Alberta Law Review (ALR)
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Strategies for Risk Management and Corporate Social Responsibility for Oil and Gas Companies in Emerging Markets
Get PDFOil and gas companies are constantly in search of opportunities to expand their resource base and create value. Emerging markets can provide companies with opportunities for significant rewards, especially in regions where oil and gas resources may be underdeveloped and where new technologies have not yet been exploited. However, emerging markets also pose numerous challenges and risks, which can potentially lead to significant legal and reputational damage. This article explores key legal risk areas for oil and gas companies in emerging markets and best practices for managing those risks and operating in a socially responsible way, recognizing that risk management centers around controlled and reasoned decision-making, not eliminating risk. The article is intended to provide a high-level overview of the key legal risk areas and mitigation strategies to serve as a guide for directors and management teams operating in these challenging regions as opposed to providing a comprehensive discussion on any particular risk area
Recent Judicial Decisions of Interest to Energy Lawyers
Get PDFThis article provides an overview of recent judicial decisions of interest to energy lawyers. The authors review and comment on recent Canadian case law in a number of areas, including: aboriginal, competition, contract, employment and labour, environmental, surface rights, administrative and regulatory, taxation, and builders’ liens
The Alberta Liquor Control Board and the Question of Administrative Independence, 1924-1939
Get PDFThis article discusses administrative independence by using Alberta’s first attempt at creating a Liquor Control Board as a case study. The article examines the relationships between the Board, the government, and the public in order to contribute to a more rigorous understanding of administrative independence that goes beyond the usual comparisons to judicial independence
Privacy: A Review and Critique of the Literature
Get PDFIt seems trite to say privacy is valuable. The Supreme Court of Canada has emphasized that privacy is worthy of constitutional protection. Scholars tend to agree that privacy is a fundamental moral and political concept. The consensus appears to end, however, when privacy in theory approaches privacy in practice. As a broad and evanescent concept, opinions differ as to what interests or values the protection of privacy is designed to achieve. The prevailing conceptions of privacy — six of which have been identified — fall prey to substantive criticisms from which, the author contends, they cannot recover. First, they suffer from intuitionism. That is, they offer an intuitive approach of what makes things "private" and incorrectly assume that we all approach privacy with a common understanding of the concept, or concepts, that the term "privacy" expresses. Further, the standing conceptions of privacy depend upon and serve the concept of privacy as liberty which itself is flawed. "Liberty" is seen as a form of licence, protecting — in its most crude form—an individual\u27s right to do as he or she pleases. So viewed, it is not particularly surprising to see privacy attacked when competing "liberty" issues are at stake. Given the substantial criticisms with the prevailing conceptions of privacy, it may be worthwhile to reconsider the present paradigm against which privacy is conceived. It may be that privacy is better conceived of as an equality issue, not a liberty issue. The focus should shift away from conceptualizing privacy as a prerequisite for preventing invasions of various liberty interests to one of "maintaining conditions " that will make the exercise of those liberty interests possible. By limiting the ambit of privacy, we may indeed strengthen it
Water Use Challenges to Oil and Gas Developments
Get PDFAs public concern over fracking gains increased prominence in the media, litigation concerning the practice is starting to appear before Canadian courts. The litigation thus far has focused largely on water use and its associated licensing regimes, as well as Aboriginal treaty rights. Opponents of fracking have employed diverse strategies to combat the practice. Aside from the Environmental Appeal Board case involving the Fort Nelson First Nation, the British Columbia government and Nexen, no single strategy has proved particularly successful, though the litigation remains in its infancy. This article profiles the emerging Canadian litigation, considering it alongside the developing American civil litigation
The History of the Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Phenomenon in Canada
Get PDFThis article discusses the history of the poorly understood Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments (OPCA) phenomena. Drawing from various reported and unreported sources, the author begins his review in the 1950s with two distinct pseudolegal traditions that evolved separately in both the United States and Canada. Focusing on the prominent members of each era of the OPCA movement, the author explains in depth the concepts behind the movement and what it means for the legal system in Canada today. The article culminates with an analysis of the current OPCA groups and how Canadian courts should respond to future OPCA litigants, while also giving reasons as to why it is important for Canadians to take notice of this movement due to potential security risks
Unique Public Duties of Care: Judicial Activism in the Supreme Court of Canada
Get PDFTypically, government liability in tort depends on whether the government in question,
through legislation, has consented to be held liable for its otherwise tortious acts. However,
the Supreme Court of Canada has behaved in an activist manner by ignoring or eviscerating
this legislation, altering and expanding what governments can be held liable for. This article
explains how this process has occurred, providing five specific examples where unique
public duties of care were created. An open discussion is needed about whether the Supreme
Court ought to continue doing this and, if so, on what basis. This article starts that
discussion
The Dean Who Went to Law School: Crossing Borders and Searching for Purpose in North American Legal Education, 1930–1950
Get PDFThis article is about the making of modern legal education in North America. It is a case study of the lives of two law schools, the University of Alberta, Faculty of Law and the University of Minnesota Law School, and their respective deans, Wilbur Bowker and Everett Fraser, in the decades surrounding the Second World War. The article follows Bowker’s unorthodox route to Alberta’s deanship via his graduate training under the experimental “Minnesota Plan” — Fraser’s long-forgotten effort to place public service at the centre of American legal education. In detailing an overlooked moment of transition and soulsearching in North American legal education, this article underlines the personalities, ideologies, circumstances, and practices that combined to forge the still dominant model of university-based legal education across the continent. Highlighting the movement of people and ideas, this study corrects a tendency to understand the history of law schools as the story of single institutions and isolated visionaries. It also reveals the dynamic ways in which law schools absorbed and refracted the period’s ideological and political concerns into teaching practices and institutional arrangements. In bold experiment and innate conservatism, personal ambition and institutional constraints, and, above all else, faith in the power of law and lawyers, the postwar law school was born