Anne Warner La Forest, KC

Research interests

• property law
• international law
• international human rights law
• private international law
• administrative law and corporate governance

Biography

Professor La Forest received her LLB from the University of New Brunswick and her LLM from Cambridge University. After working in private practice with the firm of Fraser & Beatty (now Dentons) in Toronto for several years, she joined the Faculty of Law at Dalhousie University where she was cross-appointed in the Department of Women's Studies. In 1996, she was appointed as Dean of UNB Law and remained Dean until 2004. She has been a Visiting Fellow in the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program and a Visiting Scholar-in-Residence at the Department of Justice in Ottawa. She is also a graduate of the Director's Education Programme at the Rotman School of Management.

Professor La Forest is a recipient of the Dalhousie Law Alumni Association and Law Student’s Society Teaching Excellence Award and teaches in the areas of property law, international law and international human rights law, comparative law, commercial law, conflict of laws, and feminist jurisprudence. She has acted as a graduate supervisor primarily in the areas of human rights, health law, and international law. She has written in many different areas including property, extradition law, international law, and labour and employment law.

Professor La Forest is a member of the bars of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario and has extensive experience as an arbitrator and adjudicator; she has also acted as a consultant and expert witness on matters relating to human rights, employment, property, and extradition law. She has been a member of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Tribunal, a member of the Council of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Chair of its Fellowships Committee, a member of the Board of Governors of the National Judicial Institute chaired by the Chief Justice of Canada, a member of the Patented Medicines Pricing Review Board, and a member of the New Brunswick Securities Commission. She is currently a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and Chair of its Governance, Nominating, and Human Resources Committee. She is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society and was named a Queen’s Counsel for the Province of New Brunswick in 2018.

Courses taught

• Property Law
• International Law
• International Human Rights Law
• Conflict of Laws
• Securities Regulation
• Contract Law

Selected publications

“Canada and International Human Rights Law at 150: A Journey in Three Parts” (2018) 69 University of New Brunswick Law Journal 233–250.

“New Brunswick’s Continuing Policy of Splendid Isolation in the Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments” (2016) 58 Canadian Business Law Journal 57–78.

Anger & Honsberger’s Law of Real Property, 3rd ed (Aurora: Canada Law Book 2006), three volumes.

“Evidence and International and Comparative Law” in The Globalised Rule of Law, Oonagh Fitzgerald (with Elisabeth Eid, Don Fleming, Anne Warner La Forest, Armand de Mestral, and Lorraine Pelot) (Irwin Law, 2006), pp 367–392, also published as “Le principe de la prevue, le droit international et le droit compare” dans Règle de Droit et Mondialisation, (Éditions Yvon Blais, 2006).

Domestic Application of International Law: “Are We There Yet?” (2004) 37 University of British Columbia Law Review 157–218.

“The Balance Between Liberty and Comity in the Evidentiary Requirements Applicable to Extradition Proceedings” (2002) 28 Queen’s Law Journal 95–176.