Call for Papers Deadline

Call for Conference Papers

Charter Litigation and the Use of Social Science Evidence:
After thirty years what have we learned? What could we do better?

University of Toronto, St. George Campus – March 23& 24, 2012

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights invites papers for its upcoming conference. This multi-disciplinary event will create opportunities for dialogue between social scientists, academics, students, and litigators on the use of social science evidence in Charter litigation.

The Centre invites papers that stimulate and develop an ongoing dialogue on the approaches to the use of social science evidence. The goal is to foster inter-disciplinary understanding and collaboration in addressing social science evidence in Charter litigation. Key themes include:

• Analysis and evaluation of the categories of social science evidence in Charter litigation
• The processes of gathering and presenting social science evidence in Charter litigation
• Historical perspectives
• The tensions between the disciplines of social science and law as arise in the context of litigation
• The persuasive value of social science evidence, its limits, and its admissibility

Other conference themes may include such issues as the ethics of building the social science case; choosing and preparing expert witnesses; social science evidence as a vehicle for legal change; and judicial approaches to hearing and analyzing social science evidence. In particular, the conference is designed to stimulate a dialogue that highlights the approaches of various disciplines to the use of social science evidence in order to develop an inter-disciplinary understanding and collaboration.

The papers will be utilized as the central theme on various inter-disciplinary panels across the two-day conference and selected conference papers will be considered for publication as part of a special journal issue or as chapters in a book to be published with a reputable academic publisher.

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is a centre within the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law devoted to advocacy, research and education in the areas of constitutional rights in Canada. For more information about the Centre go to www.aspercentre.ca.

For those interested in participating, please send an abstract (max: 250 words) of your intended paper to: Cheryl Milne at cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca

Deadline for Submissions: October 25, 2011