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Neutralizing Secularism: Religious Antiliberalism and the Twentieth-Century Global Ecumenical Project
Get PDFA marked feature of the contemporary U.S. constitutional landscape is the campaign by an Evangelical- Catholic coalition against the idea of secularism, understood by this alliance to mean the exclusion of religion from the state and its progressive marginalization from social life. Departing from the tendency to treat this project as a national phenomenon, this article places it within a longer global genealogy of an earlier international Christian ecumenical effort to combat secularism. The triumph of that campaign culminated in the making of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, now considered the paradigmatic international legal provision on religious liberty. Article 18’s protection of the rights to proselytize and convert, I argue, was a product of an impassioned contestation between an ecumenical movement keen on securing the prerogative to spread the gospel to the non-Christian world and a secularism in a strange alliance with Islam in the region that held the greatest promise for the evangelical enterprise—Muslim Africa. In excavating the genealogy of ecumenical thought as it developed a critique of the so-called secularist threat, I recover the delicate links between the contemporary U.S. anti-secular campaign and the earlier ecumenical efforts
Continuum: Volume 47 (Winter 2023)
Get PDFhttps://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/continuum/1023/thumbnail.jp
Canadian “Dreamers”: Access to Post-Secondary Education
Get PDFYouth with precarious legal status (PLS) in several provinces are entitled to access primary and secondary education regardless of their immigration status. However, once they graduate from high school their opportunities for post-secondary education are highly constrained. This article sets out an argument for expanding post-secondary educational opportunities for PLS students, drawing on the example of the only existing program in Canada targeting such students: York University’s “Access for Students with Precarious Immigration Status Program.” The article considers possible legal impediments to the establishment of such programs, including offences under Canadian immigration legislation, and argues that charges against post-secondary institutions or their employees are unlikely. Moreover, the article contends that if such charges were pursued, courts would likely find that the relevant legislative provisions are unconstitutional due to overbreadth and because they penalize humanitarian assistance, which was not the intention of the drafters of the provisions. The article also argues that in the unlikely scenario that post-secondary institutions were foundto be in breach of Canadian immigration law for admitting PLS students, this is one of the limited sets of circumstances where pushing back against the law—and even breaking the law if necessary—would be warranted. Overall, the article argues that it is time for faculty, students, and administrators at Canadian colleges and universities to join the fight to create pathways for post-secondary education for PLS students
Submission to Justice Canada on the Criminalization of Coercive Control
Get PDFJustice Canada has been holding an engagement process on the issue of whether an offence of coercive control should be added to the Criminal Code. This offence has been proposed in a series of private members bills, most recently, Bill C-332. This submission argues that it is imperative that actors in all legal domains acquire a nuanced and contextual understanding of coercive control derived from an intersectional analysis that attends to how multiple systems of oppression interact to shape the tactics of coercion and control. However, we do not support the criminalization of coercive control, either as a standalone offence or within a broader offence of domestic abuse / violence. We argue that it is the former approach – the acquisition of deep and contextualized knowledge – and not criminalization that holds promise in enhancing safety for women and children.
In Part B, we provide a brief overview of coercive control. This overview highlights some areas of contestation, with a view to illuminating the many challenges of translating the theory of coercive control into a criminal prohibition as well as the complex intersectional understanding of coercive control that legal system actors need to acquire. In Part C, we examine lessons learned from past and current criminalization initiatives. Here we address the differential impacts of criminalization, and based on the expertise of co-author Harris, we focus on the experiences of Black women. These lessons, we argue, underscore not only the lack of efficacy of criminalization in enhancing safety, but its infliction of harm on survivors of violence, particularly those who are marginalized. In Part D, we consider what can be learned from recent Divorce Act reforms regarding the translation of coercive control into the legal realm in the context of parenting disputes. Our preliminary case law review reinforces concerns about the difficulty courts have in seeing coercive control and its possible weaponization against survivors (see a list of cases we discuss in Appendix A). In Part E, we explore lessons learned through the ongoing research of co-authors Mosher, Koshan, and Wiegers on intersecting legal domains, including the family law, child protection, civil protection order, and immigration systems, as well as the ways in which these intersecting systems can be manipulated by abusers. In Part F we summarize the reasons why we do not support the creation of a new criminal offence and explain why Bill C-332 is particularly problematic (see also a summary of the Bill at Appendix B). We offer concluding suggestions as to what should be done to address coercive control and gender-based violence
Don’t Just Change the Rules, Change the Game: The Rules Overhaul and Ontario’s Legal Ecosystem
No full textRenewing Freedom of Expression, Part Two: From the Contextual Approach to Proportionality Balancing
No full textWhen can the state place limits on basic human rights? This is a fundamental question for any liberal democracy.In Canada, for rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the answer is found in section 1 of this constitutional document. Section 1 provides that the state may only subject Charter rights and freedoms to limits that are \u27reasonable\u27, \u27prescribed by law\u27, and \u27demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society\u27. But interpreting these standards has proven a difficult task, one which courts, decisionmakers, and legislatures have wrestled with over the first four decades of Charter jurisprudence.This collection offers fresh, innovative, and insightful perspectives on these challenges, and on the proper scope, contours, and limits of rights and freedoms. --publisher\u27s descriptio
Decolonizing the Dialogue on Climate Change: Indigenous Knowledges, Legal Orders and Ethics
No full textMoving from Secrecy to Transparency in the Offensive Cyber Capabilities Sector: The Case of Dual-Use Technologies Exports
No full textTransparency is central to the prevention of human rights abuses. Over the past few decades, a belief in transparency has permeated multiple industries, reflected in an explosion of legislation intended to further this principle. Yet, despite this emphatic recognition of the importance of transparency, the activities of government and private sector actors involved in the development, sale, and export of Offensive Cyber Capabilities (OCC) remain cloaked in secrecy regardless of the sector’s role in facilitating human rights abuses. In this article, we tackle this broader challenge of secrecy via a case study on the export of dual-use technologies. We theorize why secrecy has been so prevalent in the OCC sector. We consider the role of different forms of secrecy—such as commercial secrecy and opportunistic secrecy by governments—in facilitating this situation. We argue that injecting greater transparency into the OCC sector is critical to deterring human rights abuses through accountability and oversight, can help counter the proliferation of offensive cyber technology proliferation, and can ensure better overall governance in regimes governing the export of dual-use technologies. Mandating transparency by governments and exporting companies in the OCC sector can pave the way for policy changes to better regulate this industry and finds support in international human rights principles related to transparency. In closing, we examine how transparency might be incorporated into export frameworks addressing dual-use technologies