#opencanada

BY TARA HEIDGER (FGJ ‘20) -- I glanced down at my odometer as it slowly ticked towards three kilometres. For what felt like the tenth time, I checked my phone. “January 1st is fine… but not too early. We are located 3 kilometers from town on the road to Kinigi. See you then. Cathy.” The three-hour drive from Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, was long, but I was excited to finally meet Cathy Emmerson, a former real estate agent from British Columbia who now runs a small development organization in northwest Rwanda. The long list of projects on her website led me to believe she managed a large estate and I naively thought that there would be a sign. READ MORE. 

BY NATASHA COMEAU (FGJ ‘20) -- Surrogacy — the practice of a woman carrying a child for someone else — can bring biological children into the lives of parents unable to carry their own. But the business of surrogacy too often involves exploitation of the women involved. This is why India, the commercial surrogacy hub of the world, is attempting to ban the practice entirely under The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019. The bill is widely expected to be passed some time in 2020 and would dissolve a US$2.3 billion-a-year industry. The intention is to prevent the mistreatment of surrogates and move to an altruistic model. READ MORE. 

BY LEANNE TORY-MURPHY (FGJ ‘18) - An unprecedented number of people currently live outside their countries of birth — an estimated 250 million, including 65 million who were forcibly displaced. Looking ahead, this figure is only expected to increase, as the effects of climate change, political instability, global inequality and joblessness continue to adversely affect populations around the globe. READ MORE

BY SUSANNE COURTNEY (FGJ ‘19) - On December 4, the government’s finance development arm, FinDev Canada, announced its second-ever deal: a US$20 million investment in renewable energy initiative Climate Investor One. It was Canada’s first investment in blended finance, a type of financing intended to attract private investors to what would otherwise be high-risk investments in developing countries. READ MORE

BY MELISSA TESSLER (FGJ ‘17) - Last week, the judicial year began for the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), in tandem with the first celebrations honouring the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the ICC as a permanent court. READ MORE

BY MELISSA TESSLER (FGJ ‘17) - Sitting before Canada’s House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights on October 30, human rights lawyer Felix Agbor Nkongho had just seven minutes to describe the crisis that has consumed his life and the lives of millions of anglophone Cameroonians for the last two years — and to state why he believes Canada should help to resolve this conflict. READ MORE

BY LIZAN NIJKRAKE (FGJ ‘19) - In April 2015, a motley crew of nearly 900, including Dutch DJ Gregor Salto, entrepreneurs and a national weatherman, sued the Dutch government. Their claim? The state had endangered them by failing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. A couple of months later, in an unprecedented ruling, a district court ordered the federal government to cut the nation’s emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. READ MORE

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