Robin Hansen

• LLM (McGill) 2009
• MA (Carleton) 2006
• LLB (Ottawa) 2005
• BA (Hons.) (Calgary) 2001

Robin F. Hansen is an Associate Professor at the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. An international law specialist, she teaches public international law, conflict of laws and human rights. Her primary research interest is on how legal personhood is constructed within legal systems, and particularly how this construction frames accountability. She is the author of Prison Born: Incarceration and Motherhood in the Colonial Shadow, which examines the rights of newborn children not to be automatically separated from their mothers by the state without due process. Her work has also been published in journals including the Modern Law Review, Global Jurist, and the Journal of Legal Education. 

Professor Hansen is interested in interdisciplinary scholarship, including analysis from systems theory, international political economy, and critical theories. Her examination of legal personhood has led Professor Hansen to study systemic biases in law.  She has also written on topics including multinational enterprise tort liability, corporate nationality in investment arbitration, and human rights impact assessment. Professor Hansen was previously a member of the International Law Association’s Committee on Non-State Actors, researching the status of multinational enterprises.

Professor Hansen is a past recipient of the Provost’s College Award for Outstanding Teaching, as well as the Marc Lalonde Prize for Excellence in International Commercial and Investment Arbitration, awarded by the Canadian Arbitration Congress. Prior to teaching, Professor Hansen worked at the legal branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa. She is a past participant of the Hague Academy of International Law, Summer Programme, and was called to the bar of Ontario in 2006 and the bar of Saskatchewan in 2010. From Treaty 7 territory, she has English and European roots.

A number of her publications are available in PDF at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1172773.

View her publications on ResearchGate.

• Conflict of Laws 456.3
• International Law 457.1
• Tort Law 212.6
• Human Rights 432.3
• Law and Culture 406.3

Prison Born: Incarceration and Motherhood in the Colonial Shadow (University of Regina Press, 2024)  (https://uofrpress.ca/Books/P/Prison-Born)

"Taking More than They Give: MNE Tax Privateering and Apple’s 'Ocean' Income"  (2019) German Law Journal, 19(4): 693-726 (2018)

“The Political Life of a Human Rights Impact Assessment: Canadian Mining in the Philippines” (2018) Canadian Journal of Human Rights, 7(1):  97-132 (with P. Sanz)

"Legal personality and the Canadian REIT" (2017) Trusts & Trustees,  23 (4): 400-403.

"MNEs as Enterprises in Public International Law" (2015) in N. Gal-Or, C. Ryngaert and M. Noortmann (eds.), Responsibilities of the Non-State Actor in Armed Conflict and the Market Place, 127-153. Leiden: Brill.

"Law Student Plagiarism: Contemporary Challenges and Responses" (2015) Journal of Legal Education, 64(3): 416-427 (with A. Anderson).

" 'Objective Assessment of the Facts' : a Principled Approach to WTO Appellate Body Review of Panel Fact-Finding" (2014) Asper Review of International Business and Trade Law, 14: 189-222 (with H. Heavin).

“The Public Policy Dimensions of MNE Legal Personality: Is It Time to Unveil the Masters of Globalization?” (2013) in A. Byrnes, M. Hayashi and C. Michaelsen (eds.),  International Law in the New Age of Globalization, 241-266. Leiden:  Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

“The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Implications for the Equality Rights of Canadians with Disabilities: the Case of Education” (2011) Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, 29(1): 73-106 (with R. Malhotra).

“Fullowka v. Pinkerton's of Canada Ltd. and the Material Contribution Test for Factual Causation in Negligence” (2011) Alberta Law Review, 48:3: 771-782.

“The Systemic Challenge of Corporate Investor Nationality in an Era of Multinational Business” (2010) Revue d'arbitrage et de médiation / Journal of Arbitration and Mediation, 1(1): 81-115.

“Parallel Proceedings in Investor-State Treaty Arbitration: Responses for Treaty-Drafters, Arbitrators and Parties” (2010) The Modern Law Review, 73(4): 523-555.

“The International Legal Personality of Multinational Enterprises: Treaty, Custom and the Governance Gap” (2010) Global Jurist (Advances), 10(1): Art. 9, 1-132.

"What's 'New' in the New West Partnership Trade Agreement? The NWPTA and the Agreement on Internal Trade Compared" (2010) Saskatchewan Law Review, 73(2): 197-235 (with H.D. Heavin).

“Multinational Enterprise Pursuit of Minimized Liability: Law, International Business Theory and the Prestige Oil Spill” (2008) Berkeley Journal of International Law, 26(2): 101-141.

“Reconciling the International and the Domestic: The Reasonable Period of Time under DSU Article 21.3” (2008) in M.E. Janow, V. Donaldson and A. Yanovich, (eds.), The WTO: Governance, Dispute Settlement and Developing Countries, 987-1008. Huntington, NY: Juris Publishing (with D.M. McRae).

“The Influence of NAFTA Chapter 11 in the BIT Landscape” (2005) 12:1 UC Davis Journal of International Law & Policy 101-119 (with Meg Kinnear).