May 13, 2020 | Updated June 25, 2020
Letter: The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Pivot Legal Society and the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, joined by more than 160 organizations, call on key ministers in the federal government to immediately decriminalize the possession of illicit drugs in response to the twin crises of opioid overdoses and the COVID-19 pandemic.
June 8, 2020
Coalition Letter: endorsed by the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, and Philando Castile and over 600 rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union and U.S. Human Rights Network, demanded the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) swiftly convene a special session to investigate the escalating situation of police violence and repression of protests in the United States.
Subsequently, the UNHRC held an Urgent Debate on “the current racially inspired human rights violations, systemic racism, police brutality and the violence against peaceful protests” on June 17, 2020, which resulted in this Resolution.
May 14, 2020
Press Release by International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR) and 30+ partner organizations. This release includes information on all three of their calls to action, which are also linked below:
Statement to Governments
Statement to the Business Community
Statement to the Investor Community
May 6, 2020
Letter: 40+ organizations call for Pan American Silver to respect the rights of the Xinka people and refrain from exerting influence over the people and government of Guatemala, despite having long-term members of its executive team serving the current administration.
May 4, 2020
Letter: Earth Rights International and 100 other organizations urgently implore Daniel Andrés Palacios Martínez, Director of the Colombian National Protection Unit to guarantee human rights, environmental, and land defenders are protected in the context of the current social, economic, and health emergency.
Tuesday, August 18, 2020 12PM EDT
Register on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_l5OIO1fuTAmSJvdI1nPyZg
Registration is Free. Recommended donation is $20.
Please send donations to Jur-Ed Foundation @ https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/jur-ed-foundation/ Donations will be applied toward legal education (including covering the costs of this webinar) and homelessness advocacy.
Lawyers who attend may use this webinar as one substantive hour towards their Continuing Professional Development requirements.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Join Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights, Jur-Ed Foundation, and the Law Union of Ontario for a one hour webinar discussing the impact of COVID19 on homeless populations in Canada and what is being done to hold governments accountable for pandemic-related human rights violations.
Leilani Farha, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, will discuss the recently developed National Protocol for Homeless Encampments in Canada and its potential to encourage governments to move away from criminalization and forced evictions and towards meaningful engagement with encampment residents as rights holders.
Sanctuary Ministries’ outreach worker, Greg Cook and Goldblatt Partners lawyer, Jessica Orkin will discuss the recent lawsuit filed against the City of Toronto by a coalition of public interest groups demanding appropriate distancing and sanitation standards in shelters and a swifter, broader plan to relocate residents to vacant hotels and alternative housing.
Together these speakers and moderator Jesse Gutman, host of Jur-Ed and CLAIHR Board member, will explain the disproportionate impact of COVID19 on already vulnerable homeless people and the need for stable, long-term, and affordable housing solutions moving forward.
See below for more information on our panelists and moderator.
Leilani Farha
Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing (June 2014 – April 2020)
Leilani brought a dynamic energy to the role of UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing; energy she will need to reach her goal of prompting and facilitating an international paradigm shift in how housing is approached.
During her time as Special Rapporteur, Leilani presented reports to the UN on homelessness, the connection between the right to housing and the right to life, and the financialization of housing. She has traveled on official missions to Serbia and Kosovo, India and most recently to Chile, amongst others, to investigate and comment on the state of the right to housing.
In addition to her requisite work, Leilani has used her platform to start The Shift, a global movement to reclaim and realize the right to housing, which calls for everyone to approach housing as a human right, not a commodity.
A lawyer by training, Leilani assumed the role of Special Rapporteur in 2014, but she has been tirelessly advocating for the realization of the right to housing throughout her career. She is the current executive director of the NGO Canada Without Poverty.
In her previous role as Executive Director of the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation, she was instrumental in launching a historic challenge to government inaction in the face of rising homelessness.
She has been a member of the Advisory Group on Forced Evictions for UN Habitat, and was a founding member of ESCR-Net, an international network of actors committed to economic, social and cultural rights.
Greg Cook
Outreach Worker, Sanctuary Ministries
Greg Cook is an Outreach Worker at Sanctuary Ministries in Toronto. Sanctuary is a healthy, welcoming community in which people who are poor and excluded are particularly valued. Sanctuary was the named plaintiff organization in the recent civil claim injunction against the City of Toronto to maintain proper social distancing in the Municipal shelter system.
Jessica Orkin
Partner, Goldblatt Partners
Jessica Orkin has a broad litigation practice including criminal, civil and administrative law matters, with an emphasis on constitutional, human rights, Aboriginal rights and access to information law matters.
Jessica appears at all levels of court, including the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada. She is also a frequent speaker at legal conferences and seminars. She has been named in Best Lawyers as a leading aboriginal law practitioner.
Jessica received her law degree from the University of Toronto. She also holds an M.Phil. degree in Development Studies from the University of Oxford, and a bachelor of arts and sciences from McMaster University. She was called to the Ontario Bar in 2006, after clerking at the Federal Court of Appeal.
Jesse Isaac Gutman
President, Jur-Ed Foundation and Board Member, CLAIHR
Jesse Gutman is a 2013 call Union-side Labour lawyer in Toronto, practicing in English and French. He is the President of the Jur-Ed Foundation and the host/producer of its podcast of the same name. Jesse was previously a high school teacher in Quebec and is a part-time Klezmer musician. He is passionate about human rights and international solidarity.
Join Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights and the OBA Foundation for Canadian Responses to the Syrian Refugee Crisis: Reflections on the First Year, a panel discussion and reception.
Date: Thursday, November 24, 2016
Time: 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Location: Ontario Bar Association, 20 Toronto Street, Toronto
Register here.
Speakers include:
Mario Calla, Executive Director, COSTI Immigrant Services
Mario J. Calla, BA, MSW, has been the Executive Director of COSTI Immigrant Services since 1987. COSTI is a community service agency that has been providing a broad range of services to immigrants and refugees in the greater Toronto area for the past 64 years. It provides educational, social, and employment services to help all immigrants in the Toronto area attain self-sufficiency in Canadian society. COSTI has been active in working to help bring and settle Syrian refugees.
Louis Century, Goldblatt Partners
Louis Century is an Associate at Goldblatt Partners has has helped the firm to privately sponsor a Syrian refugee family. Before joining the firm, he clerked for Justice Richard Wagner at the Supreme Court of Canada. Louis has held positions at the International Criminal Court working for a defence team, at the Canadian Council for Refugees as a research fellow, and at the Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights working on constitutional appeals. Louis has also conducted refugee status determinations for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Nairobi. Louis has also recently joined an advisory group that will be exploring next steps for the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program.
Jacqueline Swaisland, Waldman & Associates
Jacqueline Swaisland is an immigration lawyer and a co-founder and the Toronto coordinator of the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program, a national program that trains lawyers to assist groups to privately sponsor refugees. The organization has trained over 1300 lawyers in 11 cities who are committed to assisting sponsor groups to fill out private sponsorship applications for refugees for free. In recognition of her outstanding work with refugees, she was recognized with a CARLA award by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.
Moderator: Marco Oved
Marco Chown Oved is a reporter on the Star’s foreign desk, with a focus on Europe and Africa. Oved joined the Star’s city desk in 2012, covering everything from crime to politics, but has taken particular interest in stories involving abuse of power and corruption. Before joining the Star, Oved was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and worked for Radio France Internationale in Paris.
In 2014, Oved was named the R. James Travers international corresponding fellow and traveled to Burkina Faso, Ghana and Peru to investigate the links between Canadian foreign aid and mining. The resulting articles were nominated for a Canadian Association of Journalists investigative award.
Join CLAIHR and Nightwood Theatre at the Tarragon Theatre on April 29, 2016 for an evening performance of Refuge, followed by a discussion about the play and Canada’s refugee system with CLAIHR’s Juda Strawczynski and Heather Cohen, and Refuge’s director Kelly Thornton.
Tickets can be purchased here.
By Petra Molnar and Stephanie J Silverman
The migrants’ rights community was rocked by two recent deaths in the Toronto area at two separate immigration detention facilities. These deaths have been shrouded in secrecy and few details have emerged other than brief biographical sketches of the deceased. What we have learned is that the first man was found unconscious and not breathing in his cell in the Toronto East Detention Centre after an apparent suicide. Guards at the Maplehurst Correctional Facility in Milton found the second man six days later in his cell with no vital signs. Both men were awaiting deportation from Canada. An official total of 14 detainees have died while in the custody of Canadian immigration officials since 2000.
By Andreina Minicozzi
March 8 is International Women’s Day, first recognized in August 1910 at the International Women’s Conference in Denmark. It was proposed by German socialists, Luise Zeits and Clara Zetkin, who sought to acknowledge women workers in America and Europe.[1] The objective of this annual event was to combat violence against vulnerable women and children and to recognize women’s struggles by forming alliances among them both domestically and internationally.[2] Today, International Women’s Day not only celebrates the actions of women throughout history, but also acts as a time of reflection.
