News Archive

We are looking for an outstanding scholar from the U.S. to join the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa, Canada for four months in 2026/27. We are the largest centre of our kind in Canada and one of the largest in the world. The chairholder will join our vibrant community of scholars, with the opportunity to interact with faculty and graduate students from law, social sciences, medicine, health sciences, management, and the arts. Our location in Canada's capital enables the chairholder to address issues of national and international significance and to network with leading policy makers and jurists.

Rosalie Ayotte is the recipient of the Graduate Award in Reproductive Health Law & Policy for 2025–26, jointly provided by the Shirley Greenberg Chair for Women and the Legal Profession and the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics (CHLPE). In the fall of 2025 she will begin her LL.M. at the University of Ottawa, supervised by CHLPE member, Professor Audrey Ferron Parayre. Rosalie’s research thesis will focus on obstetrical and gynecological violence (OGV), the mistreatment of women during childbirth including, for example, non-consented interventions such as Caesarean sections, disrespectful language, neglect, and discrimination. She will seek correlations between infringement of rights and healthcare documentation procedures currently in place in the province of Quebec. She will also look at the participation of women in the drafting process for policies and procedures, which is one key to minimizing the incidence of OGV.

Newly released by the University of Ottawa Press, this book edited by CHLPE Director Vanessa Gruben together with Chelsea Cox explores how different approaches to harm reduction can create a stronger foundation for more effective policies and legislation. Scholars from law and social sciences collaborate with frontline organizations as well as with individuals with lived experience to reflect diverse perspectives, and transform how society addresses substance-related challenges ranging across opioids, cannabis, and tobacco.

After leading the world through a global pandemic for more than three years, the World Health Organization is under fire again... Roojin Habibi writes in Hill Times.

What do MGM Studios, Uber, eBay, Moderna, Tesla, Space X and OpenAI have in common? They are successful American companies that have helped change the world and Canadians have played a critical role in their success—in many instances as founders or co-founders. But these connections are not a point of pride for Canada or even widely known. Canadians are great innovators, but our country seldom benefits directly from their efforts. That’s something we urgently need to correct... Kumanan Wilson & Dante Morra write in Policy Options.

The University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, is looking to fill a tenure-track position in the Common Law Section for July 1, 2025. Priority will be given to those with expertise and research interest in criminal law or health law. The application deadline is March 10, 2025. Click for more information.

The Centre for Health Law, Policy, and Ethics (CHLPE) is offering two prestigious scholarships of $10,000 each to support LL.M. students whose research focuses on reproduction and health law, including issues like access to abortion, contraception, fertility care, coercive sterilization, assisted reproduction, and obstetrical violence. Deadline February 15. Click for more information.

The University of Ottawa Faculty of Law is now accepting applications for both LL.M. and Ph.D. in Law programs. At the Masters level it also offers a specific LL.M. Concentration in Health Law, Policy and Ethics. At both levels we offer graduate students a wide range of cutting-edge research projects led by the largest concentration of health law scholars and complemented by the broadest selection of health law courses in Canada. See also our Opportunities page for scholarships and bursaries currently on offer.

CHLPE and the Bruyère Health Research Institute have established a multi-year strategic partnership to promote the advancement of health, technology, and human learning through collaboration focused on their shared areas of research.

For the first time, a new study has estimated life expectancy across neighbourhoods in Canada’s largest cities – the first in Canada to drill down below the levels of provinces and cities to census tracts, the smallest level of geography that can support estimates of life expectancy. The results are disturbing. Read an op ed by CHLPE's Michael Wolfson in the Globe & Mail...

• Sophie Nunnelley Departs as Associate Director to Join the Lincoln Alexander School of Law as Faculty
• Happy Retirement to Professor Martha Jackman
• Obstetric and Gynecological Violence: Empowering Patients to Recognize and Prevent It
• Dying With Dignity
• Summer Institute in Health Law
• New uOttawa-France Science Diplomacy Research Chair to Tackle Global Health and Security
• Nonreligion in a Complex Future
• Canadian Health Workforce Conference (CHWC) 2024
• The World Together in Pandemic Preparedness and Response
• Jennifer Chandler Wins the I.N.S. Hyman Award
• Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Assessment
• Karen Eltis Wins the Mundell Medal
• Canada’s Pandemic Preparedness Investments Still Make Equity An Afterthought
• Welcome to Fulbright Visiting Scholar Katherine Pearson

Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to use the notwithstanding clause to enact criminal justice reform if elected.  Liberals have pointed to this as an indication that Conservatives would use it for other things, including restricting abortion. How much of this is political posturing from either side? How huge a precedent would using the notwithstanding clause this way represent? CHLPE's Daphne Gilbert on The Big Story podcast.

CHLPE's Professor Jennifer Chandler has been named the winner of the 2024 Steven E. Hyman Award. Awarded by the International Neuroethics Society (INS), this international accolade is one of the most prestigious distinctions in the field of neuroethics, and stands as a testament to Professor Chandler’s significant impact and leadership in the global neuroethics community.

The open access publication flowing from CHLPE's 2022 conference Borders, Boundaries, Pandemics is out! The book examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has engendered a new and challenging environment in which borders drawn around people, places, and social structures have hardened and new ones have emerged. It considers how international organizations, countries, and institutions within those countries should conceive of, and manage, borders as the world continues to struggle with COVID-19 and prepares for the next pandemic. Engaging a range of international, and sub-national, examples, the book thematizes the main issues at stake in the control and management of borders in the interests of public health. Open access and Hardcover versions are available.

Margaret MacAulay, Patrick Fafard, Adèle Cassola and Michèle Palkovits have won this year's Ken Young Prize for best overall article in the prestigious Policy & Politics. In Analysing the ‘follow the science’ rhetoric of government responses to COVID-19 (open access), the authors contend that during the COVID-19 pandemic, governments’ repeated claims to “just following the science” were in fact an abdication of responsibility by politicians. They argue that making policy decisions based only on scientific evidence is impossible (if only because ‘the science’ is always contested) and undemocratic (because governments are elected to balance a range of priorities and interests in their decisions). They evidence that such claims of following the science weren’t so much about adhering strictly to scientific advice as they were about deflecting blame for policy failures or unpalatable decisions. They conclude that, in mature democratic countries, credit and blame for government decisions are borne by elected politicians, not those appointed to advise them. Crucially, their research raises important questions about the nexus of science and politics and how the latter can manipulate the former for political gains.

Heated tobacco... not quite a cigarette because it doesn't ignite, yet not quite a vape because it uses actual tobacco. Supposedly less toxic than conventional cigarettes but satisfying enough to compete with them. In the next two years, heated tobacco products will likely finally become more widely available in America. Will they help the nearly 30 million Americans who smoke switch to a safer alternative? Or, as critics allege, will they only perpetuate tobacco use? To answer these questions, it pays to look farther afield to Japan, where heated tobacco is already transforming the market for nicotine... Chair of CHLPE's Advisory Board David Sweanor contributes in interview to an article on reason.

Faculty of Law Adjunct Professor André Picard has been appointed to the Order of Canada, along with a long list of other prominent advocates, academics, artists and business figures. Mr. Picard, a health reporter and columnist and participant in CHLPE's seminars and activities, was cited for his “dedication to advancing public health understanding and practices in Canada”. A well-known and respected voice in health journalism in Canada, Mr. Picard is a two-time winner of the National Newspaper Awards for his column writing, and a past winner of the prestigious Michener Award for meritorious public service journalism.

Watch André Picard speak about this honour and Canadian health policy on CTV news.

Thank you so much to the speakers, colleagues and students who joined us in December for a public symposium commemorating 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the World Health Organization! Missed the day's events? You can watch the recordings at the University of Ottawa Common Law Section's YouTube channel:

Strengthening Pandemic Preparedness and Response Through Global Health Law Reform

When Misfortune Becomes Injustice: Evolving Human Rights Struggles for Health and Social Equality

Human Rights Challenges in Global Health Governance

Building Consensus on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies

Health and Human Rights in the Next 75: Forward Looking Reflections on the Future of Health Rights

Since 2020, the Centre’s newest member Roojin Habibi has been leading a partnership between International Commission of Jurists and the Global Health Law Consortium to develop a set of human rights principles and guidelines adapted to the context of public health emergencies. The resulting Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies were launched in pre-print form this past May, on the margins of the World Health Assembly. They have been endorsed by over 50 renowned scholars, practitioners and former/current SP mandate holders. Since their release, the Centre has co-sponsored a digital symposium on the Principles, hosted on the Harvard Petrie-Flom Center’s Bill of Health blog.

We are excited to announce that as of January 1st, Professor Vanessa Gruben of the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section is the next Director of CHLPE. Vanessa has been a core member of the Centre since its inception in 2015, throughout that time sitting on its Executive Committee and leading its theme on Reproductive Health and Technologies as well as the Ottawa Hub for Harm Reduction. Her scholarship probes some of the most difficult contemporary legal and ethical issues related to health care, including assisted reproduction, harm reduction, organ donation and transplantation, and health care professional self-regulation. She is the co-editor of the 5th edition of Canada’s leading health law text, Canadian Health Law and Policy (LexisNexis, 2017). She also serves on the boards of the Canadian Health Coalition and of AMS Healthcare.

Vanessa takes the reins from the Centre's inaugural Director, Colleen Flood. As you may know, Colleen began the next chapter in her career as Dean of Law at Queen's University this past July. Under Colleen’s visionary and energetic leadership, the Centre has grown since 2015 to become the largest academic health law and policy centre in Canada and one of the largest in the world. She built it into a thriving community with collaborative bridges throughout the Law Faculty and the broader university.

During this time of transition, the Centre was in the able hands of Sophie Nunnelley. Sophie's research focuses on intersections of health law and human rights, with a particular focus on mental health law, legal capacity and decision-making, and the regulation of health-related AI. Prior to completing her doctoral studies at the University of Toronto and joining the Centre, Sophie was a constitutional and human rights lawyer with the Ministry of the Attorney General for Ontario, and counsel on a major national public inquiry (the Gomery Inquiry). Sophie remains an indispensable member of the core team, returning to her regular role as Associate Director.

After being denied health care because of her irregular immigration status, Nell Toussaint suffered severe health consequences including a stroke, an amputation and blindness. She fought courageously for equal access to health care, securing an historic ruling at the UN requiring Canada to ensure access to essential health care without discrimination. When Canada refused to comply, she challenged this in court, winning another important victory when the court rejected Canada’s attempt to have her claim dismissed. Sadly, Nell Toussaint died on January 9, 2023 with her legal claim unresolved and Canada continuing to refuse to comply with the UN ruling. Human rights and health care advocates along with her family are committed to honouring Nell’s legacy by continuing her campaign for access to health care for all, regardless of immigration status, as a fundamental human right.

On the anniversary of Nell's passing, CHLPE hosted a seminar-webinar featuring Professor Y.Y. Chen, Shalini Konanur, Aditya Rao, and Whendeann Gittens.

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See all of our recent event videos on our YouTube channel.

• Access to health care for irregular migrants: Honouring Nell Toussaint (1969–2023)
• From principles to practice: Human rights and public health emergencies
• Advancing health justice in a turbulent world
• Vanessa Gruben the new director of CHLPE
• Science advice and public input: The case of public health
• André Picard appointed to Order of Canada
• It's not a cigarette. It's not a vape. And it's big in Japan.
• AI and compassion in mental healthcare
• The intelligent powered wheelchair
• Training healthcare leaders, patients, and providers in the law and ethics of health-AI
• Existing diseases and tools to treat them must remain central to pandemic preparedness
• Access to mental healthcare in Canada
• Therapeutic use of psychedelics, entheogens, entactogens, cannabinoids, and dissociative anesthetics for military members and veterans
• Jennifer Chandler to chair Canadian Academy of Health Sciences assessment of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder in Canada

Join Harvard Law School, CHLPE, and others for the launch of a new digital symposium on the 2023 Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies. This Symposium gathers critique and reflections from leading scholars, activists, jurists and others from around the world on the contribution of the Principles in clarifying legal imperatives for rights-based approaches to public health emergency prevention, preparedness, and response.

Acting Director Sophie Nunnelley is among the latest cohort of Fellows in Compassion and Artificial Intelligence (AI) awarded by AMS Healthcare. AI has been embraced by some as a tool for addressing accessibility problems in mental healthcare—for example, AI-powered chatbots offer therapy, and AI algorithms harness social media data to detect suicidal ideation. While AI holds promise in this context, it raises the significant concern that it could exacerbate inequality if improperly regulated. Sophie’s project takes up law’s role in ensuring human rights-consistent AI use in mental healthcare, focusing on laws relating to capacity, informed consent, and non-discrimination. The core of her project will be a workshop of multidisciplinary experts – including AI innovators, people with lived experience, clinicians, legal scholars, and human rights experts – to examine the law and practice of specific mental health AI technologies, the sufficiency of existing rights frameworks, and priorities for law reform.