Picture of Dr. Dwight Newman, KC

Dr. Dwight Newman, KC D.Phil. Professor, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law

Address
221 Law

Research Area(s)

  • Aboriginal law and indigenous peoples’ rights
  • Constitutional law
  • Legal theory
  • Private international law

Professional Education

  • D. Phil. (Oxford) 2005
  • M. Phil. (Oxford) 2003
  • BCL (Oxford) 2002
  • LLB (Saskatchewan) 1999
  • BA (Regina) 1996

Profile

Dwight Newman, B.A. in Economics (Regina), J.D. (Saskatchewan), B.C.L., M.Phil., D.Phil. in Legal Philosophy (Oxford), is a Professor of Law and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law at the University of Saskatchewan, where he started in a faculty position in 2005 and has also served a three-year term as Associate Dean.  He has been a Canada Research Chair since 2013. 

Dr. Newman has also taught during visiting terms at Alberta, McGill, Osgoode Hall (PD), and Oxford. During the 2015-16 year, he was a James Madison Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, and during the second half of the 2016-17 year he was a Professeur invité at the Université de Montréal Faculté de Droit and a Herbert Smith Freehills Visitor at Cambridge University.  In 2017 he became a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada. 

Dr. Newman has published close to a hundred articles or book chapters and ten books. His books include: The Duty to Consult: New Relationships with Aboriginal Peoples (Purich/UBC, 2009), Community and Collective Rights: A Theoretical Framework for Rights Held by Groups (Hart/Bloomsbury, 2011), Natural Resource Jurisdiction in Canada (LexisNexis, 2013), Revisiting the Duty to Consult Aboriginal Peoples (Purich/UBC, 2014) and both the Charter of Rights volume of Halsbury’s Laws of Canada and The Law of the Canadian Constitution (with co-author Guy Régimbald) (LexisNexis, 2013, 2nd edn 2017).  His forthcoming books include Mining Law of Canada (LexisNexis), an edited collection on Business Implications of Aboriginal Law (LexisNexis),  and the Edward Elgar Research Handbook on the International Law of Indigenous Rights (Edward Elgar).  His writing has been cited by all levels of Canadian courts, including a number of times by the Supreme Court of Canada, and in argument before the United States Supreme Court.

Dr. Newman is a Munk Senior Fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and has contributed to policy discussions by publishing a number of think tank reports.  He also serves as an expert member of the International Law Association (ILA) Committee on Implementation of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and contributes to ongoing discussion on international norms on related issues.  He has delivered dozens of presentations to a variety of audiences on six continents and has published many op eds in leading Canadian and American newspapers. 

Prior to entering a faculty role, Dr. Newman clerked for Chief Justice Lamer and Justice LeBel at the Supreme Court of Canada, worked for NGOs in South Africa and Hong Kong and for the Canadian Department of Justice, and completed his graduate studies at Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.  He has lived in half a dozen countries and has travelled to over seventy countries.

Dr. Newman is a member of the Ontario and Saskatchewan bars and he does selective legal work for industry, government, and Indigenous communities focused mainly on constitutional issues associated with resource development as well as consulting work on related issues for international investment entities.

Some of his publications are available on his Google Scholar page and his SSRN page.

Publications and Research Work

Books

Revisiting the Duty to Consult Aboriginal Peoples (Saskatoon: Purich, 2014).

Community and Collective Rights: A Theoretical Framework for Rights Held by Groups (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011). 

Charter of Rights volume of Halsbury’s Laws of Canada (Toronto: LexisNexis, 2010).

The Duty to Consult: New Relationships with Aboriginal Peoples (Saskatoon: Purich, 2009).

Understanding Property: A Guide to Canada’s Property Law, 2nd edn. (Toronto: Carswell, 2008) (co-authored with Marjorie L. Benson & Marie-Ann Bowden).

 

Book Chapters

“Letting the Elephants Watch the Mice: The Surrender of Canadian Anti-Bribery Legislation to American Jurisdiction”, in Chi Charmody & Valerie Oosterveld, eds., Is Our House in Order? Canada's Implementation of International Law (Kingston/Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010).   

“Africa and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, in Solomon Dersso, ed., Perspectives on Minority and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Africa (Pretoria: Pretoria University Law Press, 2010).

“Institutional Roles and Chief Justice Lamer’s Aboriginal Rights Jurisprudence”, in Adam Dodek & Daniel Jutras, eds., The Sacred Fire:  The Legacy of Chief Justice Antonio Lamer / Le feu sacré: l'héritage d'Antonio Lamer, juge en chef du Canada.

“Collective Interests and Collective Rights”, in Peter Jones, ed., Group Rights (London: Ashgate International Library of Essays on Rights, 2009)  [reprinting this previous article of mine as one of the fifteen most significant international publications on group rights].

“Transnational Constitutionalism, Internationalism, and an Authority-Based Connection Between International and Constitutional Law” in Penelope E. Andrews & Susan Bazilli, eds., Law and Rights: Global Perspectives on Constitutionalism and Governance (Lake Mary, Florida: Vandeplas Publishing, 2008), 1-11.

“Reconciliation: Legal Conception(s) and Faces of Justice”, in John Whyte, ed., Moving Toward Justice: Legal Traditions and Aboriginal Justice (Saskatoon: Purich, 2008) 80-87.

“The Law and Politics of Indigenous Rights in the Postcolonial African State”, 2008 American Society of International Law Annual Meeting Proceedings.

“Recent Interactions Between Aboriginal Rights and Section 15 of the Charter”, in Saskatchewan Legal Education Society Inc. (SKLESI), Civil Law Charter Update (March 2007), 1-7.

“Aboriginal ‘Rights’ as Powers: Section 35 and Federalism Theory”, in Graeme Mitchell et al, eds., A Living Tree: The Legacy of 1982 in Canada’s Political Evolution (Toronto: LexisNexis, 2007) 527-540.

“Putting Kymlicka in Perspective: Canadian Diversity and Collective Rights”, in Stephen Tierney, ed., Accommodating Cultural Diversity: Contemporary Issues in Theory and Practice (London: Ashgate, 2007) 59-75.

“Sub-State Globalization: Free Trade and Sovereigntist Movements”, in Colin Picker, Tomer Broude & Padideh Alai, eds., Trade as the Guarantor of Peace, Liberty and Security? Critical, Historical and Empirical Perspectives (Washington DC: American Society of International Law Press, 2006) 164-177.

 

Journal Articles

“Litigation Concerning Consultation with Indigenous Communities in Nunavut, Canada” (2016) 4 Current Developments in Arctic Law 17.

“Value Collectivism, Collective Rights, and Self-Threatening Theory” (2013) 33(1) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (forthcoming)

“The Bilateral Amending Formula as Mechanism for the Entrenchment of Property Rights” (2012) 21 Constitutional Forum (forthcoming)

“Comparativist-Structural Approaches to Interpretation of the Post-Obamacare Spending Power”  (2012) 21(1) Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law (co-authored with research assistant Michelle Biddulph)

“Canada’s Re-Emerging Division of Powers and the Unrealized Force of Reciprocal Interjurisdictional Immunity” (2011), 20 Constitutional Forum 1-7.

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2010” (2010) 74 Saskatchewan Law Review 183-211.

“Changing Division of Powers Doctrine and the Emergent Principle of Subsidiarity” (2011) 74 Saskatchewan Law Review 21-32.

“Self-Defeating and Self-Transforming Aspects of Proportionality Analysis: Review Essay on Contested Constitutionalism” (2010) 15 Review of Constitutional Studies 177-86.

“A Legal-Historical Consideration of Links Between Canadian and South African Racial Policy” (2010) 36 Commonwealth Law Bulletin 691-706 [co-authored with Simonne Horwitz, with each writing approximately half based on roles of respective disciplines in argument].

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2009” (2010) 73 Saskatchewan Law Review 173-96.

“Institutional Roles and Chief Justice Lamer’s Aboriginal Rights Jurisprudence” (2009) 46 Supreme Court Law Review 77-92  

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2008” (2009) Saskatchewan Law Review 165-98.

“Between Reconciliation and the Rule(s) of Law: Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia” (2008) 41 University of British Columbia Law Review 249-276.  [co-authored with Danielle Schweitzer]

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal” (2008) 71 Saskatchewan Law Review 177-218.

“You Still Know Nothin' 'Bout Me:  Toward Cross-Cultural Theorizing of Aboriginal Rights” (2007) 52 McGill Law Journal 725-756.

“Theorizing Collective Indigenous Rights” (2007) 31 American Indian Law Review 273-289.

“Aboriginal ‘Rights’ as Powers: Section 35 and Federalism Theory” (2007) 37 Supreme Court Law Review 163-176 [reprinted in Graeme Mitchell collection, above].

“Prior Occupation and Schismatic Principles: Toward a Normative Theorization of Aboriginal Title” (2007) 44 Alberta Law Review 779-802.

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2006” (2007) 70 Saskatchewan Law Review 329.

“Recent Work: Collective Rights” (2007) 48 Philosophical Books 221-32.

“Exit, Voice, and ‘Exile’: Rights to Exit and Rights to Eject” (2007) 57 University of Toronto Law Journal 43-79.

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2005” (2006) 69 Saskatchewan Law Review 309-349.

“Negotiated Rights Enforcement” (2006) 69 Saskatchewan Law Review 119-127.

“A Study of the Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2004” (2006) 69 Saskatchewan Law Review 159-195.

“Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia and Civil Justice: Analysing the Procedural Interaction of Evidentiary Principles and Aboriginal Oral History” (2005) 43 Alberta Law Review 433-449.

“The Rome Statute, Some Reservations Concerning Amnesties, and a Distributive Problem” (2005) 20 American University International Law Review 293-357.

“A Study of the Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2003” (2005) 68 Saskatchewan Law Review 79-112.

“Collective Interests and Collective Rights” (2004) [published in 2005 despite date] 49 American Journal of Jurisprudence 127-163.  

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2002” (2004) 67 Saskatchewan Law Review 13-58.

“Liberal Multiculturalism and Will Kymlicka’s Uneasy Relation with Religious Pluralism” (2003) 64 Bijdragen International Journal of Philosophy & Theology 265-285.

“Institutional Monitoring of Social and Economic Rights” (2003) 19 South African Journal on Human Rights 189-216.

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2001” (2003) 66 Saskatchewan Law Review 21-62.

“The Judgments of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, 2000” (2002) 65 Saskatchewan Law Review 107-132.

“A Human Security Council?  Applying a ‘Human Security’ Agenda to Security Council Reform” (2000) 31 Ottawa Law Review 213-241.

“Existentialism and Law: Toward a Reinvigorated Law and Literature Analysis” (2000) 63 Saskatchewan Law Review 87-117.

“Stripping Matters to Their Core: Intrusive Searches of the Person in Canadian Law” (1999) 4 Canadian Criminal Law Review 85-118.

“The Limitation of Rights: A Comparative Evolution and Ideology of the Oakes and Sparrow Tests” (1999) 62 Saskatchewan Law Review 543-566.

“Individual, Subnational, and International Identity: A Critique of Dworkin’s Conception of Community” (1999) 17 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 86-101.

“An Examination of Saskatchewan Law on the Sterilization of Persons with Mental Disabilities” (1999) 62 Saskatchewan Law Review 329-346.

“Reconstituting Promises to Negotiate in Canadian Constitution-Making” (1998-99) 10 National Journal of Constitutional Law 1-40.