Iryna Ponomarenko PhD

• PhD (UBC) 2022
• JD (UBC) 2018
• LLM (UBC) 2013
• LLM (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) 2012
• LLB (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) 2010

Dr. Iryna Ponomarenko joined the College of Law in July 2025, following several years in private practice as a commercial litigator in Vancouver, BC. Her research explores key questions in Canadian public law, with a particular focus on judicial review of administrative action and the epistemology of legal fact-finding in Charter adjudication. She is especially interested in the challenges courts face when adjudicating rights disputes under conditions of empirical and normative uncertainty. She also examines consolidated litigation as a means of improving access to justice.

Professor Ponomarenko has published multiple peer-reviewed articles in leading Canadian journals on constitutional law, administrative law, class actions, and legal philosophy. Her doctoral dissertation developed a theory of curial deference in proportionality analysis under section 1 of the Charter.

Before joining the College of Law, Professor Ponomarenko taught Philosophy of Law and Criminal Law in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University. She has also volunteered with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and served on the editorial board of the UBC Law Review. Prior to moving to Canada, she practised as a civil and commercial litigator in Kyiv, Ukraine. She is currently a member in good standing with the Law Society of British Columbia.

• Administrative Law
• Charter
• Business Organizations

Iryna Ponomarenko, “On the Limits of Proportionality” (2020) 24:2 Review of Constitutional Studies 241

Iryna Ponomarenko, “The Devil is in the Scale: Revisiting the Commonality Requirement in Charter Class Actions” (2019) 57: 1 Alberta Law Review 69

Iryna Ponomarenko, “The More the Merrier?: Revisiting Interpretive Pluralism in Canadian Administrative Law” (2018) 31:3 Canadian Journal of Administrative Law and Practice 253

Iryna Ponomarenko, “The Unbearable Lightness of Balancing: Towards a Theoretical Framework for the Doctrinal Complexity in Proportionality Analysis in Constitutional Adjudication” (2016) 49:3 UBC Law Review 1103

Iryna Ponomarenko, “Tipping the Scales in the Reasonableness-Proportionality Debate in Canadian Administrative Law” (2016) 21 Appeal: Review of Current Law and Law Reform 125