The Faculty celebrates six professors whose exciting projects will be funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
By Alison Glaser (BCL/LLB’09) – Research Administrator at the Faculty of Law
The Faculty’s Office of Research is delighted to announce that six exciting projects have been awarded funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Our researchers were awarded grants from two of the SSHRC’s biggest competitions, the Insight Grant competition, which provides awards for long-term research initiatives, and the Insight Development Grant competition, which supports research in its initial stages for young scholars.
Les subventions externes fournissent aux professeurs des ressources qui leur permettent d’embaucher des assistants de recherches, de participer à des conférences à l’étranger, et de publier les résultats de leur recherche dans des revues scientifiques ou des monographies.
Frédéric Mégret, vice-doyen de la recherche, était très content de ces résultats : « Nous nous réjouissons d’avoir eu le succès que nous avons eu cette année. Cela honore nos collègues et, à travers eux, l’ensemble du travail de recherche dans lequel la Faculté est engagée depuis des années. Ces subventions donnent réellement une énergie nouvelle aux projets retenus. Un motif particulier de fierté est la diversité des axes de recherche qui ont été sélectionnés, à l’image de la Faculté. »
 Professor Richard Gold received a three-year Insight Grant entitled An Intellectual Property Index: Creating a firm foundation for trans-disciplinary study, policy-making and business strategy. This project seeks to create a new and effective Intellectual Property Index that will be a vast improvement over the currently existing model. This index will cover the major fields of IP law, including patents, copyright, trademarks, and the protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources. The project has the potential to be widely beneficial for academics, lawyers, NGOs and policy-makers looking for accurate and up-to-date information about Intellectual Property issues. |
 Professor Mark Antaki received a four-year Insight Grant entitled From Shorthand to Keywords: Uncovering the Common Sense of Canadian Constitutional Law. This project aims to understand the language of contemporary Canadian constitutional law by examining the key words that judges and scholars use. Professor Antaki hopes to examine how the rhetoric of law can shed light on key concepts that we often take for granted. |
 Professor Lionel Smith was awarded a four-year Insight Grant for his project, The Transsystemic Destiny of Unjust Enrichment. This is an interdisciplinary and comparative study on uncertainties in the Canadian law of Unjust Enrichment.The project aims to demonstrate how transsystemic teaching is valuable both pedagogically and as a scholarly methodology. |
 Le professeur Vincent Forray a obtenu une subvention pour son projet de recherche intitulé La formalisation du droit par l’écriture juridique : étude d’un phénomène de dissémination du pouvoir en démocratie. L’objectif du projet est d’améliorer l’analyse des rapports du droit et du pouvoir dans une société démocratique, en élaborant une théorie de l’écriture juridique. Le projet va examiner le droit comme une activité particulière d’écriture. |
 Professor Víctor Muñiz-Fraticelli received an Insight grant to examine The Legal Structure of Ecclesiastical Polity. The project explores the ways in which churches organize their governance structures through the use of institutions of private law: the law of property, contract, and tort, corporate law, family law, and private arbitration. The project involves primary archival research at various churches throughout North America, and will provide an interesting addition to the study of religious institutions distinct from the usual examinations of constitutional protections of freedom of religion. |
 The Faculty was also pleased to learn that Faculty Lecturer Mohsen al Attar received an Insight grant entitled Trading in democracy: Trade law and the reconfiguration of Canadian democratic values. This project examines how developments in trade law may be restructuring aspects of Canadian democracy. In particular, the project aims to examine how trade negotiations and agreements are regulating more facets of our social structures, yet they are not subject to democratic scrutiny. |