technical or management fees with minimal connection to the source state, and permitting the taxation of gains on the alienation of real property. Second, those treaty provisions that limit the withholding tax rates on passive investment income earned in the source country, including the withholding tax rates on payments of interest, dividends, and royalties, are reviewed. Third, the accommodations that Canada has made since 1988 through tax sparing provisions for tax incentives enacted in low-income countries are noted. The piece concludes with some reflections Canada's latest protocol with the United States, underlining what it might signal for Canada's future tax treaties with low-income countries.

Relative to at least some high-income countries, Canada has been willing to negotiate tax treaties that leave greater jurisdiction to tax (ie. more source jurisdiction) to low-income countries in its tax treaties. Nevertheless, Canada's tax treaty policy has not been overwhelmingly generous. This essay takes as its starting point Alex Easson's 1988 paper, "The Evolution of Canada's Tax Treaty Policy Since the Royal Commission on Taxation." Focusing on the evolution of Canada's tax treaty policy since 1988, the essay examines three aspects of Canada's tax treaties that might increase the scope for source-based taxation by low-income countries. First, it examines the ways in which Canada has expanded the scope for source taxation of business income: for example, by lowing the threshold for taxation of business profits, expanding the scope of what profit should be allocated to an enterprise, allowing the taxation of technical or management fees with minimal connection to the source state, and permitting the taxation of gains on the alienation of real property. Second, those treaty provisions that limit the withholding tax rates on passive investment income earned in the source country, including the withholding tax rates on payments of interest, dividends, and royalties, are reviewed. Third, the accommodations that Canada has made since 1988 through tax sparing provisions for tax incentives enacted in low-income countries are noted. The piece concludes with some reflections Canada's latest protocol with the United States, underlining what it might signal for Canada's future tax treaties with low-income countries.

In this article, the author makes the case for thinking boldly and experimentally about the possibilities for legal education and law schools and urges us to embrace the potential for big ideas. She illustrates this approach through the lens of admissions, curriculum, and research. Within each of those aspects of legal education, the article suggests some guidelines that might be used to evaluate reform proposals and proposes one major change to spur reflection.