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2005 SPEAKERS' WEEK - MARCH 7-11- 11:50-1:00 EACH DAY
This year, ALSA is very proud to present a strong contingency of speakers from across the country. The speakers' bios are provided below. Topics of discussion will be posted soon.
All are welcome to attend the Speakers' Week. A modest lunch will be provided to all attendees (first come-first serve). All presentations are in Law Centre Room 231. We hope to see you there.
Monday March 7
Thomas Berger, Q.C.
Berger & Company, Vancouver, B.C.
"Aboriginal Rights for a New Century"
Canadian lawyer, judge and politician who headed the Berger Commission in the mid-1970s to examine the effects that building a pipeline through the Mackenzie Valley in the North West Territories could cause on land occupied by Aboriginals. He also strongly argued in the early 1980s that Aboriginal rights should be included in the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which they were.
Berger has a long history of tackling issues of social, cultural and environmental concern. Almost four decades after his successful defence of the Nisga'a and their claim to Aboriginal title, in a landmark 1971 Supreme Court of Canada case, Berger is back in the courtroom defending their recent historic treaty against lawsuits being brought to challenge it.
Appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1971, Berger served on the bench for more than a decade. During that time he headed three royal commissions, including the Mackenzie Valley pipeline inquiry, which took him to remote Indian villages and Inuit settlements to assess the social, environmental and economic impact of the proposed Arctic Gas pipeline.
Berger authored at least two acclaimed books; Fragile Freedoms, a study of human rights and dissent in Canada (1981) and A Long and Terrible Shadow: White Values, Native Rights in the Americas, 1492-1992 (1992).
In 1992, Berger was appointed deputy chairman of the first independent review commissioned by the World Bank, to examine the implementation of resettlement and environmental measures in the Sardar Sarovar projects in India. The report was critical of the measures taken by India and the World Bank, leading to the withdrawal of the bank's funding for the projects.
Berger received the Order of Canada in 1990 and in 1992 was granted Freedom of the City of Vancouver. He was given an honorary degree from SFU in 1979, and served as chair of SFU's J.S. Woodsworth campaign, which set out in 1984 to raise $1 million for the J.S. Woodsworth endowment fund in the humanities.
Tuesday March 8
Professor Val Napoleon
University of Alberta Faculty of Law
"Living Together: Gitksan Legal Reasoning As A Foundation For Consent
Val Napoleon is from northeastern British Columbia and is of Cree, Saulteaux, and Dunneza heritage. She is also an adopted member of the Gitanyow (Gitxsan) House of Luuxhon, Ganeda (Frog) clan. She worked as a community activist and consultant in northwestern B.C. for over twenty-five years, specializing in health, education, and justice issues, and she has served on a number of provincial, regional, and local boards. Val received her LL.B. from the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria in April 2001 and was called to the bar in 2002. Val is currently completing a Ph.D. (law and society) at the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria. Her dissertation will explore the consequences of major litigation on aboriginal people's internal social relationships and relationships with the land. Val joined the University of Alberta in January 2005 to teach in the faculties of law and native studies.
Val's current interests are aboriginal legal theory and legal reasoning processes, customary law, cultural property, self-determination and governance, and imagining aboriginal issues that are beyond the confines of the western legal rights framework and reactions to colonialism.
Wednesday March 9
Professor Kent McNeil
Osgoode Hal Law School, York University
"Judicial Interpretations of the Inherent Right of Aboriginal Self-Government: Searching for Coherence"
Kent McNeil teaches at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. He is the author of numerous publications on the rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada, Australia and the United States. These works have been influential in the development of the law in relation to these rights. In particular, his book, Common Law Aboriginal Title (1989), has been used by the Supreme Court of Canada and the High Court of Australia in landmark decisions on Indigenous land rights.
Thursday March 10
Professor Bruce Johnsen - George Mason School of Law, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
"A Culturally Correct Proposal to Privatize the British Columbia Salmon Fishery"
Bruce will speak on law and economics as it relates to Aboriginal groups, their sustainability and economic development.
PROFESSOR OF LAW D. BRUCE JOHNSEN came to George Mason Law School in 1994 from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught courses in the Legal Studies and Finance departments. Before that time, he was a visiting senior research scholar at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and an assistant professor in the Department of Management at Texas A&M University. His training in economics is from the University of Washington, where he earned his B.A. (1977), M.A. (1981), and Ph.D. (1987). He graduated from the J.D. program at Emory University in 1985. Professor Johnsen teaches Legal and Economic Methods, Financial Theory, Business Associations, and the Law of Investment Management.
Bruce's Curriculum Vitae.
View Publications List
View Working Papers
Friday March 11
Jean Teillet
Pape Salter Teillet, Vancouver, B.C.
"The Honour of the Crown: A New Constitutional Duty to Protect Aboriginal Rights"
Jean was lead counsel for the important Powley case involving Metis Aboriginal rights in 1994. She is a direct descendent of Louis Riel, and an expert on Metis history and legal rights.
Click here to see the Speakers from 2002.
