Significant Canadian Labor Decision on Right to Bargain

Canadianflag David Doorey (York Univ.) sends along word that there was a big decision this week from the Ontario Court of Appeal that ruled unconstitutional a statute that did not require employers to bargain collectively with unions selected by  a majority of employees, and that provided for no dispute resolution mechanism to deal with bargaining impasses.

Although the statute in question applied only to agricultural workers, David points out that it is an interesting case in the development of the constitutional right to collective bargaining that they have had in Canada since the a decision of the Supreme Court in 2007.

Here’s David’s blog entry on it, which links to the decision in Fraser v. Ontario, so that readers from other countries can keep up on these important labor developments.

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Outlawing Amnesty?

Lisa Laplante, in response to last month’s “question of the month,” priorities for the next president, blogged about the need provide accountability for torture.  I noticed that in her comments on a recent post on Opinio Juris, she wrote that “[t]he issue of amnesty could become one of the most contentious” in the debate about Bush Adminstration accountability for torture and other human rights violations.  She also linked to her timely article, “Outlawing Amnesty:  The Return of Criminal Justice in Transitional Justice Schemes,” which 

discusses the Barrios Altos case, a seminal decision issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2001, that declared the amnesty laws promulgated in 1995 by former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori to be contrary to international law. Recent scholarship has ignored this decision, or otherwise interpreted it overly narrowly, despite its potentially sweeping impact on the field of transitional justice. Thus, this article responds by offering a more in-depth understanding of the Barrios Altos decision in order to inform the ongoing academic debates on the evolving doctrine on amnesty in transitional justice schemes. It also shares the particular case study of Peru to show how international law directly impacts national transitional justice experiences. This article suggests that the truth v. justice dilemma may no longer exist: instead, criminal justice must be done.

The article is now on my reading list.  (The shorter one, the one with things I will probably actually get around to reading.)

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Marquette Legal Writing Professors Contribute to Column in Wisconsin Lawyer Magazine

Beginning with the current issue, the Wisconsin Lawyer magazine (a publication of the Wisconsin State Bar) will publish  a new column on legal writing.  The first contributor is the most experienced legal writing professor on the Marquette faculty, Jill Hayford.

As the magazine explains,

Through this new column, the legal writing faculty at Marquette University Law School and other contributors will help solve your vexing legal writing questions with practical guidance. 

Professor Hayford’s piece is entitled, “Style Books, Web Sites, and Podcasts:  A Lawyer’s Guide to the Guides,” and it offers up-to-the-minute information and advice about the available writing style manuals, websites, and pocasts for lawyers.  In a sidebar, the Wisconsin Lawyer invites questions or ideas for future columns about legal writing.  “Your question will be answered directly by the MU writing faculty and may appear in a future column.”  If you want to submit a question for the column via Wisconsin Lawyer, email wislawyer@wisbar.org, subject line:  legal writing.

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