Not Logic, but Experience: Teaching Canadian Human Rights Law

ABSTRACT Teaching Canadian human rights law demands more than simply instructing law students on caselaw precedents, jurisprudential principles, and legislative developments, as important as learning about this legal framework is. It also requires the imparting of a human rights imagination to students. This involves a focus on the social environment that ultimately generates and shapes anti-discrimination laws, such as disparate living and working conditions, demonstrations and civil disobedience, new arguments about the meanings of equality and discrimination, and understanding the role of social science research. Human rights legal decisions, when written with empathy and lucidity, can become effective teaching tools not only in law classes but also in social science courses on human rights. Learning to understand and interpret the place of human rights through the leading rulings of courts and tribunals can offer instructive insights into the strengths, weaknesses, and potential of our contemporary approach toward protecting and enlarging human rights in Canada.