Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars

Expert in election law is one of six from U of T named to Royal Society of Canada's college for emerging scholars

noreen.rasbach — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 17:40:28 +0000

Expert in election law is one of six from U of T named to Royal Society of Canada's college for emerging scholars

noreen.rasbach Tue, 09/11/2018 - 13:40

Cutline

Yasmin Dawood says the position in the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists “is a tremendous honour” that will give her the opportunity to collaborate with a cross-section of scholars in the field

Mary Gooderham

Topic

City & Culture

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Law

Global

Humanities

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Research & Innovation

Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars

U of T Scarborough

Democracy is under threat in many places globally, from the suppression of voting rights and influence of money in political campaigns to the collapse of longstanding democratic institutions.

For Yasmin Dawood, a leading scholar of election law from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, this puts Canada’s own challenges and successes in electoral fairness and democratic governance in sharp focus.

“There is considerable concern about the fate and future of democracy around the world, and we have a role to play in questioning what's happening and looking for solutions,” says Dawood, the Canada Research Chair in Democracy, Constitutionalism and Electoral Law.

She is one of six emerging scholars at U of T named this year as members of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. (See a list of recipients below.)

The college, which was established in 2014, recognizes and fosters leadership and interdisciplinary collaboration among Canada’s new generation of scholars, artists and scientists who received their PhD within the last 15 years. To date, 26 U of T scholars have been named to the college. Membership extends for seven years.

“The University of Toronto is proud of our six new members joining the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists,” says Vivek Goel, U of T's vice-president of research and innovation. “We are grateful that the Royal Society is recognizing their work in a broad range of fields and the impact of their research in society. We look forward to seeing their new collaborations and exciting research."

Dawood, whose pioneering research and public engagement have influenced policy formation and public debate in the areas of election law, electoral integrity and the protection of democracy, says the position in the college “is a tremendous honour” that will give her the opportunity to collaborate with a cross-section of scholars in the field.

“It allows us to think together about problems that are facing the country and the world,” she says. “Belonging to this college will provide a fundamental opportunity to participate in broader conversations about these questions.”

Dawood would also like to contribute to the college, mentoring young scholars and participating in networks that address themes such as diversity, inclusion and belonging. “As a woman, visible minority and religious minority, I know first-hand how important it is to have mentors in order to do one’s best work.”

She became interested in election law as a political science undergraduate at U of T, studying constitutional law, political theory and elections. She continued to look at the issues while doing a law degree at Columbia University in New York and a PhD at the University of Chicago’s department of political science. Her dissertation was on the U.S. Supreme Court’s election law decisions. She spent two years in the U of T’s Centre for Ethics as a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council postdoctoral researcher, and in 2009 joined the Faculty of Law. She is now an associate professor who is cross-appointed to the department of political science.

Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of establishing a healthy democracy, she says, noting that nations around the world “have succumbed to democratic erosion.” Dawood focuses on innovative legal solutions for safeguarding electoral fairness, strengthening democratic governance and counteracting systemic obstacles like partisan bias.

Her current research is a project that looks to see how courts adjudicate in conflicts that arise in election laws, comparing different countries to see how they have dealt with the issue.
Dawood says revised voter identification laws that make it more difficult to cast ballots “interest me as a scholar and also as a citizen,” and she is eager to explore them further through the college.

“I think this appointment will provide an enriched and diverse venue and set of interlocutors on this question that I’m really looking forward to engaging,” she says. “I see it as a wonderful opportunity to deal with questions that face Canada and the world.”

Dawood has published and spoken nationally and internationally on electoral fairness and has organized events on the topic. For example, in response to the previous Conservative federal government’s Fair Elections Act, she co-drafted open letters, organized a public forum in the Faculty of Law and testified before the House of Commons committee.

She argued that the Act amounted to partisan entrenchment and would impair voting rights and political participation. She commented that the government had fast-tracked the bill and used its majority power to cut off debate and discussion, a departure from a long-standing political practice in which electoral reforms were undertaken through widespread consultation with opposing political parties, Elections Canada, citizens and experts.

“It’s crucially important that these questions are accessible and transparent; that’s what democracy is about,” she says, noting that social media provides a platform for engagement on political issues but can also be abused to manipulate people. “There’s both promise and peril.”

She says that Canada is in a good place today compared with the rest of the world in terms of electoral fairness, “but I don’t think that we can be complacent. We have to constantly be vigilant to make sure that rules don’t lead to inaccessibility, because then inequality creeps in.” Campaign finance reform is especially critical so that people with means do not have undue influence over elections and the electoral process, which is not good for democratic functioning, she says. “It’s important to establish a level playing field.”

Other jurisdictions are interested in our success, says Dawood. “There are valuable lessons in terms of how Canada has remained stable and the electoral system has remained fair,” she says, adding that the country can act as a model for how the courts and other institutions deal with conflicts surrounding elections and electoral law.

The U of T scholars joining Dawood as new members of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists are:

Katherine Larson, associate professor and chair of the department of English at U of T Scarborough
Sally Lindsay, associate professor in the department of occupational science and occupational therapy in the Faculty of Medicine, and senior scientist with the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital
Alison McGuigan, associate professor in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
Sean Mills, associate professor in the department of history in the Faculty of Arts & Science
Jennifer Stinson, associate professor in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and a nurse clinician scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children.

Read about the U of T scholars named to the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2017

Read about the U of T scholars named to the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2016

Islamic law expert among six U of T scholars named to Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists

rasbachn — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 04:00:00 +0000

Islamic law expert among six U of T scholars named to Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists

rasbachn Tue, 09/12/2017 - 00:00

Jennifer Robinson

Author legacy

Jennifer Robinson

Topic

Global Lens

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Medicine

Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars

Artists and Scientists

You may think medieval texts on Islamic law have no relevance in the 21^st century.

In fact, international child custody cases today are often entangled in modern statutes that draw upon that historical tradition, and which are insulated by a technical legal claim of “jurisdiction” – something Muslim jurists wrestled with in the classical period of Islamic law (circa ninth to 14^th centuries), as empires expanded trade routes and clashed over territory and competing world views.

Those legal traditions, insulated by claims of jurisdiction, are why children are so difficult to get back when a parent takes them to certain Muslim majority countries, explained Professor Anver Emon, a leading scholar of Islamic law from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law.

Today, he and five other emerging scholars at the University of Toronto have been named as members of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. (See the full list of recipients below.)

“Being inducted as a member is an honour. It means a lot to know that my colleagues see value in the scholarship that I’ve done,” said Emon (pictured left), who is also the Canada Research Chair in Religion, Pluralism and the Rule of Law.

Three years ago, the society decided it needed to create a special college to recognize and foster scholarly leadership and interdisciplinary collaboration among Canada’s “new” generation of scholars, artists and scientists who have received their PhD within the last 15 years.

“The University of Toronto is proud of our six new members joining the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. They represent some of our most exciting up and coming researchers in a variety of critically important fields in the sciences and humanities,” said Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president of research and innovation.

Emon, a father of two young children who moved to Canada from the United States a few years ago, said it’s “so unexpected and reinvigorating” as a legal historian to receive the honour, especially since we’re “living in a post-fact world” filled with recent disheartening news, from the Trump travel ban and the violent white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville to the rise of the anti-Muslim "Three Percent" chapter in Alberta.

“This recognition by the Royal Society of Canada shows that knowledge matters, scholarship matters. In a world where we can limit people’s movements across borders, it’s important to remember that we can’t limit the movement of ideas, whether across space or time,” he said.

In addition to his teaching at the Faculty of Law, Emon has acted as a consultant for the federal government on Islamic law and private international law in child custody cases involving the Muslim world. Several high-profile Canadian cases demonstrate how difficult these negotiations can be, such as the ongoing Alison Azer saga.

Muslim majority states can invoke their commitment to Shariah to justify why they refuse to accede to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, Emon said. But as his research shows, jurisdiction lies at the heart of both the convention and the diplomatic gap between signatories and non-signatories to the 1980 Abduction Convention.

The multilateral treaty seeks to “protect children internationally from the harmful effects of their wrongful removal or retention and to establish procedures to ensure their prompt return to the State of their habitual residence, as well as to secure protection for rights of access.”

Muslim-majority states are concerned the treaty violates Shariah-based rules on child custody. For many of these countries, such rules inform domestic statutes on family or what is often called personal status law, Emon said.

“Medieval Muslim jurists saw the world through as a duality [split into] Muslim and non-Muslim regions,” he explained. “They saw the [issue of jurisdiction] as a zero sum game. Either we won’t take jurisdiction, or we’ll take it and judge it according to our domestic laws, namely Shariah. To them, there was no law outside the Muslim world.”

This position, he said, draws on a similar, exceptional world view that informed U.S. legal policy toward China. From the late 19^th century into the early 20^th, the U.S. administered the Federal District Court of Shanghai, which served to legally protect the interests of American financiers and traders operating in the region. At that time, Americans believed China had no law.

The goal of Emon's research is to find a way forward to overcome the current political stalemate. In recent years other holdouts such as Japan, which was a “black hole” for many years in parental child abduction cases, has now acceded to the 1980 Abduction Convention, as have Morocco and Iraq.

Joining Emon as a member of the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists are:

Professor Kelly Metcalfe, Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Professor Kevin Lewis O’Neill, department for the study of religion, Faculty of Arts & Science

Associate Professor Cheryl Suzack, department of English, Faculty of Arts & Science
Professor George Yousef, department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology, Faculty of Medicine and St. Michael's Hospital

Professor Wei Yu, Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical & computer engineering, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

In addition to being named a member, Emon is also the recipient of the Kitty Newman Memorial Award awarded by the Royal Society of Canada for outstanding contributions from an emerging scholar in the field of philosophy.

He is joined by University Professor Mark Lautens, of the department of chemistry, who is the recipient of this year’s Henry Marshall Tory Medal, which is awarded once every two years for outstanding research in any branch of astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, physics, or an allied science.