An upcoming half-day workshop on media suppression will look at issues of libel, digital rights and legal recourse for the torture, kidnapping and murder of journalists.
The workshop, divided into two parts – livelihood and life – with four panels, will take place on Tuesday, March 16, from 9am to 1pm, in W132 Seymour Schulich Building, Keele campus. The Workshop on Media Suppression is presented by the IP Osgoode Intellectual Property Law & Technology Program and the Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security,
Professor Giuseppina D'Agostino (right), director of IP Osgoode, will chair the first half of the workshop, consisting of two panels on livelihood. The first panel, from 9:30 to 10:15am, will look at freelance authors and digital rights contracts, copyright class actions, labour relations mechanisms and Status of the Artist legislation. The panel is comprised of Kirk Baert, a partner at Koskie Minsky LLP; Sandy Crawley, executive director of the Professional Writers Association of Canada; and Wendy Matheson, a partner at Torys LLP.
The second panel will run from 10:15 to 11am. Authors and journalists Elaine Dewar and Heather Robertson, as well as Paul Schabas, a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, will discuss libel chill, the responsible communication test, libel tourism and their own experiences with defamation law.
Professor François Tanguay-Renaud (left) of York's Osgoode Hall Law School, will chair the second half of the workshop on life. The third panel will discuss the role of Internet giants in totalitarian states, online censorship, the cyberspace arms race, government surveillance of citizens and corporate social responsibility, from 11 to 11:45am. The panellists are University of Toronto political science Professor Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, and criminology Professor Stéphane Leman-Langlois, Canada Research Chair in Surveillance and the Social Construction of Risk at the Université Laval.
The final panel will address the legal recourse for the torture, kidnapping and murder of journalists, from 11:45am to 12:30pm. Jayne Stoyles, executive director of the Canadian Centre for International Justice and Ashoka Canada Fellow , and John Terry, a partner at Torys LLP, will also address the doctrine of state immunity.
This event is free of charge. Everyone is welcome to attend.
RSVPs are not necessary, but appreciated. RSVP to iposgoode@osgoode.yorku.ca.
For more information, visit the IP Osgoode Web site or the Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security Web site.