Professor of Law
Osgoode Hall Law School
Email: cscott@osgoode.yorku.ca
Website: www.osgoode.yorku.ca/faculty/craigmscott.html

BA (McGill), BA (Oxford), LLM (London School of Economics), LLB (Dalhousie), of the Bar of Ontario

Professor Scott was a member of the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, from 1989 to 2001. He joined Osgoode Hall Law School following a term as a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. To date, his teaching and research have been primarily in the fields of public international law and private international law, with a focus on the place of international human rights law in both of these fields. His most recent work draws on all three of these fields, including a growing focus on transnational corporate accountability. He is editor of Torture as Tort: Comparative Perspectives on the Development of Transnational Human Rights Litigation published in 2001. He also writes on constitutional rights protection in Canada and abroad. His work and teaching is strongly influenced by his interests in legal philosophy and in theories of international relations. Much of his work has been on the theory and doctrine of economic, social and cultural rights.

Professor Scott has sought to create productive linkages between his academic work and various external commitments. On the Canadian constitutional scene, he was one of the drafters of the Alternative Social Charter put forward during the Charlottetown constitutional round. He has since been closely involved in advising various equality-seeking groups on Canadian Charter of Rights litigation and on preparing reports to various UN human rights bodies on Canada’s record of treaty compliance. Of late, he has been involved in appeals or interventions in the Supreme Court of Canada in three major cases which have dealt with the interface of international law and Canadian law (Pushpanathan, Reference re Secession of Quebec, and Baker). Professor Scott was closely involved in the development of aspects of the current South African constitution, beginning with his role advising the African National Congress on these matters while the ANC was still in exile. He has given academic opinions on international law to various governments and international organizations on issues related to such matters as the law of the sea, territorial claims and adjudicative procedures. In 1993-1994, he served as co-counsel for the government of Bosnia in a case before the International Court of Justice, with responsibility for developing arguments on the limits of the powers of the UN Security Council. He has also given opinions to various non-governmental organizations and aboriginal government representatives on matters ranging from the legality of economic sanctions on Iraq to inland fisheries jurisdiction to transfer of environmental technology.

Prior to starting his academic career, Professor Scott served as law clerk to the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Brian Dickson. He attended the Universities of Oxford and London on a Rhodes Scholarship.

From 2001 to 2004 Professor Scott was Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies).

Selected Publications

[in press] "Diverse Persuasion(s): From Rhetoric to Representation (and Back Again to Rhetoric) in International Human Rights Interpretation" in Philip Alston, ed., Human Rights: The International Legal Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2005)

“Beyond the Sosa v Alvarez-Machain Terms of Debate: Conceptualizing International Human Rights Torts in Terms of ‘Transnational Law’”, (2004) Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 58-61

“Transnational Governance of Corporate Conduct through the Migration of Human Rights Norms: The Potential Contribution of Transnational ‘Private’ Litigation” in C Joerges, P Sand and G Teubner, eds., Transnational Governance and Constitutionalism (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2004) 287-319 (co-authored with Robert Wai)

“Iraq and the Serious Consequences of Word Games: Language, Violence and Responsibility in the Security Council,” (2002) Vol. 3, No. 10 German Law Journal: published on-line at GermanLawJournal.com (7000 words)

Ed., Torture as Tort: Comparative Perspectives on the Development of Transnational Human Rights Litigation (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2001) 750 pp., 25 contributors

“Translating Torture into Transnational Tort: Conceptual Divides in the Debate on Corporate Accountability for Human Rights Harms”, chapter 2 in C Scott, ed., Torture as Tort, pp.45-63

"Interpreting Intervention", (2001) 39 Canadian Yearbook of International Law 333-369

“Multinational Enterprises and Emergent Jurisprudence on Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” in A. Eide, C. Krause, and A. Rosas, eds., Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Textbook, 2nd edition (Nijhoff, 2001), ch. 32 (pp. 563-596)

“Towards the Institutional Integration of the Core Human Rights Treaties” in Valerie Oosterveld and Isfahan Merali, eds., Reaching Beyond Words: Giving Meaning to Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), ch. 1 (pp. 7-38, fn: 213-225)

“Adjudicating Constitutional Priorities in a Transnational Context: A Comment on Soobramoney’s Legacy and Grootboom’s Promise”, (2000) 16:2 South African Journal of Human Rights 206-268 (lead author; co-authored with Philip Alston