PHL 612, Philosophy of Law

What is law? What makes something a legal norm? Should citizens always obey the law? What is the relationship between law and morality? This course will examine diverse perspectives on law, such as natural law, legal positivism, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, and other critical theories, focusing on debates over the legal regulation of contested social practices. Themes to be covered include: equality, liberty, expression, and religious rights, as well as legal interpretation.

Framing Questions: What is law? What makes law valid? How do moral norms and legal norms overlap, and yet ultimately, differ from each other? How do moral perspectives impact upon and influence the articulation, interpretation and application of legal norms? In what ways do particular interpretations of legal documents and legal rulings provide reasons for acting or deciding (if one is a judge)? What are judges disagreeing about when they disagree about how to decide a particular case - what the law is, or what it ought to be? Does what the law is depend, at least sometimes, on what it ought to be? These questions relate to matters of validity and normativity. Other questions address issues of justification. Are we morally obligated to obey each and every law, even when the content of a particular law is contrary to justified morality? What, other than morality, might justify the obligation to obey the law? Is there a distinction to be made between obligation to obey the law and obligation to obey the constitution?

PHL 770, Law and Rights

This course situates current debates about rights and their relations to law in historical context. Readings include classic and contemporary texts by philosophers offering diverse definitions, debating meanings and implications, and illuminating intersections between different types of rights. Questions discussed may include: Are rights universal, or relative, or particular? Are rights absolute, or qualified? Are rights natural, grounded in deliberation, or constructed through discourse? How do human, legal, moral, political and social rights differ, and why?

Core themes: Rights, Critiques, Resistance and Transformation: (i) Differentiation between moral rights and legal rights and connections to rule of law; (ii) Conceptual Frameworks for articulating, explicating and justifying theories of rights, including Four School of Human Rights, and Five Fables of Human Rights; (iii) Trajectory of notions of rights, starting from historical constructs in the context of social contract theory according to which rights are devised to protect individuals against depredations from other human beings and government is crucial to ensure security, or rights are crucial for individuals to resist potential abuses of power from governments that are needed for reasons of efficiency; (iv) Historical Critiques of rights from the perspectives of Marxism and Utilitarianism; (v) Contemporary Critiques and Transformations of rights from diverse critical perspectives, including (a) Critical Feminist Theory, (b) Critical Race Theory, (c) Critical Disability Theory, (d) Critical Queer and Trans Theory; (e) Critical Indigenous Theory, with a focus on intersectionality, and more; and (vi) considerations of justifiability of resistance to law in the face of egregious and persistent injustice that is entrenched or at the least supported by law, and exploration of the role of civil disobedience and rule of law in pursuit of equity and social justice.

OTHER COURSES

ES8921, Environmental Law

Human beings are continually trying to make their world a better place, and among the substantial and consequential ways of doing that are passing laws, regulations and bylaws, pursuing litigation through the courts, and advocacy of legal and policy reform. In this course, we are especially concerned with ways to prevent, ameliorate and remedy negative impacts of human behaviour, including the byproducts of otherwise socially beneficial economic practices (such as pollution, exposure to toxins, and environmental degradation, climate change, unsustainable planning, resource depletion, and species loss) on the natural environment. We are particularly interested in figuring out where there are “integrity” gaps, understood as areas in which damage and harm is occurring to the natural environment and human health, through pollution, exposure to toxins, species loss, and unsustainable planning, development or resource extraction practices. Integrity gaps can take many forms, including policy neglect, implementation gaps, monitoring lapses, and enforcement deficits, as well as significant under- resourcing of policy initiatives of all sorts. We are also hoping in discover potential ways to fill those gaps, through legal reform, enhanced regulation, more optimal policy development, and corporate social responsibility.