of Victoria
History:
The UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group was created in March 2020 by Esteban Vallejo Toledo – a PhD student who dreamt of forming an academic community where graduate students, scholars, librarians, instructors, and post-doctoral researchers could learn and share different views of how law, people, and institutions interact within societies. This dream became a reality thanks to the dedicated support provided by Eva Linde (PhD student), as well as Emily Nickerson and Sarah Miller (Law Librarians). We are also grateful for the help of Mary Anne Vallianatos (PhD student), Julie Sloan (Communications Officer in Law), Alicia Kaiser (Marketing and Digital Signage Coordinator), and the Faculty of Law.
Thanks to all of our members, the UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group is currently a community based on knowledge sharing that improves the academic experience of everyone who follows our activities at the University of Victoria. Our community acknowledges and respects the Lekwungen peoples on whose traditional territory the university stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt, and WSÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.
Vision:
The UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group brings together graduate students, researchers, and scholars seeking to deepen their understanding of the interactions between law, individuals, and societies. As such, our Research Group is a venue that allows members to develop critical assessments of law, engage in academic discussion, benefit from cultural exchange, and promote interdisciplinary research.
The UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group aims to enrich the academic experience of its members by offering them the opportunity to
You can contact us at estebanvallejotoledo@uvic.ca or evalinde@uvic.ca
The UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group hosts a variety of academic workshops, lectures, discussions, and reading activities where more than one graduate student, scholar, librarian, instructor, and post-doctoral researcher has the opportunity to share ideas with a diverse audience within a friendly and safe learning environment. Most of our events are recorded and archived on the UVic Space website. Since our events are public, please feel free to join us! You can also learn more about our previous and ongoing events in the descriptions below.
If you would like to join our events, you can contact us at estebanvallejotoledo@uvic.ca or evalinde@uvic.ca
Upcoming events:
(More event details coming soon.)
Past events:
Métis law March 24, 2022, 10:00 am (Vancouver)
Professor Kerry Sloan (McGill University – Faculty of Law)
Anishinaabe law February 16, 2022, 10:00 am (Vancouver)
Professor Aaron Mills (McGill University – Faculty of Law)
Mi’kmaw law January 20, 2022, 10:00 am (Vancouver)
Professor L. Jane McMillan (Saint Francis Xavier University-Department of Anthropology)
Cree law November 30, 2021, 10:00 am (Vancouver)
Professor Darcy Lindberg (University of Victoria – Faculty of Law)
Romani law November 17, 2021, 10:00 am (Vancouver)
Professor Thomas Acton (Emeritus Professor of Romani Studies-University of Greenwich)
Baha’i law November 2, 2021, 09:30 am (Vancouver)
Dr. Roshan Danesh, QC S.J.D (Harvard Law School) LL. B (University of Victoria)
Islamic law October 26, 2021, 10:00 am (Vancouver)
Professor Omar Farahat (McGill University – Faculty of Law)
Zoroastrian law October 20, 2021, 10:00 am (Vancouver)
Professor Jany János (Pázmány Péter Catholic University)
Jewish law October 12, 2021, 10:00 am (Vancouver)
Professor Robert Daum (Simon Fraser University)
Upcoming events:
(Coming soon)
Past events:
September 29, 2021 at 10:00 am (PT)| Professor Sara Ramshaw (University of Victoria – Faculty of Law) & Professor Gaon Aviv (Reichman University - Harry Radzyner Law School), AI & legal thinking
Our members read a lot of papers to explore how law, people, and institutions interact within societies. This is a selection of very interesting papers that recently got our attention, and our members wanted to informally share.
If you would like to recommend a paper, contact us at: evalinde@uvic.ca and estebanvallejotoledo@uvic.ca
Topic: Deliberative democracy, Future generations
Paper: Michael K MacKenzie, “Deliberation and Long-Term Decisions: Representing Future Generations” in Andre Bächtiger et al, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2018) 251.
The Chapter is part of a collection on deliberative democracy. As opposed to aggregative democracy, which focuses on majoritarian decision-making, deliberative democratic theory is based on the idea that decision-making must be preceded by genuine deliberation in which everyone’s opinion is considered in good faith. This Chapter examines how deliberative democracy can assist the representation of the interests of future generations in decision-making on matters such as climate change, social security systems and budgeting.
It is a relatively short (18 pages) and easy read. I particularly like the Chapter because it uses a reasonable amount of science to explain how our brain works and why we might intuitively favor decisions that are in the short-term interest but impose future costs. Deliberation, the author explains, encourages us to use the analytical part of our brain and may help overcome initial biases.
Resources:
Although reading might be a solitary activity, the UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group is committed to discussing and helping our members to find their way through the ever-expanding academic material produced. To this goal, we propose a few lists of introductory non-canonic readings and resources that will help our members approach different topics. As such, in case you feel that conducting research and writing papers or dissertations is as demanding as “delivering a message to García,” the recommendations below will provide you with useful ideas for moving forwards.
These lists of resources have been put together thanks to generous recommendations from professors Pooja Parmar, Elizabeth Adjin-Tettey, Maneesha Deckha, John Borrows, Mark Gillen, Victor Ramraj, Calvin Sandborn, Sara Ramshaw, the Diana M. Priestly Law Library, and Esteban Vallejo Toledo. Please note that the UVic Law & Society Research Group does not maintain any relationship with the authors of the resources in these lists. If you think that other titles should be included to improve our lists, do let us know.
Have you always been a bit of a book worm?
Might you be interested in joining an informal UVic Law Reading Group, to share and discuss good books throughout the year?
In 2023-2024, we’ll engage with these books.
If interested in joining us to read and talk about great books, please email estebanvallejotoledo@uvic.ca; mcordoniersegger@uvic.ca; and evalinde@uvic.ca
The Graduate Teaching Lab is an initiative of the UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group. Thanks to the invaluable support provided by Prof. Gillian Calder (Faculty of Law), Prof. Sara Ramshaw (Faculty of Law), and Dr. Gerry Gourlay (TA Coordinator - LTSI), we host a variety of activities to benefit UVic law graduate students interested in pursuing academic careers. As such, our teaching lab is a venue where LLM and PhD students can learn more about legal pedagogy and also discover and improve their teaching styles in a mutually supportive environment.
If you have any questions, contact us at: estebanvallejotoledo@uvic.ca
The UVic Graduate Student Law & Society Research Group is a welcoming interdisciplinary community that focuses on sharing knowledge and exploring how law, people, and institutions interact within societies.
PhD student in Law and Society / PhD candidate | University of Victoria
Contact: cike@uvic.ca
Marie-Claire Cordonnier-Segger
BA, LLB & BLC, LLM, DPhil, PhD
Professor | University of Victoria – Faculty of Law
Areas of interest: International law and governance related to climate change, natural resources, the green economy and the global Sustainable Development Goals.
Contact: mcordoniersegger@uvic.ca
PhD student in Law & Society| University of Victoria
Areas of interest: Indigeneity, Indigenous Self-Governance Systems, Indigenous Peoples Movements, Adivasi and Dalit Socio-Political Movements, Critical Caste Studies, Legal Pluralism, Postcolonial Legal Theory, Critical Indigenous Legal Theory
Contact: arvindkumar@uvic.ca
PhD student in Law & Society| University of Victoria
Areas of interest: Environmental law, especially climate change, human rights, refugee law, international development, international law, European Union law, European state aid law, constitutional and administrative law.
Contact: evalinde@uvic.ca
Sarah Miller, BA MLIS
Law Librarian
Areas of interest: legal learning and research, Indigenous law nad inclusive library practices such as decolonizing subject headings, non-Western knowledge organization and classification systems, and the interplay of library accessibility with cultural protocols and intellectual property.
PhD student | University of Victoria
Areas of interest: Public International Law, Human Rights, Democratisation
Contact: trungnguyen@uvic.ca
Law and Business Librarian | University of Victoria
LLM Student in Law and Society | University of Victoria
Areas of Interest: Indigenous Peoples law, Indigenous legal traditions, Aboriginal law, Global human rights.
Contact: summerokibe@uvic.ca or summerokibe@gmail.com
Archana Ravichandradeva, B.A.(Hons), JD
LLM Student | University of Victoria – Faculty of Law
Areas of Interest: human rights, international human rights and humanitarian law, critical race theory, and Third World Approaches to International Law.
Contact: aravichaa@gmail.com
Sara Ramshaw BA, LLB, LLM, PhD, PGCHET
Associate Professor | University of Victoria – Faculty of Law
Areas of Interest: improvisation and the law, arts-based approaches to law, music and the law, law and the humanities, family law, feminist/intersectional legal theory, human rights, critical legal studies, critical contract law, and post-structural legal theory.
Contact: sararamshaw@uvic.ca
PhD student in Law & Society | University of Victoria
Areas of interest: Legal pluralism, Legal consciousness studies, extractivism, indigenous legal orders and political ecology
Contact: melisandeseguin@uvic.ca
London School of Economics and Political Science (2017) B.A., L.L.B. (Hons.), NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad (2013)
PhD Candidate | University of Victoria
Areas of interest: Disability rights, health law, family law, law and literature, feminist theory, critical race theory.
Contact: devyanitewari@uvic.ca
Vanessa Udy, B.C.L./LL.B., LL.M.
PhD student | University of Victoria
Areas of interest: Indigenous law, legal pluralism and environmental stewardship.
Contact: vanessa.udy@gmail.com
Esteban Vallejo Toledo /ˈstɛbən vəˈdʒɛhɔ tɔˈlɛdɔ/
PhD student in Law & Society | University of Victoria
Areas of interest: I am interested in taxation, tax law, local taxes, property taxes, land value capture, spatial inclusion, legal geography, Indigenous law and taxation, fiscal decentralization, fiscal federalism, official statistics, legal and research ethics, dispute resolution, legal pluralism, as well as legal history and anthropology.
Contact: estebanvallejotoledo@uvic.ca
