University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series最新文献

{"title":"The OECD Multilateral Tax Instrument: A Model for Reforming the International Investment Regime?","authors":"Wolfgang Alschner","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3311256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3311256","url":null,"abstract":"The international tax and investment regimes display striking similarities. They are both based on thousands of bilateral treaties that follow similar principles but differ in fine print. They each facilitate the free flow of international capital by respectively disciplining fiscal and regulatory host state conduct. Finally, they share common historical foundations and have experienced similar periods of rapid diffusion and deep contestation. Yet, while the international tax regime recently accomplished a sweeping reform to solve a decades-old legitimacy crisis, the investment regime is still grappling with its own legitimacy crisis and reform. In 2018, the multilateral tax instrument (MLI) entered into force updating thousands of bilateral taxation treaties to curb tax avoidance and prevent treaty abuse. The MLI preserves the existing bilateral tax governance structure while adding new multilateral elements, efficiently modernizes outdated bilateral agreements in both substance and procedure, and sets binding minimum standards while giving states the flexibility to contract out of and around its other provisions. This article argues that the multilateral tax reform, specifically its (1) legal mechanics, (2) scope, and (3) design, provides a creative template of how to square bilateralism with multilateralism and can thus serve as inspiration for current efforts to reform the international investment regime.","PeriodicalId":253519,"journal":{"name":"University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122271349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Open Data and Privacy","authors":"T. Scassa","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3255581","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3255581","url":null,"abstract":"Privacy concerns are increasingly at the forefront of debates about data. As a result, there has been a growing focus on privacy issues in advocacy and work on open data. This paper provides a review of privacy issues in open data, taking into account the shifting economic context for the exploitation of data in big data analytics and AI technologies. \u0000Privacy rights are complex, and are not absolute. There is often a balance to strike between transparency and privacy when government information about individuals is involved. This paper examines this balance and argues that striking this balance requires training and resources, and combined commitments to both respecting privacy and advancing openness.","PeriodicalId":253519,"journal":{"name":"University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127012748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Canada's Security & Intelligence Community after 9/11: Key Challenges and Conundrums","authors":"Craig Forcese","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2839622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2839622","url":null,"abstract":"The Canadian security & intelligence community’s historical development and scope reflect the country’s relatively favourable geopolitical circumstances. Since 9/11, anti-terrorism has been the country’s clear security priority, possibly to the point of ignoring other critical issues. Because responses to terrorism involve both criminal law and intelligence-led preemptive activities, Canada’s chief police and intelligence agencies now overlap in their investigations to a considerable degree, creating conundrums for both operations and accountability. This article traces the impact of these developments on the Canadian management of national security, and the institutional design of Canada’s S&I community and accountability mechanisms. It concludes with a series of questions Canadian policy makers must ponder in deciding how best to address Canada’s operational and accountability national security challenges.","PeriodicalId":253519,"journal":{"name":"University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128115855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Organizational Form and Financial Stability: Lessons from Cooperative Banks in the US and UK","authors":"Michael Marin","doi":"10.4337/9781786432858.00019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786432858.00019","url":null,"abstract":"One of the important lessons of the Global Financial Crisis is that cooperative banks proved considerably more resilient than corporate ones. Many observers have noted that cooperative banks were less prone to the risky practices that led to the Crisis, and attributed this to their organizational structure, which seemingly creates less incentive for profit-maximization. This paper investigates these observations from a legal perspective. It analyzes the governing laws of cooperative banks in the US and UK in order to explain how they may influence financial stability. In doing so, the paper points out that many of the post-Crisis reforms are already embedded in the governance structure of cooperative banks. Specifically, cooperative banks in both countries face internal limits on growth and investment. More importantly, the cooperative model includes various disciplinary mechanisms to ensure that management acts in the best interests of the firm’s customers, who have little interest in profits. These include clear statutory purposes, democratic governance, fiduciary duties, strict conflict of interest rules, independent oversight committees, and restrictions on compensation. Most of these features go much further and address the profit motive more directly than the post-Crisis reforms.","PeriodicalId":253519,"journal":{"name":"University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125295158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Breeding Apples for Oranges: Africa's Misplaced Priority Over Plant Breeders' Rights","authors":"Chidi Oguamanam","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2553363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2553363","url":null,"abstract":"In 2000, African countries expressed reservation over the adoption of UPOV Act of 1991 as a model of plant breeders’ rights (PBRs) for TRIPS-compliance. For the continent, an acceptable system of PBRs protection would include the protection of the rights of communities and associated indigenous knowledge, innovations, technologies and farming practices. One and half decades after, Africa has virtually reversed itself and embraced the UPOV-PBRs system notwithstanding the latter's narrow focus on breeders and marginal reference to farmers. This Article critically explores the concerted sites of pressures, especially free trade and economic partnership agreements, and related policies through which Africa appears to have capitulated and upturned its policy position on PBRs. The continent's present priority over the implementation of PBRs through various regional and national legal initiatives currently at the instance of African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI), the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), the Southern African Economic Community (SADC) and specific country initiatives are explored. The article highlights the basis for the incongruity of Africa's newfound interest in the UPOV-PBRs system—a regime not designed for the farmer-centered tenor of African agriculture. It calls attention to the continued relevance of Africa's 2000 Model Law, especially as it applies to PBRs and recommends reality assessment as an important step toward the formulation of IPRs system suited for stakeholders in African agriculture for the continent's food security and food sovereignty.","PeriodicalId":253519,"journal":{"name":"University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121819443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Finding Order in Calgary's Cash Corner: Using Legal Pluralism to Craft Legal Remedies for Conflicts Involving Marginalized Persons in Public Spaces","authors":"J. Liew","doi":"10.29173/alr25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.29173/alr25","url":null,"abstract":"Conflicts over how to use public space have been met with legal responses that often have exclusionary effects on marginalized persons in the community. This article will situate the conversation within the case study of day labourers congregating in a public block in downtown Calgary. Using insights from legal pluralism and findings from secondary ethnographic research on informal economies, the article will show that marginalized persons who gather in public spaces do not necessarily exist randomly or engage in chaotic or deviant behaviour. Rather, order can and does exist amongst marginalized communities in public spaces in the ways that they abide by common rules and norms, and in the ways that they adapt to existing legal restrictions. The article argues that by recognizing order in these marginalized spaces, in fashioning remedies, courts can move away from a competing rights approach to focus on more consultative and flexible remedies. The article proposes one example, by using section 24 of the Charter to craft remedies that may more properly solve the question of how do we all share public space?","PeriodicalId":253519,"journal":{"name":"University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131140513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Are Independent Directors Effective Corporate Monitors? – An Analysis of the Empirical Evidence in the USA and Canada","authors":"B. Lai","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2781671","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2781671","url":null,"abstract":"This thesis explores whether independent directors in the USA and Canada are effective in holding management accountable by: (1) analyzing how the policy of relying on independent directors developed and operates; (2) introducing the main theoretical critiques of independent directors’ monitoring effect; and (3) examining whether empirical studies in the field of management science and financial economics support the policy in both countries of relying on independent directors as corporate monitors. Empirical evidence shows that boards with a majority of independent directors, in some circumstances, were associated with better firm performance (in the post-SOX period) and fulfilled certain board tasks effectively in the United States. Canadian studies, however, have not shown a positive association with improved firm performance. Audit committees composed entirely of independent directors have been effective in ensuring the quality of financial reporting in the United States, but this effect has not been found in Canada. Compensation committees composed fully of independent directors neither constrained the level of executive compensation nor tied CEO pay to firm performance in either country. US firms with an audit committee member who had accounting expertise, rather than financial analysis or supervisory expertise, were associated with a higher quality of financial reporting, while Canadian firms with an audit committee member who has financial expertise, instead of financial literacy, were associated with a similar effect. Studies also showed that independent directors perform better in certain circumstances. Based on empirical evidence, US regulators should consider: (1) changing the current mandatory requirements for an independent board and a completely independent compensation committee to a comply-or-explain requirement; (2) narrowing the qualification of a financial expert to an individual who has accounting expertise; and (3) recruiting independent directors who have two or fewer outside directorships, hold more of the corporation’s shares, have lower cost of acquiring corporate information, and have no social connections with the CEO. In Canada, weak evidence of the monitoring effectiveness of independent directors supports the existing comply-or-explain approach. Canadian regulators may only need to require or recommend that at least one audit committee member has financial expertise, instead of only financial literacy.","PeriodicalId":253519,"journal":{"name":"University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132467865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Purposive Interpretation, Quebec, and the Supreme Court Act","authors":"M. Plaxton, Carissima Mathen","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2346326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2346326","url":null,"abstract":"In this brief paper, we examine the interpretive problem raised by Justice Nadon’s appointment. Because Binnie’s interpretation of sections 5 and 6 is one of the only discussions of this issue, and is likely to infl uence any subsequent legal analysis, we take his opinion as a starting point.","PeriodicalId":253519,"journal":{"name":"University of Ottawa Faculty of Law Legal Studies Working Paper Series","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116766609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}