QQUUIIDD NNOOVVIIUniversité McGill,Faculté de DroitVolume 30, no. 10,10 mars 2009

McGill University,Faculty of Law

Volume 30, no. 10,March 10th, 2009

IN THIS ISSUE...3. Welcoming Conservatism...

4. Socrates and a Stimulus...

5. Shari’ah and the World...

6. Hollywood Starts Feud...

7. Table ronde interdisciplinaire

8. There’s No Such Thing...

10. Action Réfugiés Montréal...

11. Legal Aid...

12. L’aide juridique au Québec

13. Palestinian Human Rights...

13. Putting Human Rights Back

14. Droit à l’image...

16. Palestinian Human Rights...

18. Yes, Virginia...

19. Here’s to you, Mr. Passat...

20. Justified...

22. The Soapbox...

23. Computer Corner...

24. Sum of All Fears...

25. The Virtual Library...

26. Landmines Panel Discus-sion...

28. Valedictorian Elections...

The Quid Novi is published weekly by the students of the Faculty of Law at McGill University. Production is made possible through the direct support of students.

All contents copyright 2009 Quid Novi.

Les opinions exprimées sont propres aux auteurs et ne réflètent pas nécessairement celles de l’équipe du Quid Novi.

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Contributions should preferably be submitted as a .doc attachment (and not, for instance, a “.docx.”).Contributions should also include the student year of the contributor.

QUID NOVI

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Editors-in-ChiefRachel SévignyCourtney Retter

Assistant Editors-in-ChiefMartin RiouxLucinda Tang

Managing EditorsAidan Talai

Layout EditorsSuzanne Amiel

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Associate EditorsSuzanne AmielJoey BerljawskiLaura Easton

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Marie-Pier LeducJae Lim

Kristin McHaleEva WardenRandee ZeitzKrista Zeman Richard Zuroff

Staff WritersLaura Easton

Charlie FeldmanMathieu KissinMarianne KnaiHinda Rabkin

EDITORIALDID I MENTION THE MEMO IS DUE AFTER

SKIT NITE?

BY RACHEL SÉVIGNY (LAW III)CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Well, it is that time of year again…factums are in, mooting isunderway, uncanned memos are being written…oh yea, andspring break is long gone. The light is near my dear friends,so please keep it up!

Every March around memo/factum time, the Skit Nite Com-mittee puts on SKIT NITE, a special night at Club Sodawhere our fellow students get to showcase their talent in avariety of ways. I must say, this event is one of the best tra-ditions that this faculty has got going on. IT IS HILARIOUS!Skit Nite offers a chance for students to go all out with theirsinging and dancing, joking and prancing, and pretty muchletting it all hang out. Can you think of a better way to pullout all of your Lord Denning and snail/ginger beer jokes?And for once, your audience will actually understand and ac-knowledge what the hell you are talking about. It is the onlynight of the year where 100+ students, faculty members,lawyers and the Dean congregate together to laugh theirasses off!

If you are on the fence about whether or not to attend,COME! Believe you me, you do NOT want to be that personThursday morning who doesn’t know why everyone is stilllaughing from the night before. Take Wednesday night offfrom whatever it is that you are doing (first years, yourmemo can rest for three hours…BELIEVE ME, you don’twant to miss out), make your way to Club Soda and have agreat time with your friends and colleagues.

Did I mention that all the proceeds go to five Montreal Char-ities? Ten dollars is, without question, a recession-justifiable-price to have a fantastic night cheering on your fellowpeers.

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MARCH 10TH, 2009

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I read with interest Joanna Baron'sconservative apologia in the recentissue of the Quid. It left me thinkingdeeply about my own opinions andleanings, as she put it, prior to politi-cization. I have come to the conclusionthat I am also conservative, and as un-popular as that might be amongst priv-ileged intellectuals at Canadianuniversities, it would be better for meto come out with it, so to speak. I havenever made a direct, public acknowl-edgement of my political views before,and as I try to here, I realize how diffi-cult it is. But as I reflect, I find myselfbecoming more and more convincedthat adopting a conservative mind-setwill actually enhance my learning, andmake my opinions and actions morecredible.

What is conservatism? I could list mystance on certain issues, as Ms. Barondid, but I won't because I don't thinkthey are relevant, for me or for anyone.I am a complex person. Left and rightare outmoded descriptors of politicalgeography. It frustrates me a great dealthat people assume that my opinions oractions on one issue are indicative ofmy feelings on another. Just because Ivoted for the New Democratic Partydoes not mean I support Palestine, forexample. Yes, I voted NDP. More onthat later. Now, having gone and re-vealed my opinion on something of apolitical nature, I am convinced that thishas certainly lead you to assume manythings about me, most of which are un-likely to be true.

But it is not about the issues. Let themgo. For me, my habits of mind, modesof feeling and way of living could likelybe described as conservative, thoughI'm tempted to think I am merely argu-mentative. When I attended a private,Catholic boys school, or lived in small-town New Brunswick, it was my natureto push back, and so I would tend tocome down more on the liberal side of

arguments. But now, at McGill Univer-sity, I often find myself thinking that Imust be the most conservative personhere. It may be because I am oldernow, but I will assume that’s not en-tirely the case. So, how to reconcilethis?

Well, first I’ll address my voting prefer-ences. My vote reflects the problemwith the left-right conception. I voteNDP because they are pro-communityand pro-family, two tenets of conser-vatism, which Ms. Baron noted in herarticle. They are a party that is con-cerned with regular people who haveregular jobs. I never understood howpro-big-business Conservatives couldcriticize the NDP for a stance with whichtheir own ideology must agree. Ofcourse there are other things the partystands for with which I do not agree.But now I am getting into capital let-ters, which is not really the point. Poli-tics is a game played to win, so it is notin the nature of political parties to re-flect with any realism the entirety of thehearts and minds of the voters. Justenough to get elected, or in the case ofthe NDP, just enough to feel good aboutgetting a few people elected.

I am conservative in the regular, every-day meaning of the word--or at least Istrive to be; cautious, patient, and re-flective. I’m not a big fan of change,though I have uprooted my life in manyways (divorced, gone back to school,lived in three different provinces). Idon't think any of these qualities shouldbe negatively construed. A liberal mighthave them, too. But what liberal meansat the faculty, or so it seems, aside fromJamie Gibson's thoughtful piece (and ofcourse the many other truly complexcolleagues with which I often share in-teresting and diverse discussions--let'snot paint the whole cow with the samespray gun) seems to be self-certain, im-patient, and dismissive? This is quiteironic since the very first words uttered

in our first-year class by Professor Shep-pard were that “the law is conserva-tive.” So you would think that the gangof eager beavers looking to succeed inlaw as they have in all other endeavoursof life would take the hint. But no.

Mr. Gibson’s original argument was notnecessarily about which ideology wasbetter, but that there was a lack of intel-lectual diversity. I would argue that con-servatism promotes diversity moreeffectively than does liberalism. Shock-ing, you say. It is easy to see that liberalthinking is more open to new ideas, yousay. Open to them, yes, but is thatenough? Liberalism, it seems, judgesideas on their form, not their substance.New voice? Minority? Need rights?Come on in! Conservatism would pauseand think. Is thinking so bad? Doesevery new voice deserve to be heard?Is it fair to reorganize the majority toaccommodate a minority? Do rights notalso come with obligations?

The answer to those questions maywell be ‘yes,’ ‘yes,’ and ‘let’s not worryabout that right now’…but it seems tome, anyway, that there’s no meaningfuldebate on these issues in particular, andon issues in general, as Mr. Gibsonpointed out. It’s as if the questions hadalready been decided. They may wellhave been, but the reason we are hereis to learn, to question and to think. Ifwe come in with pre-determined atti-tudes, are quick to judge, and dismis-sive, we won’t learn anything. Applyingthe conservative traits of caution, pa-tience and reflection to our educationwill stimulate intellectual diversity, andhopefully make us all a little morelearned.

HERE’S TO WELCOMING CONSERVATISMWITH OPEN ARMS

by John Lofranco (LAW II)

Socrates and a Stimulusby Léonid Sirota (LAW IV)

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“In this trifling particular ... I appear tobe wiser than he, because I do notfancy I know what I do not know.”– Socrates

Perhaps the most astounding featureof the present economic crisis, for meanyway, is the swiftness with which re-ceived economic wisdom has been jet-tisoned and indeed replaced with whatwas a year and a half ago seen as re-ceived economic madness. “We are allcrass Keynesians now,” according to theEconomist. Or maybe to someone else;I don’t remember. But it doesn’t matterthat I don’t remember. Or maybe itdoes. After all, ignorance is my pointhere.

I willingly concede that I am in not aneconomist and am unqualified to tellwhether Keynesianism actually makessense in economic terms. But I wouldlike to venture a little into epistemology,and to ask whether the stimulus feverthat has seized the governments andlegislatures of the world makes sensegiven the limitations on our knowledge.In other words: what might Socrateshave thought of the stimulus?

Socrates’ first great insight was that hereally did not know very much at all. Hissecond was that everyone around himdid not know very much either. The firstwas odd but perhaps even endearing.The second was unforgivable, and hewas put to death for it by the good cit-izens of the world’s first democracy. It isunsurprising that this great wisdom, theacknowledgement that we are all quiteignorant, has never been very popular.

Not only religious, but also legal andsocial reformers of all persuasions havetended to assume that they knew howpeople ought to live, and that they wereentitled to tell them. In the nineteenthcentury in particular, inspired by theever-accelerating progress of the natu-ral sciences and increasingly unwillingto recognise the limitations of human

knowledge and wisdom, such reformershave formulated ever more comprehen-sive regulatory schemes.

Arguably the most audacious suchscheme was the centrally-plannedeconomy of socialist dreamers. Under itthe “unbridled competition” would beeliminated and the wise planners, usingthe insights of social sciences, woulddecide exactly who should produce howmuch of what, and for whom. Centralplanning invariably brought miseryupon those who tried to live by it. Yetdefenders of socialism always blamedthis on the corruption of their ideals bythe unscrupulous politicians who imple-mented them, rather than acknowledg-ing the impossibility of any person ororganisation to know and understandenough to create as much prosperity asthe free market does by taking into ac-count the knowledge of its every partic-ipant.

Some thinkers warned against the dan-gers of epistemological arrogance ofcomprehensive social reform. But AdamSmith’s warning that “[t]he statesmanwho should attempt to direct privatepeople in what manner they ought toemploy their capitals would ... assumean authority which could safely betrusted, not only to no single person,but to no council or senate whatever,and which would nowhere be so dan-gerous as in the hands of a man whohad folly and presumption enough tofancy himself fit to exercise it,” was sel-dom heeded. Politics is of necessity acalling for men and women who enter-tain precious little doubt in their ownsuitability for the exercise of power. Fewof them have ever been modest enoughto resist the urge to legislate out of aconviction that they knew better thanprivate persons to what ends the pro-ductive energies of society should beused.

And although public policy, whether byblind support for home ownership orlow interest rates, contributed in no

small measure to the current economiccrisis, politicians the world over arerushing to “stimulate” their countries’economies by legislating to whombanks ought to lend, from whom publicworks contractors ought to buy, whatsize cars ought to be made, and howmuch everyone involved ought to bepaid. Which brings me back to my initialquestion: what might Socrates havethought of the stimulus?

I will not presume to know the answer.But I can imagine some questionsSocrates might have asked of our politi-cians. What makes you think that youknow what people should be doing bet-ter than those people themselves?What have you learnt in the past yearand a half that makes you think you willsucceed where all of your predecessorshave failed? What part of human naturehas changed so dramatically that epis-temological limits no longer stand inyour way?

Socrates would of course not havebeen put to death for asking uncomfort-able questions today. Not in the Westanyway. But I suspect that his wordswould go as utterly ignored as ever. Anindication, perhaps, that human naturedoes not change as quickly as the ide-alists among us like to think. FrankEasterbrook observed that “[w]e live ina world where knowledge is scarce andcostly, ignorance rampant.” I would liketo think our politicians come from an-other, better world, to bring us the plen-tiful knowledge they gathered there.But I doubt it.

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MARK YOUR CALENDARS:

The Arab Law Students’ Association and the Muslim Law Students’ Association present

Shari’ah & the World today:

March 3: “Shari’ah and Modernity”, with Professors Wael Hallaq and Khaled Medani. 6.00pm-8.00pm

Reception will be hosted. Refreshments will be served.

March 9: “Shari’ah and the Environment”, with Professor Richard Foltz. 6.00pm-8.00pm.

March 10: “Islamic Finance”, with Professor Mohammad Fadel and Mr. Guy David. 5.00pm-7.00pm.

All events will be held in the Moot Court.For more information, please contact mlsamcgill@gmail.com.

Shari’ah and the World Todayby Faizel Gulamhussein (Law II)

Shari’ah is an Arabic word meaning“path” or “the way.” The term is com-monly used to reference the collectionof Islamic Law. Islamic Law is generallymuch more comprehensive than whatwe, in western nations, are accustomedto when using the word “law.” Islamiclaw, for example, includes provisions onhygiene, giving to charity, and the envi-ronment.

The Quran and the Sunnah (the say-ings and doings of Prophet Muhammad)are clearly acknowledged as the pri-mary sources of Islamic law. Interpre-tation of the Quran and veracity of theSunnah, however, tend to be a sourceof ongoing debate within the Muslimcommunity. Additionally, the validity ofother sources of law continues to bequestioned by leading scholars in thefield. These variances have led to aplurality of legal and philosophical tradi-tions within the Muslim community—theUmmah.

The diversity within Islam is too oftenoverlooked by those who might be un-familiar with the faith. In part, this isdue to the media which tend to propa-gate one image of Islam. Similarly,Shari’ah has taken on a negative con-

notation in some circles due to the wayin which we have come to understandShari’ah. The stereotypes are pervasiveand yet, too often, these are not thepractices of the mainstream. Somepractices, furthermore, predate the timeof Prophet Muhammad and can betraced back to customary law ratherthan Islamic law. In other words, weoften look to the fringes of Shari’ah,and consequently, we have yet to un-derstand its essence.

Given the increasing connections be-tween western nations and Islam, im-migration and trade for example, it isimportant to understand how theseconnections can serve to benefit coun-tries such as Canada. One possiblebenefit can be through the understand-ing and application of Shari’ah princi-ples—not its stereotypes, but itsessence. Islamic banking principles, forexample, might add to our understand-ing of the financial sector and mighthelp us better protect from large-scaleeconomic crises, such as the one wefind ourselves in today. It is in this con-text that the Muslim Law Students’ As-sociation of McGill University and theArab Law Students Association of McGillhave organised a conference series en-

titled “Shari’ah and the World Today”.The first conference was held onWednesday, March 4th at 18h00 andfeatured Professors Wael Hallaq andKhaled Medani discussing the key com-ponents of Shari’ah while providing themodern context. The second confer-ence will be held on Monday, March 9that 18h00 with Professor Richard Foltzaddressing the topic of Shari’ah and theenvironment. Finally, the series willconclude on Tuesday, March 10th at17h00 as Professor Mohammed Fadeland Mr. Isam Salah participate in a con-ference entitled “Islamic Finance: A Re-sponse to the Economic Crisis”. Allconferences are free and will be held inRoom 100 (Moot Court) at McGill Uni-versity’s Faculty of Law (3660 PeelStreet).

This series will be an amazing opportu-nity to understand how Islamic Law cancontribute to the Canadian legal tapes-try—alongside First Nations legal tradi-tions, the civil law, the common law,and other legal traditions. All are en-couraged to attend.

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Following the 81st Academy Awards,just as the Indian film industry wasabout to celebrate its winning of eightOscars for Slumdog Millionaire, it is nowfacing a 420-billion dollar lawsuit fromHollywood.

Bollywood, one of the largest film in-dustries in the world, is based in Mum-bai (formerly Bombay), India, and isrecorded for the most part in the Hindilanguage. Bollywood films are well-known for their musical quality. In fact,

most typical Bollywood films use catchydance sequences known as "item num-bers," performed by attractive femalecharacters (they are often not relatedto the main cast or the plot).

A group of Hollywood producers, direc-tors, actors and other parties have col-lectively brought their action againstBollywood, alleging that the Indianmovie industry’s copyright infringementcaused them a significant financial lossin revenue.

Despite the publication ban order, wordabout this lawsuit has leaked and isnow all over the Internet. In particular,one online source worth noting is a 10-minute video clip showing the Holly-wood and the Bollywood lawyers’pleadings. This clip is available onYoutube under “Hollywood v. Bolly-wood” (note: include quotation marksaround the query). You can expect tohear more news about this trial onMarch 11th.

HOLLYWOOD STARTS FEUD AGAINST

BOLLYWOODby Hirani Ram Thalavandarum, but you can call me Mickey

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TABLE RONDE INTERDISCIPLINAIRE« POUR UN MONDE SANS FRONTIÈRES »

by Avocats Sans Frontières

Lancement d'ASF McGill à l'au-tomne : merci!

L'automne dernier, un nouveau groupea été créé à la Faculté de droit : Avocatssans frontières McGill. Comme vousl'aurez compris, ASF-McGill est une as-sociation universitaire de l'ONG Avocatssans frontières, un organisme dont lamission principale est de « renforcer lacapacité des avocats des pays endéveloppement à défendre les droitsdes personnes les plus vulnérables oules plus à risque, notamment par le ren-forcement des intervenants de la justiceet particulièrement des avocats » par lebiais de missions à l'étranger et de cam-pagnes de sensibilisation au Québec.Avocats sans frontières Québec concen-tre actuellement ses activités entière-ment bénévoles en Haïti, en Colombieet au Nigéria.

Les cinq membres du comité exécutifd'ASF-McGill tiennent à vous remerciersincèrement de l'intérêt que vous avezmanifesté pour le lancement qui a eulieu le 6 novembre dernier. En effet,plus de 40 personnes ont assisté à laconférence donnée par Me Miguel Baz,Président du Comité exécutif d'Avocatssans frontières Québec, Me HuguesSurprenant, avocat ayant effectué unemission en Haïti et Renaud Gignac, VPaux stages internationaux de l'associa-tion ASF-Université Laval. Le Vin et Fro-mage qui a suivi a rassemblé unecentaine d'intéressé-es et de curieuxqui ont eu l'occasion d'échanger avecles conférenciers et d'en apprendre d'a-vantage sur l'organisation. Nous tenonsd'ailleurs à remercier McCarthy Tétraultpour leur appui et leur générosité lorsdu lancement.

Table ronde interdisciplinaire «Pour un monde sans frontières »

Ce mercredi 11 mars de 12h30 à14h00, une table ronde avec différentes

organisations « sans frontières » quiœuvrent au Québec aura lieu au Tribu-nal-école (Moot Court) de la Faculté dedroit. Le but de cette initiative d'ASF-McGill est de rassembler ces différentsgroupes afin d'échanger sur le thèmecommun suivant : « Existe-t-il un rap-port de complémentarité, d'indépen-dance ou d'ingérence entre lesdifférentes organisations « sans fron-tières » ainsi qu'auprès des États danslesquels elles interviennent ? ». Le Pro-fesseur Frédéric Mégret a accepté demodérer la discussion entre lesreprésentants des organisations suiv-antes:

* Avocats sans frontières

* Reporter sans frontières

* Ingénieurs sans frontières

* Clowns sans frontières

Venez en grand nombre participer audébat!

Recherches dirigées

En plus de faire la promotion de l'ONGASF sur le campus, ASF-McGill souhaitemettre sur pied et développer plusieursprojets. D'ailleurs, un des projets quinous tient à cœur et qui consiste enl'encadrement de recherches dirigéescréditées (term-paper) intégrées aucursus des étudiants pour le compted'ASF est sur le point d'aboutir! Desprofesseurs de la Faculté spécialisés endroits humains et en droit internationalont accepté de diriger dès cet été lestravaux des étudiants sur des sujets derecherche fournis par Avocat sans fron-tières Québec. L'ONG se servira ensuitede ces recherches dans le cadre de mis-sions à l'international. Il s'agit d'une ex-cellente façon pour les étudiants decombiner leur travail académique à leurengagement pour les droits humains.C'est à suivre!

Impliquez-vous!

ASF McGill désire également vous rap-peler que votre créativité et votre moti-vation pourront certainement être misà profit dans le développement des fu-turs projets d'ASF, alors :

• si la promotion des droits de la per-sonne vous intéresse ;

• si la lutte contre l'impunité vous tientà cœur, et ;

• si l'indépendance des avocats dans lespays en développement vous sembleessentielle; NOUS VOUS INVITONS ÀCOMMUNIQUER AVEC NOUS, À VOUSENGAGER ACTIVEMENT DANS NOS AC-TIVITÉS ET À NOUS FAIRE PART DEVOS IDÉES!

N'hésitez pas à nous écrire si vousvoulez vous impliquez, désirez obtenird'avantage d'informations sur notregroupe ou avez des idées/suggestionsà nous soumettre.

asf.mcgill@gmail.ca

Le Comité exécutif d'ASF McGill

MARCH 10TH, 2009

QUID NOVI

There Is No Such Thing As AStupid Question. Usually.by Ryan Gallant (LAW I)

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While the pages of The Quid are con-sumed by the Cégepian inferiority com-plex and the debate over the shortageof social conservatives ensues, I findthat with each day that I walk into thisbuilding, something about one of myclassmates amazes me. Each day, everyday. Since September I have met stu-dents who speak myriads of languages,come from a multitude of cultural back-grounds and whose lives prior to McGillLaw included everything from acting topolice work, from working in refugeecamps to fashion design. Being left incomplete awe of these classmates hasoften caused me to wonder what thehell the Admissions Committee wasthinking when they let me in into thefaculty.

And yet, despite the abundance of di-versity, somehow everyone seems ab-solutely blown away by the fact that Iam from P.E.I.. If there is such thing asa positive stereotype, I have certainlybeen the victim of one over the pastfew months; “I love people from P.E.I.!”,“My parents were there in 1982!”, “I’vealways wanted to go to P.E.I.!” Thetwelve-hour drive from P.E.I. to Mon-tréal has brought me closer to being aforeign-exchange student than I’ve everbeen in my life.

Based on the questions I get asked ona daily basis, it becomes apparent thatthe knowledge that most students herehave about P.E.I. is limited to the P.E.I.Potato Marketing Board decision. Withthis being the case, I figured that apoorly written article in The Quid, writ-ten with the intention of clearing upsome of these queries, would be a bet-ter attempt than none. So here is acrash-course on P.E.Islandology. Thefollowing questions are all questionsthat I have actually been asked.

“Do you know Anne of GreenGables?”

Actually no. She is, in fact, a fictionalcharacter whose stories are set in theearly 1900s. So if she were real, she’dbe dead.

“Is Anne of Green Gables a biggerdeal in P.E.I than it is everywhereelse?”

Actually, Anne is a lot bigger in Japanthan she is elsewhere. Thousands ofJapanese tourists flock to P.E.I. everysummer to see Anne’s (fake) house andwatch her (fictional) musicals. It is apretty big deal in P.E.I. though, at leasteconomically. Dozens of my friendshave played Anne, Diana, or some othercharacter in some capacity at somepoint in their life. This total immersionin “Anne culture” explains, at least inpart, the angst that both my fellow Is-landers and myself have towards her.

“Can you jog around P.E.I. in, like,a few hours?”

Eff sakes. P.E.I. is a small island, butit’s not a sandbar. By area, P.E.I. isabout 11x the size of Montréal. Depend-ing on how heavy your foot is and onhow familiar you are with the speedtraps on the Trans-Canada Highway,you can drive from tip to tip in aboutthree hours, give or take.

But you would be right if you guessedthat P.E.I. has a small population. Themost recent census sets P.E.I. with apopulation of 139,818 (139,817 nowthat I’m gone).

“Why the hell does P.E.I. have fourseats in the House of Commons?”

First of all, it’s not my fault, so stop

yelling at me about it. But, seeing asthe population of P.E.I. is only slightlylarger than the population of a city likeTrois-Rivières, it’s a good question. Tomy understanding, after refusing to joinConfederation (following a meetingconcerning Confederation which wehosted), we figured we’d shop around,maybe join the States, build an insol-vent railroad and I guess whatever elsethey used to do back in 1870 (growingpotatoes would likely be a good guess).But then John A. and the other UpperCanadians came down for another visit,and among other things, promised toassume the colony's debt, buy the landof the Island from absentee landlords togive to us, build a bridge (we had to usefederally-funded ferries until the bridgewas built in 1997) and give P.E.I. whatis probably the most ridiculous dispro-portionate representation in Parliament.Not exactly a hard sell. So, Islanderssaid: “To hell with this,” (a common Is-land phrase) “why work if we can get itall for free?” (also a common Islandphrase). The Island has been drawingpogey and equalization payments eversince.

“Can you swim at the beach inP.E.I.?”

I’m going to assume that you mean inthe summer. According to oft-repeatedtourism material, P.E.I. has the warmestwater north of Virginia (although Iwould have expected the warmestwater north of Virginia to be a few feetnorth of the Virginian border, but I di-gress). So yes, you can swim at thebeach in P.E.I.

Unless you are a wuss, and if you hadto ask this question, I'm guessing thatyou probably are.

9

“Is there much ethnic diversity inP.E.I.?”

Not unless you consider species oftrees as ‘diversity’. The majority ofP.E.I.’s population is of European de-scent. In the absence of diversity, Is-landers have adapted to this racialvacuum by having the Catholics makefun of the Protestants and the Protes-tants make fun of the Catholics, andcollectively, we all make fun of CFAs(“come from aways”). Favorite targetsof ours, as some Torontonians in the

Faculty have already learned from me,are the Upper Canadians.

“How are Islanders different fromMainlanders?”

Well that’s a bit more complicated. Weall grew up being subjected to the samefads, watching the same TV shows andlistening to the same music as everyoneelse (we just got them six years laterthan the rest of you did), but of coursethere are some differences as well.

Dialect is one of these differences. Forexample, my parents ‘warsh’ clothes in-stead of washing them, my Dad wears‘short pants’ in the summer, when wewere kids, they bought us ‘kitbags’ tocarry our books in and when there is iceon the driveway it is ‘slippy’.

There are some paradigmatic shifts aswell. The concept of ‘open bars’, a con-cept that is so prevalent here in Mon-tréal, would be completely lost on mostof my friends and family. No one is stu-pid enough to advertise ‘free alcohol’ atany event in the P.E.I. None of the barshave a capacity of 139,818 anyway.

When it comes to politics, there areonly two issues in P.E.I. Only one per-son, who wasn’t Liberal or Conserva-tive, has been elected, ever. And yourlast name and hometown is usually a

good indication of how you voted. Seri-ously.

I also feel that P.E.I. has a good holdon old-fashioned, family-oriented com-munity-ness. I mean, I am sure thereare strong communities all acrossCanada, but the Island seems unique.The bar scene, for example, is a milliontimes different in P.E.I. than here inMontréal. Stumble into any one of thethousands of bars here and you’ll runinto the same bunch of non-descriptdouches and ditzes who scowl and pushand curse at you, often in a languageyou don’t understand. Stumble into anyof the five main bars in Charlottetownand you’re suddenly at a party with aton of your friends; the kids you went toelementary, junior and high school with,undoubtedly some family and that cute

girl that was in your first-year Historyclass. Sure, there are drawbacks if youhave a penchant for macking on ran-doms on the dance floor and thereforeseek anonymity, and sure, some fightsbreak out now and again, but it’s noth-ing serious. No one is going to getknifed or anything.

P.E.I. is the kind of place where anyonewho can, comes home for Christmasand for at least a few weeks in the sum-mer. It may sound a little morbid, butpeople keep informed by listening to

the obituaries on the radio every day. Inmy mind, that’s how it’s supposed tobe: you are welcomed into the world,spend your life among, and are bidfarewell by you friends. And a few sum-mers in the sun in the meantime neverhurt anyone.

So go ahead. Call me backwards andbackwoods. And you can keep yourfancy New York corporate law officesand metropolitan city centers. I’d tradea thousand CN Towers for a good bagof potatoes, a day at the beach, a nightof camping and a few beers with friendsat a bar in P.E.I.

10 MARS 2009

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Action Réfugiés Montreal Training for Immigration/Refugee Portfolio Membersby Ariane Vincent (LAW I) and Helen Nowak (LAW II)

On Saturday, January 31st, severalmembers of the HRWGImmigration/Refugee Portfolio attendedan Action Réfugiés Montreal (ARM)training session for volunteers. Thepurpose of participation in this sessionwas to learn about the work carried outby ARM, and become familiar with theprocessing of applications for refugeesin Canada.

ARM is a non-profit organization thathas worked since 1994 to seek justicefor refugees in vulnerable positions.Their mandate involves assistance forrefugee claimants, overseas sponsor-ship, a women-at-risk program, deten-tion centre visits, jumelage anddetention hearing accompaniments.Three programs in particular rely onvolunteer participation. First, the“Jumelage” process pairs Montreal-areawomen with women refugee claimantswho have recently arrived in Canada.The purpose is to assist newly-arrivedindividuals to become familiar with life

in Canada, and lend support for theday-to-day activities common in Mon-treal. Second, visits to the ImmigrationPrevention Centre in Laval aim to pro-vide detained persons with support andinformation about the refugee applica-tion process and assist individuals inpreparing the required paperwork. Fi-nally, the court accompaniment serviceaims to provide emotional support tothose attending hearings and provides asource of information to ARM in orderto improve their services.

The training session lasted close to fourhours and focused on the steps in-volved in claiming refugee status. Thisprocess is based on the Immigrationand Refugee Protection Act, and beginswith an individual’s declaration of inten-tion to seek refugee status or asylum ateither a port of entry (Canada BorderServices Agency) or at an office of Citi-zenship and Immigration Canada.Within 28 days, claimants must submita Personal Information Form, which ex-

plains the situation experienced by theindividual that supports a claim forrefugee status. Very often, completingthese forms is difficult for claimants dueto language constraints, emotional fearsof revealing the reasons they needed toescape their respective countries, andgeneral lack of knowledge about thebureaucratic system inherent in govern-ment. Also, due to the sometimesvolatile situation at home, claimants areoften distrustful of government officials.Action Réfugiés Montreal volunteersaim to ensure that claimants are awareof the actions they must take in order tocarry out the claims process, have theinformation needed to contact support(such as a lawyer) and have access toemotional support along the way.

As members of the immigration/refugeeportfolio, we look forward to taking partin the activities of ARM and reporting tothe McGill Law Community in the future.

It hurts me to hear my peers cower andjeer when discussion is raised about im-proving Quebec’s system of legal aid,which has been frozen for years.

I overhear comments about the ineffi-ciencies such a program might create,but which i ask is better, never havingyour voice heard or simply having towait?

Why is the default position to say no tosuch an endeavour, have any of us hereeven been denied access to justice? Iwould venture to say never.

Yet still the opinions I have heard areexpressed with such conviction, speak-ing in the atrium is easy but would yousay the same while standing in herkitchen?

Her being that woman who works fulltime, is a single mother and just hadher legal aid application denied.

The reason she was denied, you wantto know why?

Well she makes much too much money,for her claim to be tried.After all $40 000 can buy quite a bit,such lavish luxuries as a rented roomthat’s heated and lit.

With all that money, legal aid for hershould not even be considered, God-forbid she get that child support moneyshe needs for food, bills and a babysit-ter.

How dare she think that she can cryfreely in our courts, she better go onwelfare before she can do anything ofthe sort.

Because we here have a firm rule, inour provinces our courts are only forthose who’ve attended great schools...

So you’re an immigrant and are beingdiscriminated against by your boss?Well boo hoo for you too, you want your

day in court, start by taking this herecloth.

If you can afford to wake each morningjust after dawn, to clean offices, scrubtoilets, cut lawns and do other thank-less jobs, then surely you can bear costof legal fees worth half your salary andwhich worsen your child’s odds...

Odds that they will one day mount outof poverty’s crushing grip, odds thatcrime and violence won’t be a life intowhich they slip.

Odds that they will make the most oftheir education, odds that they will notfind themselves in a position worse thantheir mother’s situation...

Call this an over-dramatization, say it iswhat you will, then afterwards comewalk with me to the MLIC or to somecommunities not too far from McGill.

After a few conversations you will seethat this is not simply about legal aid,and has something to do with restoringgreater agency and self worth to peoplewho’ve started to see society as beingutterly depraved.

The policy offers an opportunity forgreater engagement of marginalizedvoices, people of the working poor wholike you and me have made some goodand bad choices.

So let us not let our privilege be usedto punish them for the lot that they’vebeen given;

Let’s see beyond the privilege we haveand are going to later live in;

Let’s support Alex Shee as he advocateson our behalf for better legal aid inQuebec.

Because this is less about money andpolitics and more about human dignity,equality and respect.

Legal Aidby Anthony Morgan (LAW I)

MARCH 10TH, 2009

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L’aide juridique au Québec: Un enjeu assez im-portant pour notre Faculté?

by Alexandre Shee, Vice-Président aux affaires externes, AÉD (LAW II)Depuis le début de l’année, je travaille àreprésenter les étudiants et étudiantesde la faculté sur un grand nombre d’en-jeux à travers la province et au sein denotre université. De plus, je me suisdonné le mandat de tisser des liensforts avec les autres facultés de droit duQuébec, tâche négligée depuis bien desannées! J’ai travaillé à bâtir et à ren-forcer nos relations avec elles et j’ai or-ganisé des activités visant à nous uniret à nous rendre plus solidaires. Ces ac-tions ont permis d’établir des liensdurables.

Dans le cadre de mon rôle de vice-président aux affaires externes del’AÉD, j’ai aussi eu à siéger commevotre représentant sur divers comitésdont la Commission des affaires fran-cophones, le Conseil exécutif du Prési-dent de l’SSMU, et le Conseil de l’SSMU.Toutes ces rencontres m’ont permis debien comprendre comment avoir un im-pact et nous ont permis, comme l’AÉD,d’avoir une voix.

Depuis mon arrivée à la Faculté dedroit, je me suis demandé commentlaisser un impact positif sur ma facultéainsi que sur ma communauté (mon-tréalaise, québécoise, canadienne). Jeme suis posé deux simple questions :Comment puis-je avoir un impact positifsur ce monde si les seuls outils dont jedispose sont ma bonne volonté et mavoix? De plus, je me suis demandé :Comme futur avocat, quels devraientêtre mes préoccupations sociales? Puis,je me suis penché sur ma propre ex-périence pour essayer de trouver desréponses.

Je suis né d’une femme intelligente etéduquée, mais peu fortunée, à Los An-geles. Elle m’a élevé seule sans aide.Elle travaillait 16 à 18 heures par jourpour que nous puissions vivre et que jepuisse fréquenter de bonnes écoles.Nous vivions dans un quartier défa-vorisé, où les gens partageaient des sit-uations similaires ou même pires.Beaucoup de femmes et d’hommes de

ce milieu n’avaient ni espoir ni dignité.Le milieu de travail et la stabilité de leurvie de famille étaient régis par la loi duplus fort. Ces gens étaient privés deleurs droits, car ils n’avaient ni accès àl’aide ni connaissance de leurs droits.

Au Québec, nous ne sommes pas auÉtats-Unis. Nous ne sommes pas dansune société qui laisse le marché régir lesystème juridique. De plus, nos valeurssincères prônent l’idée que toute per-sonne doit pouvoir accéder à la justice.Notre société est conçue selon desprincipes d’égalité et selon la croyanceque nous prenons les moyens pour lesatteindre.

L’aide juridique est un outil essentielpour établir une véritable équité et pourdonner une voix à ceux qui vivent dansl’injustice. Mais le système est présente-ment menacé. Comme un professeur l’asi bien dit : « Il faut vivre dans uneboîte afin d’accéder à l’aide juridique auQuébec ». En fait, les seuils d’admissi-bilité ne couvrent même pas les gensqui travaillent au salaire minimum, 40heures par semaine, afin de vivre. Unefemme travaillante et dédiée commema mère n’aurait pas pu accéder à lajustice et aurait pu perdre tout moyende nous faire vivre si elle avait eu àmener une action légale. De plus, lesystème actuel est débordé. Il a besoind’être révisé et amélioré.

L’accès à la justice est un principe fon-damental de notre système judicaire.Un élément qui permet à toute per-sonne de dénoncer des injustices. Maisqu’est-ce qui arrive quand nous n’avonsplus de voix ? Qu’un système devientmonopolisé par les moyens et non parla valeur d’une cause? Au Québec, il n’ya pas eu de réforme concrète de ce sys-tème depuis les années 1970. Récem-ment (2007), il y a eu des réformesminimes qui n’ont pas solutionné leproblème, mais vont dans la bonne di-rection: augmenter l’accès a l’aide ju-ridique.

Présentement, les associations en droitdu Québec ont décidé dans le cadre deLa Confédération des Associations DesÉtudiantes en Droit (CADED) de fairefront commun afin d’améliorer la situa-tion des Québécois et Québécoises quin’ont pas accès à la justice. Voici uneopportunité de dénoncer l’injusticecréée par un système qui ne permetpas aux plus démunis et vulnérablesd’avoir accès à l’aide juridique. Laproposition est à l’effet que le seuil min-imum de l’aide juridique soit fixé sur lesalaire d’une personne travaillant ausalaire minimum 40 heures par se-maine, que l’admissibilité soit déter-minée de façon mensuelle et quel’indexation annuelle soit maintenue.Trois propositions simples afin de faireun premier pas dans la bonne direction.

Il est donc maintenant temps de répon-dre: Est-ce que vous croyez que votreassociation étudiante devrait prendreune position favorable sur cette ques-tion? À vous de décider et de nous direquoi faire. Le lundi 16 mars, vosreprésentants auront à voter sur l’adop-tion de cette proposition. Faites enten-dre votre voix et vos opinions ! Discutezavec vos collègues et décidez si nousdevrions joindre ce mouvement d’étu-diants qui se positionne pour un sys-tème plus juste et plus équitable !

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PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK INTHE FACULTY OF LAWMarch 11-18, 2009

by The Palestinian Human Rights Week Organizing Committee

In the past two months, a lot of Quidarticles and hallway conversations havediscussed the issues of Israel and Pales-tine. However, 500 word articles and 2minute conversations always seem toleave things truncated.

The spotlight has been on Israel andPalestine in the past two months due tothe Israeli military campaign in Gaza,and the resulting humanitarian crisis aswell as an Israeli election which couldhave serious repercussions for an even-tual peace agreement. While some stu-dents in our faculty are tired ofdiscussing the issue, others seem towant to know more, and learn aboutwhat’s going on beyond a cursory intro-duction.

A coalition of student groups has beenmeeting for the past month to planPalestinian Human Rights Week in the

Faculty of Law. Our event schedule isnot finalized yet, but we have plans toinclude:

- A panel featuring an Israeli and aPalestinian speaker discussing humanrights in the region.

- A vernissage and photo exhibit of im-ages from an Israeli photographers' col-lective that document non-violentactivism and resistance to the occupa-tion.

- A movie night

Our goals for the week include contex-tualizing the ongoing human rights vio-lations in Palestine by viewing themthrough the lens of international law.We want the week to focus on Palestin-ian human rights, and we are writingthis open letter in advance of the week

to encourage students or student clubsinterested in helping to organize eventsto contact us atphrw.mcgill@gmail.com. Beyond theevents we've already planned, we areopen to collaboration and hope to shinea spotlight on the human rights viola-tions that the occupation has broughtto Palestinians.

Sincerely,

The Palestinian Human Rights Week Organizing Committee**

**(Note: PHRW has received endorse-ments or contributions from: The ArabLaw Students' Assocation, HumanRights Working Group, Muslim Law Stu-dents' Association, Radical Law Stu-dents' Association, and Young Jews forSocial Justice.)

Putting Human Rights Back in theQuidby The Human Rights Working Group

The Human Rights Working Group hasintroduced a new initiative to encourageMcGill students from across all disci-plines to discuss human rights in one ofthe best independent forums our stu-dent community has – the Faculty ofLaw’s Quid Novi newspaper! Whetheryou think human rights are a sacreddogma or a neo-imperialist imposition,we want to hear your voices. TheHuman Rights Working Group encour-ages submissions pertaining to topicsrelating to any of its portfolios and be-yond. We welcome your thoughts, bothacademic and personal, on issues of in-ternational justice, education,

equity/access, public health, refugeesand immigration, and more. The QuidNovi is a wonderful way to become apublished writer, so let the human rightsdebate begin!

If you have any submissions or ques-tions, please contactsarah.flatto@mail.mcgill.ca oremma.siemiatycki@mail.mcgill.ca.

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DROIT À L’IMAGEby Charlie Feldman (LAW I)

Des étudiants en droit parlent avec des représentants del'Association du Barreau canadien dans l'atrium. Un étudi-ant nous a dit « Les gens du Barreau sont formidable – etla bouffe n'était pasmal ». Le Quid roule ses yeux.

The Quid stumbled upon Skit Nite practice in full swing inthe Moot Court .... Given the recent Oscar success of SlumdogMillionaire, could it be time for a Hollywood vs. Bollywood re-match?

1Ls Catherine Saine, Jessica Syms, and Cassandra Marcotte enjoyhome-made cookies. They may have offered The Quid one… and nowthis photo is here…. Not that we have low journalistic standards, butThe Quid puts the 'quid' in QUID pro quo!

1L Anthony Morgan lors d'un coffeehouse récent.Le Quid demande pourquoi on l'a nommé 'coffee-house' (maison de café?) s'il n'y a pas de café.Même si il y avait de café à coffeehouse, est-ceque cela sera la boisson de choix pour ceux qui ysont? Le Quid le doute…

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This Westlaw romance moment wascaptured during the factumperiod. The Quid hears many 2Lsare experiencing post-factum West-law depression; however, theyshouldn't feel too sorry for Westlaw,which is receiving ample attentionfrom 1Ls writing their legal methmemos.

Les étudiants préparent des matériaux pour une conférence. Avectout ce ficelle, Le Quid commence à chanter « I've got the world on astring – sittin' on a rainbow ». Le NCHD est-il vraiment unarc-en-ciel ou est-ce que le Quid a passé trop de nuits blanches…

1L Chiara Fish buys a cookie gram. Not tomake any comments about the Quid's love ofcookies, but the Quid can't think of a betterwa to spread the love.. or, umm, lard… :-) "Ilove you, now get fat" is the Quid's idea of a*sweet* nothing!

2Ls working on the factum. The Quid heard a lot about thefactum, and wonders if it was all a cover-up. Is it really "No, Ican't, I have the factum" or is this the new way of finding out he'sjust not that into you? Has "working on the factum" become the new"It's not you – it's me?" … The Quid will never know….

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Palestinian Human Rights Weekin the Faculty of Lawby Nour Dib En décembre et janvier derniers, l’of-fensive militaire israélienne sur Gaza acausé la mort de 1440 Palestiniens,dont 431 enfants1. La souffrance dupeuple palestinien ne se réduit mal-heureusement pas à cette récente vi-olence, malgré son atrocité. Lasouffrance du peuple palestinienémane aussi de l’étranglement quoti-dien auquel ce peuple est assujetti àtravers la violation continue de sesdroits les plus élémentaires.

In this context, a coalition of five stu-dent groups – the Human RightsWorking Group, Arab Law StudentsAssociation, Radlaw, Muslim Law Stu-dents Association, and Young Jews forSocial Justice – joined together tohost “Palestinian Human Rights Week”in the Faculty of Law. The week willtake place from Wednesday March11th to Wednesday March 18th, andwill feature three key events: a photoexhibit in the atrium (WednesdayMarch 11th – Wednesday March18th), a panel (Monday March 16th),and a movie screening followed by anopen mike session (Wednesday March18th).

The coalition at the basis of Palestin-ian Human Rights Week consists ofstudents of different backgroundswho are united in their respect for in-ternational law and in their pride inthe Faculty’s long-standing tradition ofhuman rights scholarship. The eventstaking place during the week there-fore adopt the perspective of interna-tional law. We are anchoring ourdiscourse in principles recognized byall nations in the hope that this willencourage students to engage in a ra-tional and respectful dialogue on is-sues raised by our events.

Palestinian Human Rights Week willopen with a photo exhibit featuringthe work of a collective of Israeli andinternational documentary photogra-phers. Selected pictures will focus onhuman rights issues in Israel/Pales-tine, and will be grouped in thematic

sections, each focusing on a violationof international law as stated in theGeneva Conventions. The photo ex-hibit will be officially launched with avernissage in the atrium on Wednes-day March 11th from 12:30-2:30 (uni-versal break). Students attending thevernissage will have the pleasure oflistening to a live Klezmer band, andwill enjoy fresh Arabic coffee andvegan food provided by the MidnightKitchen.

The week’s second event is a panelentitled “Defending Palestinian HumanRights across Borders: an Israeli anda Palestinian Speak” which will takeplace on Monday March 16th at 6:00pm in the Moot Court. The invitedspeakers are Yoana Gonen and SamiAl-Kilani. Yoana is an Israeli activistand journalist, and the currentspokesperson for Hadash (the IsraeliJewish-Arab Socialist Party). She wasalso one of the founders of Kvisa Sh-chora (Black Laundry, Israeli Queersagainst the occupation and for socialchange) in 2001, and has been amember of groups such as the Coali-tion of Women for Just Peace. Yoana’s lecture will cover the historyand social context of the Israeli peaceand social change movement, and willdiscuss the political situation in Israelin the wake of the 2009 elections, in-cluding the collapse of the Zionist left,the rise of the radical right, and thepossibility of a new “Loyalty Law”, tar-geted against Arab citizens of Israel.She will also address the potential roleof Canadians and of the internationalcommunity in the region’s political sit-uation.

Sami Al-Kilani holds a Master’s of So-cial Work from McGill and was aphysics and science education profes-sor at An Najah National University inNablus. He is the director of the UN-ESCO chair on human rights andDemocracy. Mr. Al-Kilani was the co-founder of the Israeli-Palestinian Dia-logue Group in Nablus and WestJerusalem and served as a delegate in

the Middle East Peace Talks, MadridConference in 1991 and WashingtonD.C Bilateral Talks between 1991 and1993.

Mr. Al-Kilani’s lecture will cover thehistory of the non-violent resistanceto the Occupation in Palestine and theeffect of the Occupation on Palestin-ian students’ access to education. Hewill speak about his personal involve-ment in the non-violent struggle, in-cluding how this involvement causedhim to spend time in an Israeli prison.He also has much to share about hislengthy experiences in Palestinian/Is-raeli dialogue and negotiations. Fi-nally, he will draw on his experiencesas professor at the largest Universityin the West Bank to talk about accessto education in Palestine.

Pour clôturer la Semaine des droits del’homme palestiniens, une séance deprojection de film aura lieu le mer-credi 18 mars à 18h00. Le choix dufilm reste à confirmer, mais il s’agiraselon toute probabilité de « EncounterPoint », un documentaire portant surla résistance non-violente à la fois descôtés israélien et palestinien. Tel queson titre laisse entendre, ce film vis-era à promouvoir un esprit de dia-logue. À cet effet, la projection serasuivie d’une période de questions àmicro ouvert. Nous inviterons alors lesassistants à partager leur point de vuesur les questions posées par le film.

Nous espérons vous voir en grandnombre à tous ces événements!

1United Nations Office for the Coordination ofHumanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Field Update onGaza from the Humanitarian Coordinator: 3-5February 2009, available fromhttp://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_gaza_humanitarian_situation_re-port_2009_02_05_english.pdf

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Yes, Virginia, There Is (Paid) Work inHuman Rightsby Stefanie Jones* (ALUM I)

When I was a student, the Quid andother people’s stories about life afterlaw school, especially those confirmingthe existence of human rights jobs, en-couraged me through first year, civil lawbasket-fillers, recruitments, and near-resignation to life as either a profes-sional unpaid intern, or a corporatedoppelgänger. So I decided to respondto HRWG’s call for Quid articles by shar-ing my scenic route to gainful humanrights employment.

The Road Less Travelled

As a “mature” student, having studiedSociology/Anthropology and AsianStudies, I interned at a Thai humanrights NGO, and worked in immigrationconsulting and refugee resettlements. Ialso chose “the road less travelled” asthe theme for my personal statement.Evidently, this presented a more accept-able explanation for my non-linear ca-reer path than my still-held belief that Iwill have a 5-year plan when I have acommunist country.

On the one hand, McGill let me in, buton the other, they imposed a 3-, 3.5-,or 4-year plan. I started first year vac-illating between a 3- and 3.5-year plan,and finished third year with an innova-tive 3-plus-a-summer plan – consistentwith my personal statement, if not arti-cles. However, in first year, I was stillmore interested in human rights intern-ships.

Road Closed – Detour

I applied in first and second year to theMcGill human rights internships, specif-ically Africa and Middle East RefugeeAssistance (AMERA). In first year, I did-n’t even get an interview. In secondyear, I thought my profile screamed“refugee assistance”, but the interview-ing committee heard “Asia”. However, Ialso applied independently to AMERA,and I was fortunate (or persistent)enough to be accepted as one of the

last batch of 3-month summer interns.

Wrong Turn

I came back excited about my summerin Cairo and my refugee legal aid expe-rience, less so about my finances. Re-cruitment was in the air, and I wasseduced by the siren song of New Yorksummer salaries. My inability to conveyenthusiasm in cover letters for anythingbeyond public international law and probono practice nevertheless netted sev-eral interviews. Dear reader, my onlyjudgment of New York law firms is thatwe were not meant for each other:

Interviewer: Why corporate law? WhyNew York?Me: If I should find corporate law inter-esting anywhere, it should be in NewYork.Interviewer: I see you have a public in-terest background – I could see yougoing back to that.Me: Yes, so could I.Interviewer: Do you have any ques-tions?

Me: I see many interviewers are M&Apartners. Do you view hiring as more ofa merger or an acquisition?Interviewer: I view it as more of a blinddate!

All Roads Lead to … Bangkok!

In third year, uninspired by recruitmentor study abroad, I abandoned the 3.5-year plan for a 3-plus-a-summer plan.Although I applied to government, pub-lic interest, and immigration firm arti-cles, I really wanted to work abroad. Icast my resumes upon the internet, anda job offer actually came back after nottoo many days. It had been advertisedon ReliefWeb, one of the few law-re-lated postings for something betweenanother unpaid internship, and a seniormanagement position requiring 5+years progressive experience, a special-ized master’s degree, and specializedlanguage proficiency.Since last August, I have been in

Bangkok as Legal Services Director atAsylum Access, a US-based NGO pro-moting refugee rights in countries offirst asylum through legal aid, policy ad-vocacy, and strategic litigation. In oursecond year of operations, we focus onlegal assistance with UNHCR refugeestatus determination (RSD) in a countrythat has not signed the 1951 RefugeeConvention and does not distinguishbetween refugees and illegal immi-grants.

I expect I was hired not only for myprior Thai human rights and refugeelegal aid experience, but also for mypassion for the cause. The work is fas-cinating, frustrating, rewarding, chal-lenging, and exhausting; the people, asone exile wrote of her homeland, “de-light and infuriate at short and frequentintervals”; and I draw on all my re-sources – anthropology or law, Chineseor French, coffee or Coke – almostevery day. So I got my dream job andI lived happily ever after … but no, thatis not the end.

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Every Day Is a Winding Road

Coming to human rights through law,there remains the small matter of thebar – some bar, any bar. In humanrights, a bar (or, for that matter, a lawdegree) may not be necessary, but thelack of one may not always be suffi-cient. Supervising qualified lawyers, forexample, is an interesting propositionwhen you are straight out of law schooland not one yourself.

My New York recruitment experiencesolidified my resolve to apply only forthings I had a reasonable intention toaccept if offered. Therefore, I thoughtlong and hard when, in January, the De-partment of Justice arose like a phoenixfrom the ashes with an offer of an arti-cling position in … legislative draftingfor Transport Canada?! My first-yearLegal Meth statute drafting exercise hadbeen my first “A” in law school, and Ihad carried on a not-so-secret love af-fair with the cite guide. From policy ad-vocacy to rule of law, legislative draftingseemed promising. But transport?Then the Rohingya boat people story hitthe news, a Muslim minority fromBurma interdicted and turned back tosea by the Thai authorities. Much ofthe legal analysis has rested less onhuman rights or refugee law than thatbane of my existence, the law of thesea. Evidently, there is some relation-ship between human rights and trans-port, certainly in the refugee context.So I am beginning to reconcile myselfto leaving Bangkok for Ottawa this Au-gust … but that is not the end. Do whatyou love, and the money (eventually,even if it still isn’t very much), the bar(eventually, even if it is transport), andwho knows what else will follow!

Here’s to You, Mr. Passatby Benedicte Martin (LAW III)

It was a blustery December morning.The kind you long to spend cocoonedinside of your warm duvet. A chillingwind whistled outside my window. Thestreets were blanketed with snow.Schools were closed, ploughs weren’tyet out. The world seemed to be at astandstill.

But standing still isn’t my forte. Sweptup in pre-exam stress I had mens reato master, the theory of the firm tocomprehend, and a lot of anxiety tospare. So I decided to do what manylaw students do when we can’t take itanymore: I hit the gym and ran off myextra steam. With each stride I feltmore alert, more ready to conquer thedreaded textbooks and massive sum-maries which awaited me.

I remember the moment well. Feelingreinvigorated, I traipsed through thesnow on my way home from the gym,running through the differences be-tween mental disorder and non-mentaldisorder automatism. One minute I wasprancing along happily. The next, I ex-perienced a “whoosh” of my own andfound myself face down on the side-walk.

I had slipped on a patch of ice andcould not get up. Why why why had Ibeen so engrossed in my textbooks thatI couldn’t spare a second to glance atthe Montreal Gazette’s cover page thatmorning?! Its headline was a warningto pedestrians from emergency roomdoctors to be careful on the icy side-walks! It was awful. Blood everywhere,my knee was throbbing, and I couldn’tmove.

Before I even had the time to panic, aman had stopped his car, lifted me upand offered me a ride home. My braintold me that accepting a drive from astranger was a no no, but my aching legtold my brain to keep quiet. Plus I onlylived a few blocks away. He brought me home, I went to theclinic, and had 7 stitches in my knee.Just what every law student needs the

day before she writes 2 consecutiveexams.

But that’s not the point. The point isthis man’s immediate impulse to stophis car and help a complete stranger. Heacted not because he feared liability forfailing at his legal duty to rescue underart. 2 of the Quebec Charter. He actedbecause he had a good heart. And forthis I want to thank him.

I wanted to bake him brownies or buyhim a bottle of wine to tell him howmuch I appreciated his kind act. Whoknows? Without him, I may still be lyingon that Westmount sidewalk today.I’ve ransacked my mind for ideas ontracking him down but to no avail.Hmmm… I don’t know his name, but Ido know he was middle aged, dressedin a black suit, wearing a silver watch,and driving a Volkswagen Jetta. Or wasit a Passat? So, a middle aged man ina suit driving a shiny black car throughWestmount. The odds of finding himare clearly against me.

Honestly, I thought people like this manwere verging on extinction. People whostop spontaneously to help, at rushhour, even when it’s not slotted intotheir blackberries. People who are will-ing to arrive late for their meeting tohelp a complete stranger. This manstepped into my life for a mere halfhour, but he has left me a better per-son. He refreshed my faith in our com-munity. Yes, we speak differentlanguages, come from different back-grounds, and all have places to be. Butwhen you are injured on a sidewalk,know that someone will soon come tohelp you up. Wherever you are Mr. Pas-sat, thank you.

* Stephanie Jones graduated in October2008 and is currently Legal Services Di-rector at Asylum Access Thailand inBangkok. This article is, of course, writ-ten entirely in her personal capacity.She can be contacted atstephanie.jones2@mail.mcgill.ca.

19

MARCH 10TH, 2009

I can justify anything. Like most of mycolleagues, this is not because I am alaw student, but why I am a law stu-dent. While this has always been arather annoying characteristic to myfamily and friends, I believe I can finallyuse it for the good of others. In thecoming weeks I will use this column tohelp my classmates justify different as-pects of our law student life. I will giveyou peace of mind for the shortcuts youtake and the procrastination techniquesyou utilize, all towards the ultimate goalof allowing you to live a guilt freeslacker/ procrastinator law school life.You are welcome in advance.

Justification- using summaries.

In this first week of my column I amjust going to go for the gold. And bygold, I of course mean summaries.They are as valuable to us at that highlysought after precious metal. Nonethe-less, we cannot help but be afflictedwith a nagging sense of shame andslackerdom when we find ourselvescompletely depending upon the hardwork of one of our legendary predeces-sors. But do not worry, I am here tofree you of that shame. Because notonly can I condone the usage of theprêt-à-étudier summary, but I cancommend this phenomena as an inte-gral aspect of our legal training; a skillthat when executed correctly, mirrorsexactly what we will need to do whenwe leave these hallowed halls and ac-tually start receiving paychecks insteadof loan checks.

1. We are learning to triage

Like our med-student colleagues up thehill (who often invade our caf andsnatch prime real estate in Nahum Gel-ber), we law students are learning totriage. For those of you not familiarwith this medical term, let’s turn to ourgood friend Wikipedia for a definition:

Triage is a process of prioritizing pa-

tients based on the severity of theircondition.

Lawyers are a lot like doctors, exceptwe go to school for a semester or twoless, and we don’t save lives, we saveasses. But basically, we’re the same.You have a lot of clients, calling you allat once, all wanting your attention andall wanting your time. How do lawyersdeal with this? Like doctors, theytriage.

Thus this is an important skill for us tolearn in law school. Our days are busy,our readings are plenty, and our sociallives are an endangered species. Weneed to prioritize our responsibilitiesbased upon the “severity of their condi-tion.” Consider your readings to be theold lady that comes in complaining of anagging cough, your paper due tomor-row as the 8 year old that comes in witha broken arm, and your social life the40 year old man in cardiac arrest.You’re students of the commonlaw….you finish the analogy. Sum-maries allow us to triage.

2. We are learning to trust others’ work

This is really part of triaging. Doctorshave to trust nurses, lawyers have totrust paralegals, and law students needto trust classmates. We can’t all doeverything (well some people can, butthey freak me out, and will most likelybe the topic of another column). Wemust be willing to let go. Take thosetype A control-freak personalities andbring it down a notch. Law firms mightnot be like consulting firms where peo-ple sit around conference rooms holdinghands and singing kumbaya, but theyare well oiled chains-of-commandwhere different people do different seg-ments of a deal or case. Consider thesummary author like the first year as-sociate who does the due-diligence(and probably also got an A doing it),and you get to be the partner who goesinto court to argue the case (ie write

the exam). Your summary guilt shouldbe lifting already.

3. We are learning to spot check

The first and only time I ever cheatedon a test was in first grade. I was ahorrible speller. I had no problem acingthose “which one doesn’t fit” tests, andI was even a super-star adder and sub-tractor (though by the time we got tolong division in the third grade my par-ents had already cut MIT from the col-leges I would be applying to). Butspelling…I just couldn’t master spelling.So I devised a plan for the weekly Fri-day spelling test. I studied for the test,but as I back-up, I wrote the words onmy desk on Thursday afternoon. Sureenough when I arrived on Friday morn-ing they had survived the janitor’scleaning, and as I sat there clutchingthat freshly sharpened number 2 pencilI began copying the words off my desk.Then I got to the word “story”…exceptthe word written on my desk actuallyspelled “stoy”….something seemedwrong. But that’s what my cheat sheetsaid. My mind raced…do I trust my in-stincts or the cheat sheet, instincts orcheat sheet? I went with the cheatsheet.

Some people say that everything theyneed to learn they learned in kinder-garten. I’ve always been a little slow,so for me, it was first grade. But be-sides learning that cheaters never pros-per, I also learned to trust thatgod-given checks and balance systemwe call common sense. And this iswhat we have to do with summaries inlaw school and this is what we will do asoverloaded attorneys in the “realworld.” Now don’t get me wrong, I amnot equating summaries to cheating,but what I am saying is- don’t be anidiot! Make your summary shoppingexperience an opportunity to use yourbrain. Spot check. Ideally you havebeen attending class and have somesort of finger to the wind as to what isgoing on in a course. So you should beable to spot the bad apple, the unreli-able summary. And when faced withthe questions- of your brain or your“cheat sheet”- choose your brain. Thisis what we will need to do as lawyers.For the most part we need to trust our

JUSTIFIED.by Abigail Becraft (LAW II)

20

QUID NOVI

colleagues and learn to delegate andtriage (see points 1 and 2), but we arealso learning to develop a keen eye asto what to trust and not to forget ourold friend, common sense, who some-times gets neglected here in CDH.

4. We are learning to get to the point

Before becoming a full time ChancellorDay Hall rat, I had a two year stint as alegal assistant at a law firm. I remem-ber the first research memo a partnerasked me to do. I remember fastidi-ously reviewing all relevant treatises,scholarly articles and peer law firm pub-lications. I produced a thorough reviewof the material, cited all relevantsources, and carefully crafted a 4 pageexplanation of how the particular law inquestion had been applied in differentcontexts over the last five years. Per-fectly formatted and re-read for typosapproximately 37 times, I proudly pre-sented the product of my sweat and toilto the partner as he waved me in whilewriting an e-mail, thumbing throughclient file folders piled on his desk, and

muting the conference call he had onspeaker phone….”what do you got forme?” he asked…I handed him mon oeu-vre. He looks me straight in the eye-“kid, I don’t need a book report, I justwant to know- yes or no?” - “Oh…well, Yes” - “Why?”- “Well, I guess because X,Y and Z lawfirm are doing that.” - “Great, thanks. Good job.”

With that the partner swirled his chairaround back to his computer screen,un-muted the conference call andslipped my four pages, four days ofwork and four cancelled dinner datesinto one of those client files, never tobe seen again. I could have given himthat answer in the first 4 minutes.

What does this have to do with sum-maries? At the end of the day, what weneed to know is the ratio, not the obiter.Sure, we will have the occasional op-portunity on an exam to wax propheticabout Happy-Dubé’s most recent dis-sent, and our classroom discussions are

enriched by debates about the perspec-tives of different judges and the societalimplications of a particular decision.But when it comes to the final, and youhave 15 minutes left and you are onlyhalf way through the fact pattern, whatare you looking for? The ratio. Just likemy boss who was on a conference call,writing an e-mail and researching clientfiles simultaneously, you won’t havetime for a book report.

For those of you who will try to poke ahole in the argument saying that thepoint is to go through all the materialmyself and create a succinct studyguide based upon my extensive readingand thoughtful pondering…please seepoints 1 through 3.

Using summaries made by someoneelse?

Justified.

(So I better be seeing you at coffeehouse this week. I’ll be doing a sweepof the library at 5pm).

21

10 MARS 2009

So, I’m not usually very political (Iknow, I know, I was the Law Senator,but I didn’t do nearly as good a job asErica and Faizel). But some things justreally make me mad and I feel the needto express it. As part of the budget, theConservative government has ear-marked a bunch of new money forSSHRC grants. Sounds great, right?Well, apparently they will be restrictedto business grads, which I think is in-sane.

I found out about this through themagic of facebook. Here’s what thegroup “Stop the feds from earmark-ing SSHRC funds for businessgrads only!” found athttp://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48502692549 had to say:

“The Canadian government has placeda very nasty and apparently ideologicalcondition on temporary funding in-creases for graduate studies in the artsand social sciences in its 2009 budget.

NSRC (science) and CIHR (health) bothget more new funds than SSHRC, themain funding body for graduate studiesin arts, humanities and social sciences.That's understandable, given the highercosts of research in science and health.However, the additional SSHRC fundingis to be made available only to businessstudents.

In fact, although I hope this is onlyclumsy wording, it looks like the Con-servatives are demanding that ALLscholarships provided by SSHRC be forbusiness-related degrees only. …Here is the offending passage from"Further Developing a Highly SkilledWorkforce":

"Budget 2009 builds on investmentsmade in the previous two budgets byproviding an additional $87.5 millionover three years, starting in 2009–10,to the federal granting councils. Thisfunding will temporarily expand the

Canada Graduate Scholarships pro-gram, which supports Canada’s topgraduate students. This includes $35million for each of the Natural Sciencesand Engineering Research Council ofCanada and the Canadian Institutes ofHealth Research, and $17.5 million forthe Social Sciences and Humanities Re-search Council. These funds will providefor an additional 500 doctoral scholar-ships, valued at $35,000 each per yearfor three years beginning in 2009–10,and an additional 1,000 master’s schol-arships, valued at $17,500 each for oneyear, in both 2009–10 and 2010–11.Scholarships granted by the Social Sci-ences and Humanities Research Councilwill be focused on business-related de-grees."”

The problem with this, as I see it, is theimplication that Humanities and SocialSciences are less worthy of fundingthan other domains. I think this is an in-sidious attitude that could really dosome harm. Knowledge is important,and there are many worthy areas ofstudy that are not strictly speaking“practical”. I think we’d all agree thatcancer research should get lots of fund-ing, but as a society it is also importantto fund the people studying the effectsof culture on attitudes towards women,or the history of the Irish immigrantsto Montreal, say. This kind of researchcan enrich our lives, and should be seenas a worthy pursuit, not relegated tosecond-class. Furthermore, it is ar-guable that research in business-relateddomains has more access to privatefunding sources. It is precisely thosescholarly pursuits that aren’t as “sexy”or whatever that should get our fund-ing.

Finally, the problem is also that beingan academic sucks. One of my bestfriends was in school with me, and wegraduated from undergrad at the sametime. During my two years off and myfour years of law school, she has com-pleted a Masters and is set to completeher Phd at about the time I will finishhere (May). She is doing really interest-ing and important work on genocideand genocide victims. However, unlikeme, she has no job after graduation.She has no idea where she will be ableto work if she finds a position. Whenshe does get a job, she is likely to earn

a fraction of what I will earn. And this ispretty normal for academics. Can youimagine if most people graduating fromlaw didn’t actually get a job? Therewould be riots. I am not saying that allof our tax money should go and supportacademics because life is tough forthem, but I do feel, given the valuablework they do, that they should be rec-ognized, and not made to feel secondor third class through the restriction offunds to other disciplines.

So what to do? The Facebook page haslots of suggestions of people to contact,but I would start by writing to your MPand encouraging them to take this upas an issue. Spread the word, andmaybe the issue will reach such a tip-ping point that the government willback down, like with the cuts to artsand culture. Most of all, keep your eyesout for these stories. The internet is awonderful tool that can bring things topeople’s attention that otherwise mightjust slip by. We have a voice, so weshould use it.

22

The Soapboxby Alison Glaser (LAW IV)

QUID NOVI

Computer Corner: If you are doing “this” in Microsoft Word, there IS a better way – part 4 by Narimane Nabahi (LAW III)

Wildcard search (and replace)

Goal: You realize that you haven’t been

consistent and sometimes forgot to put a

space between the article number and

“C.C.Q.” For example, imagine your text

reads: “Article 1 C.C.Q. mentions civil

rights, and so does art. 4C.C.Q.” Imagine

you have done that mistake multiple times.

How do you add the missing spaces

throughout your document?

Manual method: You start searching for

C.C.Q. in your document and manually add

a space. Alternatively, you do a search and

replace of “C.C.Q.” to “ C.C.Q.” but accept

or reject changes individually.

Solution: In Word, you can do something

called wildcard searches. It allows you to

enter more complex search strings. Bring

up the Find/Replace dialog box, and click on the Find tab. Click on “Use Wildcards”. Click on the “Special”

dropdown. You will notice that you can search for all sorts of items. Let me just give you a few ideas of

what you could search for:

Search string What it would match What it would not match

C.C.Q. Every occurrence of “C.C.Q.” none

[! ]C.C.Q. (Note the space

between ! and ])

Every occurrence of C.C.Q.

that is not preceded by a

space, such as “4C.C.Q.”,

“aC.C.Q.” or “°C.C.Q.”

“ C.C.Q.” (Note the space

before the quote (“) and the

“C.C.Q.”)

[! ^s]C.C.Q. (Note the space

between the ! and the ^)

(This is example is shown in

the screenshot).

Every occurrence of C.C.Q.

that is not preceded by a

space or a nonbreaking

space, such as “4C.C.Q.”,

“aC.C.Q.”

“ C.C.Q.” or “°C.C.Q.” (Note

the space before the first

“C.C.Q.” and note the

nonbreaking space before

the second “C.C.Q.”

[0-9]C.C.Q. Every occurrence of C.C.Q.

that is preceded by a digit

between 0 to 9, such as

“ C.C.Q.”, “°C.C.Q.” or

“bC.C.Q.” (Note the space

before the first “C.C.Q.” and

23

MARCH 10TH, 2009

“4C.C.Q.” or “2000C.C.Q.” note the nonbreaking space

before the second “C.C.Q.”

As you can see, these can become quite complex but can be tweaked to deal with many situations. This

function can be particularly useful when you are merging two documents written by two different people.

If you think this is too complicated, you should at least try to see what type of “Special” items you can look

for when “use wildcards” is not selected. The list is different but also useful. For example, the last search

listed in the previous table (“[0-9]C.C.Q.”) can be achieved without the “use wildcards” option by using this

search string (without the quotes): “^#C.C.Q.”. This means “find any C.C.Q. that is precedent by a digit.”

Another interesting way to search is to search for formatting. For example, you can search for text that is

italicized or bold. This can be helpful when you know the format of something you are trying to search. To

find those options, click on “Format” instead of “Special” in the Find dialog box.

Note: I am skipping the question of replacing using this technique because even though it is quite powerful,

it is also quite complex. Just in case you wonder how I would have really solved the first problem, I would

have searched for “([! ^s])C.C.Q.” and replaced that with “\1^sC.C.Q.”. Remember that in this context,

“^s” represents a nonbreaking space.

Let me briefly explained what this all means. I added parenthesis around “[! ^s]” to tell Word this is my first

grouping. This is useful because when I want to replace the search string, I want to keep what was

matched by “[! ^s]”. If you don’t do this, Word will remove the character matched by that element. My

“4C.C.Q” would be replaced by “ C.C.Q.”. The “4” would be deleted. By putting the first element in

parenthesis, I can reuse it in my replace string. This is what I do here. I added “\1” to the front of my

replace string to tell Word to re-add the first element matched. This way, the digit “4” in “4C.C.Q.” would be

reproduced in the replace string, thereby yielding “4 C.C.Q.”. I am amazed you made it that far. You can

email me to collect the ten thousand dollars prize.

More information on wildcards: http://word.mvps.org/faQs/General/UsingWildcards.htm

You can find this column with hyperlinks online at www.twistlaw.ca. If you have any questions,

suggestions for future columns, or if you want to collect the ten thousand dollars prize, email me at

Narimane.nabahi [A...T] mail.mcgill.ca.

24

QUID NOVI

In the last years of the Bush adminis-tration we kept hearing that Iran wasup to no good. That we had to watchout and not be shy to intervene if itwas necessary. During the 2008 presi-dential election candidates were asked“how they will deal with Iran.” Ofcourse, the general answer orbitedaround “we will use force if we need

to, and chances are we won’t talk tothem before dropping bombs on them.” Of course, Obama had a morestylish approach that differed from theother candidates. But it was all rather irrelevant. The real global threat isPakistan. In fact, since the departureof General/President Musharraf, Pak-

istan accelerated its fall down the rab-bit hole.

(continued on page 27)

The Sum of All Fears: No, not Iran, it’sPakistan. by Alex Buzoiu (LAW III)

I Personal Computers in the Class-room

A new phenomenon has surreptitiouslyinvaded law schools in the last five toten years: the reliance of many stu-dents on the law books, law articles andeven texts of statutes and legislationfound online, rather than on the shelvesof the Law Library.

(“Online”, incidentally, would seem tobe replacing such terms as “the web”and “www” in modern computer jar-gon).

Students attend lectures in law schoolas before, but most students today takenotes on their laptops, i.e. their per-sonal computers. The result is deemedto produce and probably does producemore effective classroom notes andclassroom learning. The methodology iseven effective in law courses builtaround discussion, debate and studentpresentations, because professors nowlecture in the classroom from films,“PowerPoint” and similar software.

Recently, I was surprised that that twoof my students, during a private tutorialI had with them, had neither a pen nora pencil, but were satisfied to takenotes on their lap tops, which they dideffectively. Neither carried either a penor pencil with them during the day!

II The Emergence of The Virtual Li-brary

The personal computer (laptop) in theclassroom or in the Law Faculty libraryor when the student studies at homehas been made possible by a most im-portant scientific development (call it aninvention, if you will), and that is thevirtual library. Now undergraduate stu-dents, graduate students and profes-sors alike, do much of their research onthe web and not in the books on thelaw library shelves. This is true as wellin respect of much legal research donein law firms and in corporate law de-partments and even by the public in

general.

The virtual library requires no books orlibrary building or extensive staff. Thecost of operating a virtual library is thusa fraction of operating a real library.

III Specialized Virtual LibrariesHave Emerged

Specialized virtual libraries have beencreated by specialized groups, NGOs,churches, industry, business, profes-sional and charitable organizations andpublic and private foundations, etc.Population increases and the new liter-ate and leisure classes have made theweb available to an expanded clientele.Most important, the cost of owning, op-erating and using the virtual librarymakes it very popular to all groups inmodern society and at all levels of edu-cation and wealth. .

IV A Catalogue of Some Virtual Li-braries (A Virtual Library of VirtualLibraries)

With a little research in my virtual li-brary, I was able to find innumerableVirtual Libraries. Those Virtual Librariesmost familiar to law students include: • Quicklaw:http://www.lexisnexis.ca/lawschools/facultes.php?section=quicklaw• AZIMUT: www.azimut.soquij.qc.ca• WestlaweCarswell: www.westlawe-carswell.com• Droit civQil en-ligne :http://www.editionsyvonblais.qc.ca/Produits/589.asp.• HeinOnline:www.caij.qc.ca/pages/apropos/heinonline• JSTOR: www.jstor.org.

But there are many many more virtuallibraries, herewith a tiny sampling:

•Bored.com:http://www.fullbooks.com/ - for thosewho need a cheap thrill!• The Online Books Page: http://on-

linebooks.library.upenn.edu/lists.html• Classic Book Library: http://classic-book.info/• LibriVox: http://librivox.org/ - To lis-ten rather than read the book.• FullBooks.ca: http://www.full-books.com/• Read Print:http://www.readprint.com/ - list of fullclassic books.• The Literature Network:http://www.online-literature.com/au-thor_index.php - From Adams to Zola.• International Children’s Library:http://en.childrenslibrary.org/ - for theyoung ones.

V Unfortunate Defects in Virtual Li-braries

Unfortunately virtual libraries have nopermanence and are modified daily oreven oftener. They can be subject, aswell, to attacks by professional thieves,meddlers and ne’er do wells.

VI The Future of Virtual Libraries

The long term future of virtual librariesis unknown, and in the short term (oneto three years) is dependent on the al-most daily advances in science and inthe accumulation of knowledge anddata, including its organization, presen-tation and cataloguing.

And is there a limit imposed by man’sinterest in knowledge? Could there bea slowing down in research? Couldthere be a slowing down in the study ofmaterial matters, to be replaced by anew direction and interest in non-mate-rial questions, such as ethics, belief andGod?

The Catholic philosopher AlasdairMcIntyre sees this happening onlywhen society ultimately breaks down inthe far, far distant future into smallmoral communities. McIntyre believesthese communities will be able to resistthe attractions and blandishments ofthe internet and material knowledge asthey have evolved by then.For the present, the internet and thelaptop have caught us in their webcausing us to be willing devotees andbeneficiaries of the Virtual Library. And

THE VIRTUAL LIBRARYby Professor Tetley

25

10 MARS 2009

then there is the Virtual Museum, butthat is another story!

VII A Personal Commentary

I started out as a law student at McGillin 1948 when there were no personalcomputers in the Faculty or elsewhere.After eighteen years in law practice, andeight years in the Quebec government,I came to McGill in 1976 to teach andeven then there were no personal com-puters, used by the professors or stu-

dents. The secretarial staff worked oncomputers but we continued in the oldway.

Now however, the teaching and studyof law have been completely trans-formed by the internet and the personalcomputer. Now I work on a computer inthe office, while, at home, I work with-out a computer, but with my familiar,old fashioned books and legal texts.The compromise therefore is a happylife, with the web in the office and with-out it at home.

Most of my classmates from highschool (sixty years ago) and from uni-versity (in the 1950’s), have kept upwith the web. We are all in our eighties,however, and soon our generation willhave gone.

Thereafter, a happy, productive lifewithout a computer will be a thing ofhistory! Plus ça change, plus c’estpareil!

26

Just before the break, Disability & the Law hosted its major event of the year, a panel discussion onthe Ottawa Convention to Ban Antipersonnel Landmines. We were joined by Cameron McCauley, ahealth specialist from Survivor Corps who works with landmine survivors from all over the world;Christa McMillin, a program officer for Mines Action Canada, an NGO which helped to bring the Ot-tawa Convention to the forefront of the Canadian diplomatic agenda in the 1990s; and Anne Wood-bridge, the Mine Action Director for the Canadian International Development Agency. The threespeakers provided different perspectives and levels of analyses and generated an interesting discus-sion on the plight of persons with disabilities around the world.

Disability & the Law would like to thank our co-hosts, the Human Rights Working Group and theMcGill International Law Society, as well as our sponsors: the Law Students’ Association, the Stu-dents’ Society of McGill University, the Campus Life Fund, QPIRG and the McGill Alumni Associationfor their generous support. We would also like to thank our attendants, ranging from law students tomembers of the wider McGill community.

For comments or questions about Disability & the Law please contact us:disability.law@mail.mcgill.ca.

Landmines Panel Discussion

QUID NOVI

27

(continued from page 24)

Statistics behind the threat (CIAWorld Fact Book)

Name: Islamic Republic of Pakistan(meaning of Pakistan: Land of (the)Pure, in Urdu and Farsi. Population: 172, 800, 048

Age structure:- 0-14 years: 37.8% - 15-64 years: 58% - 65 years and over: 4.2% - Median age: 20.5 years Unemployment: 7.4% PLUS sub-stantial underemployment (this wasestimated in 2008; economists saythat the next quarter numbers willshow some considerable increase).Literacy: Total population 49.9%

Male 63% Female 36%

General economic state: An impov-erished and underdeveloped country,has suffered from decades of internalpolitical disputes, low levels of foreigninvestment, and declining exportsof manufactures. Due to the economic underperfor-mance, Pakistan has a chronic diffi-culty in providing its population withavailable healthcare, sanitation, em-ployment programs, and help for thepoor. Border issues: Pakistan is one of theparties involved in reaching a solutionover the world’s largest and most mili-tarized territorial dispute: Kashmir.Furthermore, it has an incrediblyporous border with Afghanistan. Nuclear Weapon(s): Oh yeah baby:estimated at 60 active warheads.

In short: what makes it “the”threat?

Since the assassination of BenazirBhutto, Pakistan is excessively unsta-ble. Taliban-like groups are gainingpower, support, and weapons. Thepopulation suffers, and always hasbeen suffering, from relatively high, tosometimes very high, unemploymentrates and underemployment. The pop-ulation is very young. A significantpart is illiterate. Thus, you have abunch of young people with a lot oftime on their hands. You know whatthey say: “idle hands are the devil’stools.”

Add to this the fact that the Pakistanistate never did a great job at provid-ing the basic necessities of life to mostof the population, and thus Mosquesand Madrasas stepped in. Do not mis-understand me; Madrasas are not abad thing. They are schools andschools are good. But some Madrasasand even Mosques are infected withpeople that pervert the Qu’ran and in-doctrinate these young idle peoplewith dangerous ideas (this also appliesto Saudi Arabia). People come to theseinstitutions for food, comfort, andknowledge, and don’t realize thatsome of these institutions are in factmodeling them into weapons.

Moreover, Pakistan – contrary to other“dangerous” countries – has nuclearweapons AND the means by which itcan launch them. Finally, it never re-ally got along with its geographicaland historical neighbour, India.

All the latter are hardcore proven

facts. I could add to this a wave ofspeculation by intelligence agencies asto the ties between Pakistani nuclearscientists and Taliban in the Pashtuntribal areas or the speculation thatPakistani military officers will be givingnuclear weapons to Iran. I prefer,however, not to venture down the slip-pery slope of speculation.

What should have been done?

Rather than focusing on the real prob-lem after 9/11 – the Afghan Taliban –and trying to contain and “get them”before they permeated even furtherinto Pakistan, there was an unneces-sary war (Iraq). Even now rather thanfocusing on Pakistan, the Americanmedia and most politicians are fanta-sizing about Iran.

The focus should have never shifted,but George had a short attentionspan. But hey, what can you expectfrom a Yale/Harvard graduate?

Furthermore, George, with his MBA,should have known that protectionismdoes not help, it hurts. Rather thanproviding Pakistan’s textile exportswith access to American markets,George decided to bend to the Ameri-can textile lobby; I guess he hadshares. This is one of the key factsthat played into the hands of the radi-cals. The Pakistani economy neverpicked up, thus misery and unemploy-ment remained. All we have is thehope that Barack Obama does a betterjob keeping focused on the real issues.But keep in mind: he graduated fromHarvard too, so who knows?

MARCH 10TH, 2009

(In the Picture) The Ghauri Hatf-5 MRBM capable carry-ing nuclear/chemical/anti-thank warhead: estimatedrange from 1500 km (first models) - 4000 km (the newones under development).

VALEDICTORIAN ELECTION/ ÉLECTIONDU MAJOR DE PROMOTION

QUID NOVI

Valedictorian Election

To all 3rd and 4th year students graduating in May 2009!! (To the others: hang on in there, your time will come sooner thanyou think!)

The election of the valedictorian (you know, the student who’s going to make a speech full of wit, emotion and depth infront of his/her professors, fellow-students and a room packed of tearful moms and Kodak dads) will take place from March19 to March 25.

So if you think the class of 2009 deserves a taste of your Obamanian rhetoric, please submit your application to the CRO:cro.law@mail.mcgill.ca

All you need to do is send the CRO your blurb (maximum length: half a letter-sized page) explaining why you’ll make thebest valedictorian ever. Your blurb will be published in the Quid before the election. You may include a picture of yourself inyour blurb, but please restrict your campaigning to your blurb (so no posters, Facebook groups, etc.)!

The deadline to send your application is March 11, 2009.

Élection du major de promotion

Oyé, oyé, étudiants en 3ème et 4ème année!!!

Si vous finissez vos études en mai 2009, ce message s’adresse à vous (et si vous ne finissez pas, eh bien, patience, ça vavenir!).

L’élection du major de promotion (vous savez, le type ou la fille qui fait un discours full spirituel et émotionnant devant sesprofs, ses camarades de classe et un parterre de mômans larmoyantes et de pôpas armés de caméras) se tiendra du 19 au25 mars prochain.

Aussi, si vous vous sentez l’âme rhétorique d’un Obama, soumettez votre candidature pour être élu major de promotion auCRO : cro.law@mail.mcgill.ca

Tout ce que vous devez envoyer au CRO, c’est un court texte (maximum une demi-page 8,5 X 11) expliquant pourquoi vousferez le meilleur major de promotion. Votre texte sera publié dans le Quid, juste avant l’élection. Vous pouvez inclure unephoto de vous-même dans votre texte de présentation, mais SVP limitez votre campagne à votre texte (donc pas d’affiches,de groupes Facebook, etc.)!

La date limite pour se porter candidat est le 11 mars 2009.