Law and Society
Founding editor: W. Wesley Pue
The Law and Society Series explores law as a socially embedded phenomenon. It is premised on the understanding that the conventional division of law from society creates false dichotomies in thinking, scholarship, educational practice, and social life. Books in the series treat law and society as mutually constitutive and seek to bridge scholarship emerging from interdisciplinary engagement of law with disciplines such as politics, social theory, history, political economy, and gender studies.
Uncertain Accommodation
Aboriginal Identity and Group Rights in the Supreme Court of Canada
A bold analysis of what happened when Canada attempted to extend group rights to Aboriginal people in the early 1980s and why it went wrong.
Lawyers’ Empire
Legal Professions and Cultural Authority, 1780-1950
In approaching the history of the legal professions through the lens of cultural history, Wes Pue locates the legal profession within England and its empire, supplementing and disrupting established narratives of professionalism as proffered by lawyers and their critics.
Parole in Canada
Gender and Diversity in the Federal System
Parole in Canada explores how concerns about aboriginality, gender, and the multicultural ideal of “diversity” have altered parole policy and practice – and asks whether these changes go far enough.
Fragile Settlements
Aboriginal Peoples, Law, and Resistance in South-West Australia and Prairie Canada
Fragile Settlements compares the historical processes through which British colonial authority was asserted over Indigenous people in southwest Australia and prairie Canada from the 1830s to the early twentieth century.
In Search of the Ethical Lawyer
Stories from the Canadian Legal Profession
Delving into some of the most challenging issues to confront legal professionals, this book raises important questions about what it means to be an ethical lawyer in Canada.
Cleaner, Greener, Healthier
A Prescription for Stronger Canadian Environmental Laws and Policies
David R. Boyd reveals striking weaknesses in Canadian environmental law, describes the damage these flaws are wreaking on human health, and identifies practical, proven, and affordable solutions to these problems.
Putting the State on Trial
The Policing of Protest during the G20 Summit
Not only were peaceful protestors and innocent bystanders assaulted by police during the G20 Summit in Toronto in June 2010, but the constitutional rights of Canadians were as well. This book contextualizes the events and examines what should be done to safeguard the rights of Canadians to freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention in the future.
Paths to the Bench
The Judicial Appointment Process in Manitoba, 1870-1950
A close study of the judges appointed in early 20th-century Manitoba, revealing Canada’s highly political judicial appointment process.
The Strategic Constitution
Understanding Canadian Power in the World
Bridging the solitudes of constitutional law and international relations, this book offers a brand new interpretation of Canada’s Constitution.
Equality Deferred
Sex Discrimination and British Columbia’s Human Rights State, 1953-84
A history of human rights law in Canada, with a focus on sex discrimination in British Columbia.
Defending Battered Women on Trial
Lessons from the Transcripts
Drawing on trial transcripts, this book tells the stories of ten battered women who killed their male partners and one who did not, revealing why women don’t “just leave” and the serious barriers to achieving acquittal.
To Right Historical Wrongs
Race, Gender, and Sentencing in Canada
A bold questioning of culture-based reparative justice initiatives – the political culture that inspired them and their efficacy in an age in which historically marginalized people are disproportionately represented in Canadian prisons.
“Don’t Be So Gay!”
Queers, Bullying, and Making Schools Safe
Queer students speak out in a book that seeks to address the problem of homophobic bullying in schools.
On the Outside
From Lengthy Imprisonment to Lasting Freedom
Drawing on the narratives of men who have served lengthy prison sentences, this book illuminates the tumultuous journey from life in a penitentiary to success in the community.
Unjust by Design
Canada’s Administrative Justice System
This book describes a Canadian administrative justice system in transcendent need of fundamental structural reform and provides a detailed blueprint for change.
Governing from the Bench
The Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Role
Governing from the Bench is a comprehensive and illuminating examination of the Supreme Court of Canada that draws on in-depth interviews to reveal the inner workings of this often-misunderstood institution at the heart of Canada’s justice system.
Aboriginal Justice and the Charter
Realizing a Culturally Sensitive Interpretation of Legal Rights
This book explores the tension between Aboriginal justice methods and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while searching for practical ways to implement Aboriginal justice.
Hunger, Horses, and Government Men
Criminal Law on the Aboriginal Plains, 1870-1905
Tells the complex story of the relationship between Plains Indians and Canadian criminal law as it took root in their land.
Still Dying for a Living
Corporate Criminal Liability after the Westray Mine Disaster
Still Dying for a Living investigates the state’s (in)ability to develop effective legal strategies for holding corporations accountable for serious injury and death in the workplace.
The Right to a Healthy Environment
Revitalizing Canada's Constitution
Renowned environmental lawyer David R. Boyd argues that Canada must constitutionalize environmental rights and responsibilities if it hopes to improve its environmental record.
International Trade Law and Domestic Policy
Canada, the United States, and the WTO
An innovative assessment of the extent to which international judicial bodies influence domestic law and policy arrangements.
City of Order
Crime and Society in Halifax, 1918-35
A groundbreaking exploration of the causes and consequences of Halifax’s tough-on-crime measures in the interwar era.
The Environmental Rights Revolution
A Global Study of Constitutions, Human Rights, and the Environment
David Boyd shows that recognition of the right to a healthy environment is not only growing, it is having a profound influence on public policy and environmental protection.
Troubling Sex
Towards a Legal Theory of Sexual Integrity
Focusing on the Supreme Court of Canada, Craig attempts to overcome the constraints of theoretical frameworks and disciplinary boundaries by pursuing a more inclusive theory of law and sexuality.
Being Relational
Reflections on Relational Theory and Health Law
This groundbreaking collection explores relational theory and how it can be brought to bear on practical areas of concern in health law and policy.
Conflict in Caledonia
Aboriginal Land Rights and the Rule of Law
A powerful account of how land disputes reflect complex and often competing understandings of law, landscape, and identity among First Nations and non-Aboriginal people in Canada.
Ghost Dancing with Colonialism
Decolonization and Indigenous Rights at the Supreme Court of Canada
Drawing on history, international law, and recent decision-making in the Supreme Court, this book seeks the truth behind allegations that Canadian law continues to colonize Indigenous peoples.
Westward Bound
Sex, Violence, the Law, and the Making of a Settler Society
Through the study of hundreds of criminal cases, Westward Bound explores how encounters between the courts and ordinary people on the Canadian Prairies contributed to the construction of race, class, and gender hierarchies in a settler society.
The Freedom of Security
Governing Canada in the Age of Counter-Terrorism
A trenchant exploration of how security and counter-terrorism practices are not only eroding civil liberties, but reshaping the very nature of our political freedom.
Transforming Law's Family
The Legal Recognition of Planned Lesbian Motherhood
Drawing on the rarely heard voices of Canada’s lesbian mothers, Transforming Law’s Family explores the legal dimensions of planned lesbian parenthood and proposes avenues for legal change.
Critical Criminology in Canada
New Voices, New Directions
A new generation of critical criminologists examines the future of criminology and criminal justice in Canada.
In Defence of Principles
NGOs and Human Rights in Canada
This exploration of the activities of four Canadian NGOs in advancing and defending human rights principles sheds new light on the fragility and resilience of human rights norms in liberal democracies.
The Politics of Acknowledgement
Truth Commissions in Uganda and Haiti
This book examines the failure of truth commissions in Uganda and Haiti and develops a rigorous framework to evaluate truth commissions around the world.
Constructing Crime
Contemporary Processes of Criminalization
Five unique case studies reveal how crime is being constructed and enforced in contemporary Canada.
Aboriginal Title and Indigenous Peoples
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
Offers a perspective on Aboriginal title and land rights that extends beyond national borders and the contemporary context to consider historical developments in common law countries.
Constitutional Politics in Canada after the Charter
Liberalism, Communitarianism, and Systemism
The first systematic analysis of general theories about Canada’s post-Charter constitutional evolution.
Contested Constitutionalism
Reflections on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Contested Constitutionalism is a critique of Canadian democracy, judicial power, and the place of Quebec and Aboriginal peoples within the federation, all of which have been altered by the Charter’s introduction in 1982.
A Perilous Imbalance
The Globalization of Canadian Law and Governance
Tackles the pressing question of how Canadian engagement with globalization can be marshaled to advance rather than impair human security, ecological integrity, and social emancipation.
Justice Bertha Wilson
One Woman’s Difference
This timely, evocative book showcases Bertha Wilson’s contributions to the Canadian legal landscape and explores the issues that this controversial personality grappled with in her life and career.
Feminized Justice
The Toronto Women’s Court, 1913-34
Drawing on case files and newspapers accounts of women’s confrontations with the law in the Toronto Women’s Police Court, Feminized Justice offers a multifaceted portrait of women, crime, and courts in early twentieth-century Toronto.