Public and Private International Law Research Group
The Public and Private International Law (PPIL) Research Group was founded in 2018 to foster collaboration, debate, and engagement on international law at Western Law. The Research Group draws on Western Law’s faculty strength in international law, including members with expertise across both Public International Law and Private International Law. In doing so, it provides a unique platform for scholarly engagement both within these areas of law as well as between them. The PPIL Research Group will serve as the hub for international law events and international law scholarship at Western Law. The Group’s members work on a wide range of issues, spanning international human rights law, international trade law, private international law, international labour law, international criminal law, the history and theory of international law, and beyond.
Research Group Directors
- Ryan Liss (Co-Director): Public International Law, International Criminal Law, International Human Rights Law, and International Humanitarian Law
- Valerie Oosterveld (Co-Director): International Criminal Law (including sexual and gender-based crimes) and Transitional Justice
Research Group Members
- Bassem Awad (visiting member): International Intellectual Property, International Trade Law, Data Governance and Disruptive Technologies (Artificial Intelligence and Big Data)
- Colin Campbell (visiting member): International Taxation and Treaties
- Chi Carmody: Public International Law, International Trade Law, Legal Theory and International Organizations
- Francesco Ducci: Competition / Antitrust Law and Policy, Economic and Social Regulation, International Trade Law, and Law and Economics
- Jennifer Farrell: International Taxation and Treaties
- Sara Ghebremusse: Responsible Mining and Sustainability; Transnational Mining Law and Governance; International Human Rights Law (particularly as it relates to Indigenous peoples and local communities affected by mining); International Law and Development
- Shimelis Kene (visiting member): Public International law, International Human Rights Law, International Criminal Law, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), Law and society, Postcolonial Theory
- Nadia Lambek: International Law and Social Movements (International Law "from Below"), Critical Approaches to International Law, Public International Law, International Human Rights Law, International Labour Law
- Joanna Langille: Private International Law, International Trade Law, International Law Theory
- Michael Lynk: International Labour Law, International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law
- Margaret Martin: International Criminal Law, and International Law Theory
- Stephen Pitel: Private International Law
- Akis Psygkas: Comparative Public Law, EU Law, Global Governance
- Joanna Quinn: Transitional Justice; Customary Law; Restorative Justice
- Jeffrey Warnock: International Human Rights Law (particularly as it pertains to Indigenous peoples) and The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Past International Law and Global Justice Lectures
- February 27, 2024: Fifth Annual International Law and Global Justice Lecture, delivered by David Kennedy on “International Law and Global Justice?”
- March 6, 2023: Fourth Annual International Law and Global Justice Lecture, delivered by Leila Sadat on “The Pivotal Role of Crimes Against Humanity Law in Atrocity Prevention”
- November 9, 2021: Third Annual International Law and Global Justice Lecture, delivered by Chile Eboe-Osuji on “Immunity before International Courts: How There Never Was”
- November 6, 2020: International Law and Global Justice Lecture, Payam Akhavan (Massey College; University of Toronto; Permanent Court of Arbitration), "Justice for Genocide: Reflections on the World Court Rohingya Case"
- November 11, 2019: International Law and Global Justice Lecture, Jutta Brunnée (University of Toronto Faculty of Law), "International Law in the Age of Populism"
Other Past Events
- March 8, 2024: “Australian War Crime Prosecutions,” Melanie O'Brien (University of Western Australia)
- March 21, 2023: “International Courts and the War in Ukraine,” Valerie Oosterveld (Western Law) and Ryan Liss (Western Law) (co-organized with the Western International Law Association)
- February 13, 2023: Workshop on “Informers, Collaborators, and Settling Accounts: Tales from Repressive Times,” with Mark Drumbl (Washington & Lee)
- March 29, 2022: “Appearing before the International Criminal Court: An Experience in Prosecutor v Ongwen,” Valerie Oosterveld (Western Law) (organized with Western Law’s Gender and the Law Association (GALA), the Criminal Law Students Association (CLSA), and Western International Law Association)
- March 24, 2022: “Ukraine: recent developments and Canada's response,” Joanna Quinn (Western TJ Centre), Marta Dyczok (Western History), Kate Korycki (Western GSWS), and Valerie Oosterveld (Western Law) (co-organized with Western University’s Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction)
- March 7, 2022: “Prosecuting before the International Criminal Court,” Kristy Sim (formerly of the International Criminal Court)
- March 1, 2022: “The War in Ukraine: A Discussion,” Joanna Quinn (Western TJ Centre), Marta Dyczok (Western History), Ryan Liss (Western Law), and Valerie Oosterveld (Western Law) (co-organized with Western University’s Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction)
- November 23, 2021: Cris van Eijk, “There is No Sacred Timeline: Time, Variance, and Authority in Space Lawmaking”
- October 20, 2021: Panel on "Between Legitimacy and Control: The Taliban and Recognition under International Law", Nafay Choudhury (St. Catharine's College, Cambridge), Valerie Oosterveld (Western Law), Ryan Liss (Western Law), and Azadeh Tamjeedi (UNHCR) (organized in association with the Western International Law Association)
- March 12, 2021: Panel on “The International Criminal Court and Prosecutor v Ongwen,” Valerie Oosterveld (Western Law) and Ryan Liss (Western Law) (organized in association with the Western Law International Law Association).
- March 5, 2021: “Roundtable on the UN Women Commissions of Inquiry Project”
- November 24, 2020: Panel on “International Law and COVID-19: A Critical Analysis of the Global Response,” Jacob Shelley (Western Law), Ukaba Ogbogu (University of Alberta Faculty of Law), Fabien Gélinas (McGill Faculty of Law) and Valerie Oosterveld (Western Law)
- Monday, September 9, 2019: International Law and Global Justice Speaker Series, Ambassador Rosemary McCarney, (Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva) (co-sponsored by the Distinguished Speaker Series)
- Saturday, September 21, 2019: PPIL Research Group Works-in-Progress Workshop on International Criminal Law
- Tuesday, March 19, 2019: International Law and Global Justice Speaker Series, “International Law and Climate Change: Challenges and Possibilities”
Relevant Publications
Professor Colin Campbell
- Administration of Income Tax 2023, Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2023.
Professor Francesco Ducci
- Randomization as an Antitrust Remedy, Berkeley Business Law Journal (2023)
- Ex Ante Regulation and Antitrust Remedies for Digital Markets, Canadian Business Law Journal (2023)
- Shareholder Primacy and Consumer Welfare: Normative Overlaps in Corporate and Competition Law, Research Handbook on Competition and Corporate Law, Edward Elgar (Forthcoming)
- Political Power and Competition (with Alan Miller), IDG project (working paper)
- Consumer Welfare and Competitive Process, IDG project (working paper)
Professor Nadia Lambek
- Amy Cohen and Nadia Lambek, “When Crits go to the UN: Conversations with Olivier De Schutter, Hilal Elver, and Michael Fakhri about the Right to Food”, in Research Handbook on International Food Law (Michael Roberts, ed., Edward Elgar, 2023)
Professor Joanna Langille
- Public Policy and the Rule of Law,” in Roxana Banu, Michael Green, and Ralf Michaels, eds, Philosophical Foundations of Private International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2024).
- Persons, Not Citizens,” in Mark Walters and Geneviève Cartier, eds, The Promise of Legality: Critical Reflections upon the Work of TRS Allan (Hart, forthcoming 2024).
Professor Ryan Liss
- International Criminal Law as Cosmopolitan Right in Reverse, JURISPRUDENCE (forthcoming, 2024)
Professor Valerie Oosterveld
- (with Kathleen Maloney and Melanie O’Brien), “Forced Marriage as the Crime Against Humanity of ‘Other Inhumane Acts’ in the International Criminal Court’s Ongwen Case” (2023) 23 (5-6) International Criminal Law Review 705–730.
- Lead Author, “Forced Marriage in the Draft Crimes Against Humanity Convention”, brief prepared for Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York (193 Member States of the United Nations), Global Justice Center, October 5, 2023: https://www.globaljusticecenter.net/the-draft-crimes-against-humanity-convention-and-forced-marriage/.
- (with JD student Nicole Dotson), 'Gendered Crime as a Central Focus in the ICC’s Al-Hassan Case', Armed Groups and International Law (July 30, 2023): https://www.armedgroups-internationallaw.org/2023/07/31/gendered-crime-as-a-central-focus-in-the-iccs-al-hassan-case/.
- 'Recognizing the Complexity of Gender in the Crime Against Humanity of Persecution", Just Security (July 21, 2023): https://www.justsecurity.org/87303/recognizing-the-complexity-of-gender-in-the-crime-against-humanity-of-persecution/.
Professor Akis Psygkas
- "Administrative Democracy and Federalism" in S. Rose-Ackerman (ed.) Public Administration and Expertise in Democratic Governments: Comparative Public Law in the Twenty-First Century (Routledge, 2024), pp. 166-188
- "When the Administrative State Encounters the Constitution", forthcoming in Peter Lindseth et al. (eds.), Comparative Administrative Law, 3rd ed. (Edward Elgar, 2025)
