Organizers
Sharryn Aiken
Sharry Aiken is an Associate Professor in the faculty of law at Queen's University. She is the editor in chief of Refuge, Canada's Periodical on Refugees and is a past president of the Canadian Council for Refugees. Her current research interests include refugee law and its intersection with the national security agenda post 9/11 as well as minority rights. In 2007 she was awarded a SSHRC standard research grant for her project, Refugee Diasporas, "Homeland" Conflicts and the Impact of the Post-9/11 Security Paradigm. She is also involved in two larger collaborative projects funded by SSHRC, The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting and A Canadian refugee research network: globalizing knowledge. She has been a visiting lecturer at both the Hebrew University and the American University in Cairo, where she has taught courses on International Refugee Law. In 2000–2001 she was the Canadian Recipient of a Rabin Fellowship, and affiliated with the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University.
Susan Drummond
Professor Susan Drummond teaches civil law, comparative law, and family law at Osgoode Hall Law School. She has a doctorate in law from McGill University’s Institute of Comparative Law, a graduate law degree (DEA) in legal theory from the University of Aix-Marseille, and a civil and common law degree from McGill University. Her areas of scholarship include comparative law, legal anthropology, and international and comparative family law. She has published two books, both based on extensive fieldwork. The first (Incorporating the Familiar – Investigating Legal Sensibilities in Nunavik) is a study of the interaction between Inuit and Canadian criminal law sensibilities, focused on Northern Quebec. The second (Mapping Marriage Law in Spanish Gitano Communities) is an ethnography of the historical and contemporary interactions between state-based, Gitano, and Roman Catholic family law. She is currently engaged in a long-term research project focused on mixed marriages within the mixed legal jurisdiction of Israel/Palestine, an enterprise also empirically rooted in fieldwork. She has published several articles and book chapters emerging out of this research.
Mazen Masri
Mazen Masri is currently a Ph.D candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School where he is also an instructor. Prior to resuming graduate studies at Osgoode, Mazen served as legal advisor to the Negotiations Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). He holds a Bachelor of Law degree (LLB) from the Hebrew University and a Master of Law degree (LLM) from the University of Toronto and has worked in the legal field in both Israel and the West Bank. His current research interests include Israeli constitutional law and international law. Mazen is also a member of the Israeli Bar Association.
Bruce Ryder
Bruce Ryder is an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University where he has taught since 1987 after clerking for Justice Gerald Le Dain of the Supreme Court of Canada 5 of 12 (1984-85), and after receiving an LL.M. from Columbia University (1987) and an LL.B. from the University of Toronto (1984). His teaching and research focuses on a range of constitutional law issues – related to federalism, religious freedom, freedom of expression, and equality rights - from a Canadian and comparative perspective. He is co-chair of Osgoode Hall's annual Constitutional Cases Conference. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal (1997-2000), Director of the Centre for Public Law and Public Policy (2004-2007), and Treasurer of the Canadian Law and Society Association (1999-2008). He has taught courses in Public Law, Constitutional Law, Canadian Federalism, Torts, Sexuality and the Law, Equality Rights, and Freedom of Expression. He worked closely with the Law Commission of Canada on the preparation of their report Beyond Conjugality: Recognizing and Supporting Close Personal Adult Relationships (2001). Recent publications include "The Canadian Conception of Equal Religious Citizenship" in Richard Moon ed., Religion and Citizenship (UBC Press, 2008); ―The End of Umpire? Federalism and Judicial Restraint, (2006) 34 S.C.L.R. (2d); ―State Neutrality and Freedom of Conscience and Religion, (2005) 29 S.C.L.R. (2d) 169; ―What Is Law Good For? An Empirical Review of Equality Rights Decisions, (2004) 24 S.C.L.R. (2d) 103.
