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From Legal Grey Area to Legal Recognition: Recent Legislative Reforms Regarding Sex Work Under Employment Contracts in Belgium
No full textON 1ST DECEMBER 2024, the Law of 3 May 2024 portant des dispositions en matière du travail du sexe sous contrat de travail [laying down provisions on sex work under an employment contract] entered into force in Belgium.1 This piece of legislation establishes a strict legal framework for an employer to lawfully employ sex workers, without this being condemned under the criminal offence of procuring, as well as creating an employee status tailored to sex workers. This Act is another building block in the broader process undertaken over the last few years to resolve the legal inconsistency surrounding sex work under employment contracts. This Dispatch aims to describe this reform process by outlining its legal, social, and criminal implications for both workers and employers
OHLJ Podcast, Episode 1: Dean Trevor Farrow on Access to Justice
No full textOsgoode Hall Law Journal Managing Editor Nima Shirali and Production Director Johnathon Cruickshank discuss with Dean Trevor Farrow his 2014 OHLJ article What is Access to Justice? , touching on topics facing legal education across Canada such as AI, accessibility, and serving the public
Human Rights and the UN System
No full textThis chapter offers insights into the character of human rights praxis within the UN System and does so from a TWAIL perspective. It deals with some important and necessarily overlapping human rights topics and tensions. These include: a critical historiography of the origins and development of human rights; the role of the heaven/hell binary in UN human rights praxis; the place of the one-way traffic paradigm in that praxis; the strong influence of the trade-related market friendly human rights paradigm on UN rights work; the re-inscription of historic wrongs by that praxis; the impact of global power matrices within the UN human rights system; and the character of Global South human rights innovation at the UN. It is acknowledged that while UN rights praxis serves as an important resource for activists, this chapter largely focuses on the problematic and under-acknowledged ways in which this praxis deals with Global South peoples
Introduction
No full textPRIVACY PROTECTION has become an increasingly complex and controversial issue, fuelling academic and policy discussions, particularly in relation to new technological advancements. On one hand, there are concerns arising from new technologies becoming the “Big Brother” who is “watching you,” to borrow George Orwell’s iconic phrase from his dystopian novel 1984 — a true panopticon, a modern system of power infringing upon individual liberty, autonomy, and dignity. Concerns also arise from the blurring of boundaries between work life and private life, a phenomenon closely associated with these technologies, which encroach on individuals’ private spheres. On the other hand, some argue that in the internet age, privacy as a right is no longer justified — or at least has become too powerful — claiming that privacy experts should not set policy that extends beyond their expertise into broader domains of technology regulation (Goldman, 2023), thereby limiting the potential of these technologies to do good
Privacy and the Right to (Dis)connect
No full textThe rise of remote work and modern communications technology has blurred the boundaries between work and personal life, leaving many workers perpetually on call with little time for rest or personal activities. In response, some jurisdictions have adopted a “right to disconnect,” often framed as a ban on work communications during certain hours. However, such proposals are flawed: they are unnecessary, as workers already possess the legal right to ignore work communications outside contractual hours, and impractical, as many feel pressured to remain connected due to workplace norms and career concerns. This article argues for a reconceptualisation of the “right to disconnect” as a right to decide when to respond to work communications. Grounded in the principle of personal autonomy, this new approach shifts the focus from rigid bans to empowering workers to control their response times, aligning with protections for health and safety, the prohibition of unremunerated work, and the right to respect for private life
Introduction to Critical Conversation in Canadian Public Law
No full textThe introductory chapter to Critical Conversations in Canadian Public Law situates the book in the midst of some of the most significant social, economic, and political struggles of the past decade , from the COVID-19 pandemic to the Gaza genocide. The introduction describes how the book seeks to reflect and ignite critical conversations about the centrality of public law and its institutions, broadly defined and deeply contested, to the (re)production of current inequities. It outlines two ways in which the collection is critical : first, the critical legal methods employed by the contributors (e.g., acknowledging law\u27s political operation, understanding law\u27s relationship with power, and looking beyond descriptive accounts of law to consider its materiality and normativity); and second, in terms of the importance, urgency, and necessity of deepening our understandings of the relationship between public law and contemporary inequities. Finally, the introduction identifies five cascading themes reflected across the chapters in this collection—and across our varied experiences with the law—that are pivotal to the law\u27s consistent mobilization to reify extant power disparities in society [...] exceptionalism, capitalism, segmentation, incrementalism, and formalism
Finessing a Medical Expert’s Qualifications: From Professional Communities’ Boundaries to Personal Character
No full textThis article examines the kinds of arguments that can be made in debates regarding whether or not an expert is properly qualified to critique the work or opinions of another expert. Since these debates routinely occur in both legal and political arenas, a more fine-tuned sense of their argumentative dynamics can be fruitful for reasoning through them. This article is built around the analysis of a decision which concerned the admissibility of a physician’s testimony on the medical standard of care in a malpractice case. A detailed parsing of the arguments in that decision lays the groundwork for a theoretical discussion in which broader themes relating to experts’ qualifications are drawn out. The discussion focuses on two elements present in the decision, which can serve to buttress an expert’s claim to being properly qualified: community belonging and personal character
Uncovering the AI-Copyright Trap
No full textAs AI tools proliferate, law and policy makers are being called upon to protect creators and the cultural industries from the extractive, exploitative, and even existential threats posed by generative AI. Professor Carys Craig warns that, in our haste to act, we risk running headlong into a copyright trap. In this presentation, Craig will explain what she means by the “AI copyright trap”, the routes by which it draws people in, and why it threatens to obstruct the path towards responsible and ethical AI. (Note: Presentation delivered online on August 26, 2025, as part of the AI Literacy Center\u27s programming)
