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Legal Challenges in Cyberspace - May 14-15, 2016 - Montreal, Canada

The graduate students of McGill’s Faculty of Law are pleased to announce their annual conference. The conference will be held at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ, in Montreal, Canada, on May 14-15, 2016. This conference offers an academic forum for graduate students, junior scholars, members of the legal profession, governmental institutions and other private sectors to consider, exchange and develop new ideas, concepts and approaches that bridge law and other disciplines. Designed specifically for graduate students, this conference aims at creating a safe and dynamic forum for new and emerging scholars to stretch intellectual boundaries and build academic networks. Conference participants will have an opportunity to share in McGill university’s rich intellectual community and longstanding tradition of fostering creative and original thinking.

Conference Theme: The theme for this year’s conference is ‘The Legal Challenges in Cyberspace’. The notion of cyberspace has proved to be challenging both at the national and international level. Some observers have asserted that cyberspace law does not exist, since few of the legal issues raised by this area of law are novel. Others argue that cyberspace should be regarded as being distinct from real space, as far as legal issues are concerned. This is largely based on the fact that this domain cuts across territorial boundaries, creating new realm of human activity, in turn undermining the feasibility and legitimacy of laws based on geographic boundaries. As numerous social, political, economic and environmental factors continue to change our world, law is called upon to help make sense of the complexities in the domain of cyberspace. This area of law encapsulates a wide range of legal issues, including cybercrime, ecommerce, privacy, intellectual property law, legal theory, human rights, torts, cyberwarfare, international law and comparative law. As such, we are seeking a diverse range of papers and research projects touching on one or more of these areas and other disciplines distinct from law. We encourage scholars to view the theme as an opportunity to explore diverse ideas and consider trends in their areas of interest as part of a larger discussion about the current legal challenges in cyberspace.

The conference will also be held in collaboration with the prestigious annual Max Cohen Seminar on international law. Maxwell Cohen was pivotal in establishing McGill at the forefront of legal education in Canada, as Dean of the Faculty from 1964 to 1969, and had a profound influence on international law through his many roles and responsibilities in the legal community at large. This year’s theme will explore the tension between law and cyberspace at the international level. This aspect of the conference is not only an opportunity discuss the application of international norms to cyberspace but will also provide a chance for graduate students to bounce ideas off international peers.

Submission guidelines: Proposals should include the title of the paper or project, a 350 word abstract with 5 keywords, a curriculum vitae of the author, the speaker’s full institutional affiliation, email address and phone number. Presenters should be current graduate students or have recently completed their graduate studies. Exceptional proposals from final year LL.B./J.D./B.A. students may be accepted.

Abstracts must be submitted via email by February 20, 2016 (PST) to grad-conference [dot] law [at] mcgill [dot] ca

Submissions written in both English and French will be accepted. Successful applicants will be informed by February 26, 2016. A paper of 4000 to 8000 must be submitted by the end of August in the objective of publishing a collection of essays from the conference.

For those who do not wish to submit a paper, you are warmly invited to join us in discussion at our annual Graduate Conference.

Questions may be directed to conference organizers at grad-conference [dot] law [at] mcgill [dot] ca

Updates will be posted on our website at www.mcgill.ca/agcl