Conference Presenters

Tenille E Brown (Lakehead)

Tenille E Brown is an Assistant Professor in the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law at Lakehead University where she teaches in the areas of property law, wills and estates, and Aboriginal legal issues. Her research examines the intersection between land, property, and geography, with a focus on spatial theory. Tenille is a member of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa, and a barrister and solicitor at the Bar of Ontario. Tenille holds an LLM from the University of Ottawa in the field of Aboriginal law and an LLB (Scots law) from the University of Dundee, Scotland. Prior to her academic work, Tenille worked in the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly the Kingdom of Swaziland) as a legal officer in a national feminist rights organisation. 

Jennifer Corrin (Queensland)

Professor Jennifer Corrin is Director of Comparative Law in the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law in UQ Law School, at the University of Queensland (UQ). She is co-convenor of the UQ Solomon Islands Partnership, an interdisciplinary group which promotes and coordinates international academic interests in Solomon Islands. Jennifer’s research focuses on law reform and development in plural legal regimes. Her publications include Contract Law in the South Pacific (2^nd ed. 2020), Introduction to South Pacific Law (4th ed. 2017), and Courts and Civil Procedure in the South Pacific (3rd ed. 2016). Before joining UQ, Jennifer spent 5 years at the University of the South Pacific, having joined the Faculty after 10 years in her own legal firm in Solomon Islands.

Adam Crepelle (Southern)

Adam Crepelle is an associate  professor  at Southern University Law Center and the managing fellow of SULC’s  Native American Law and Policy Institute. He is a commissioner on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic  and Sexual Violence. He is a former vice president of the California Indian Law Association  and is a co-founder of  the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana. Adam is an enrolled citizen of the United Houma Nation, and serves as a judge on  the Court of Appeals for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. Adam has published several articles in both academic and popular journals on a wide variety of topics including crime in Indian country, tribal economic development, and tribal federal recognition.  In addition to his juris doctor, Adam holds a master’s  degree  in public policy and master’s of law in indigenous peoples law and policy. Adam is also an award winning fil_mmaker. His film, Indian Santa, screened at numerous venues including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Eleanor Crossman (Isle of Man Courts)

Eleanor Crossman has an honours MA from St Andrews University in Mediaeval History and another MA from SOAS, University of London, this time in Chinese Studies. She also has legal qualifications from the College of Law and has been Librarian of the Judicial Library at the Isle of Man Courts since 2003.

Nnaemeka Ezeani (Saskatchewan)

Nnaemeka Ezeani is a lawyer from Nigeria who has a special interest in the rights of Indigenous people, International law, and fundamental rights protection. He graduated as the Best Graduating Law Student from the University of Nigeria in 2013. He proceeded to the Nigerian Law School and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2014. Nnaemeka worked as an Associate in Rickey Tarfa and Co. (Legal Practitioners and Notaries Public) 2014-2017. He was part of a team that handled many litigation cases, including those dealing with the rights of Indigenous people in Nigeria, and coordinated pro bono cases that dealt with fundamental rights protection. He was named most outstanding Associate of 2015. Currently, Nnaemeka works a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Saskatchewan under Dr. Dwight Newman (Professor, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law). He enjoys learning, public speaking, teaching, and writing. His thesis seeks to ascertain the appropriate legal principle for the determination of compensation upon infringement of Aboriginal title in Canada.

Bridget Fa’amatuainu (AUT)

Bridget Fa’amatuainu is lecturer in law at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) School of Law. Bridget transitioned into law academia (teaching contract law, commercial law, company law and partnerships, employment law and legal professional ethics) in Apia, having worked for several years as a gender consultant, law reformer and private lawyer, litigating in criminal and civil matters, including the Court of Appeal of Samoa. In addition to Bridget’s recent work in Samoa’s law and justice sector, Bridget’s professional career started in Auckland and Wellington in both the public and private sector having contributed to many multidisciplinary research projects (public health, law and economic development). Bridget is a Barrister of the Supreme Court of Samoa and enrolled as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.

Andrew Hutchison (Cape Town)

Andrew Hutchison is a contracts specialist and has published a body of work in leading South African and international peer-reviewed law journals and edited books on contract law.  A theme running through most of these articles is the role to be given to good faith or fairness in South African contract law.  Dr Hutchison is interested in the comparative and historical angles to this question, as well as the constitutional and relational dimensions.  Dr Hutchison is currently engaged in research on financial inclusion and stokvels in Cape Town, South Africa. Dr Hutchison presented a guest lecture series at the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida in January 2014.  He has since then been a research visitor (inter alia) at the Edinburgh Centre for Private Law (Scotland, UK); the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (Hamburg, Germany); and Monash University’s Department of Business Law and Taxation (Melbourne, Australia).

Fatimah Opebiyi (Manchester)

Enyinna Sodienye Nwauche (Fort Hare)

Enyinna Sodienye Nwauche is a professor of law at the Nelson Mandela School of Law University of Fort Hare, East London where he is Head of Department of Private Law. At University of Fort Hare he is teaching and articulating a research agenda on intellectual property law and policy in Africa. He previously taught at Rhodes University Grahamstown; the Rivers State University of Science and Technology Nigeria and the University of Botswana. He is Chair of the Coordinating Committee of the African Network of Constitutional Lawyers (ANCL); former Director General of the Nigerian Copyright Commission and member of the African Union(AU) Working Group on a Model Law for the Protection of Cultural Gods and Heritage. His book The Protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions in Africa is to be published by Springer International in September 2017.

Dwight Newman (Saskatchewan)

Dwight Newman 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, 2^nd 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.

Taiwo Odumosu (Olabisi Onabanjo & Nicosia)

Taiwo Odumosu is a doctoral candidate at the University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus. His PhD research is on Regulation of organ transplantation in Nigeria. He holds Master of Laws degree from the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria (2005) and a Bachelor of Laws (LL. B) degree in 1998 from Ogun State University, Ago Iwoye, Nigeria. He was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2000. Odumosu teaches Law at the Department of Public Law of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Nigeria with research interest in Health and Medical Law, Public International Law, International Environmental Law, Law of Evidence, Administrative Law and Law, Popular Participation in Politics and Education Law. He is widely travelled and has attended and presented papers in both local and international conferences including Law and Social Transformations, Lancaster University, Lancaster UK (2019), Sustainability Leadership at the Yale University, Connecticut, USA (2016). He was an associate editor on the Editorial Board of the Nigeria Weekly Law Report (NWLR). He is the Secretary to the Board of OOU Law Clinic and a Staff Clinician. He has led student clinicians to various law clinic events and currently heads the Street Law and Community Service Unit of the OOU Law Clinic. Odumosu belongs to several professional bodies among which are the Nigerian Bar Association, the National Association of Law Teachers, American Health Lawyers Association, Network of University Legal Aid Institution (NULAI) and Clinical Legal Education Organisation (CLEO) etc. He is a creative writer, author and reviewer.

Olubukola Adeyemi Olugasa (Babcock)

Dr. Olubukola Adeyemi Olugasa, BA, MA (English), LLB, BL, LLM, PhD had, prior to joining the School of Law and Security Studies, Babcock University, worked as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of English at the University of Lagos, Nigeria and later as Senior Editor of the University of Lagos Press and the Secretary of the University of Lagos Senate Publications Committee. He left the University of Lagos in 2004 and practised in the law firms of M. I. Jegede (SAN) & Co., Olatunde Adejuyigbe (SAN) & Co., and MATRIX Solicitors. While in practice, he served as an Adjunct Lecturer in the University of Lagos Distance Learning Institute, teaching Use of English, Business Law and Company Law. In 2010, he joined Babcock University as full time Lecturer (1). His areas of teaching and research span over law and technology. His doctorate thesis is on information and communication technology for efficient and effective criminal justice system in Nigeria. In the course of his doctorate studies, Olubukola joined the Center for Law, Technology and Society in the Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), University of Ottawa, Canada as a Visiting Scholar between 2014 and 2015. Olubukola has published articles in learned journals and participated in and presented papers in conferences held across the globe including India, United States of America, Sri Lanka, Portugal, UK and Canada.

Asya Ostroukh (West Indies)

Dr Asya Ostroukh is a Senior Lecturer at Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados where she teaches jurisprudence, comparative law and the law of real property. Asya Ostroukh received her PhD in Law from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland for the thesis “Reception of the French Civil Code in Quebec, Louisiana and Francophone Switzerland: a Socio-Legal Study.” She also undertook a postdoctoral research in the history of Quebec civil law at Université Laval, Quebec, Canada. Dr Ostroukh’s research interests are the reception of the French Code in Francophone countries and territories, the history of property law and legal history of the Caribbean. Dr Ostroukh is the author of over thirty publications and a holder of numerous fellowships, awards and grants, including the prestigious Government of Canada Award, the Scholarship of the Swiss Confederation, and the Fulbright Scholarship.

Christa Rautenbach (North-West University)

Christa Rautenbach has more than 30 years of experience as a lawyer. She was a prosecutor in the employ of the Department of Justice before she became an academic scholar at the faculty of law, North-West University in 1994 where she currently holds an appointment as Full Professor. She also holds a number of other positions such as the honorary treasurer of the Society of Law Teachers of Southern Africa and secretary of Juris Diversitas (an international, interdisciplinary community for the study of legal and normative mixtures and movements). She is alumnus and Ambassador Scientist of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, a prestigious German Foundation focused on providing scholarships and support to esteemed scholars. She serves on the advisory board of the Commission on Legal Pluralism and also on the advisory board of the African-German Network of Excellence in Science (AGNES): southern Africa region. She has published extensively on subjects dealing with legal pluralism, customary law, mixed jurisdictions, cultural diversity, judicial comparativism and the law of succession, and presented numerous papers on these subjects globally. She is co-editor and co-author of two leading books in South Africa, namely Introduction to Legal Pluralism in South Africa published by LexisNexis and The Law of Succession in South Africa published by OUP. She is the editor-in-chief of the peer reviewed, open-access electronic law journal – the Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal, accessible at https://journals.assaf.org.za/per/. She serves on the editorial and/or advisory boards of the Journal for Contemporary Roman-Dutch Law (South Africa), the Journal of Comparative Law in Africa (South Africa) and the Journal of Civil Law Studies (Louisiana), and the Journal of International and Comparative Law (UK). In 2018, she was appointed as an advisory committee member in the South African Law Reform Commission: Project 144. The project is titled “Single Marriage Statute Including Measures against Sham Marriages

Marc L. Roark (Southern)

Professor Roark joined the Southern University Law Center in 2019 as an Associate Professor and Senior Fellow in the Indian Law and Policy Institute.   Professor Roark is an expert in property, urban law, and affordable housing law and policy, homelessness research, commercial law, is an editor for Hedgehogs and Foxes, a Law and Literature website of the American Bar Association, and is a board member for the Association of Law, Property and Society.  Professor Roark has held previous appointments at The Savannah Law School, University of La Verne, University of Missouri, and University of Tulsa.  Professor Roark is also a Fulbright Specialist in the areas of housing and homelessness.  He has lectured to students at the University of Essex, National University of Ireland – Galway, University of Barcelona, University of Adelaide (Australia), and the University of Rovira I Virilli (Spain). His current projects consider the role of the state in responding to squatters, the role of the property system in shaping housing norms, and the impact of model Article 9 legislation on tribal economic development. Professor Roark practiced with the firms Phelps Dunbar in New Orleans and Smith Gambrell and Russell in Atlanta before moving to academia full time.  He holds a J.D. degree from Loyola University New Orleans and an LL.M from Duke University Law School.

Prue Vines (UNSW)

Professor Vines has been recognised with teaching awards and is a UNSW Scientia Education Academy Fellow working across her university assisting teaching. She has been a Member of the NSW Trustee& Guardian Advisory council, the Specialist Accreditation committees of the NSW Law Society for Wills and Estates, and for Personal Injury; and is on the Editorial Boards of the Torts Law Journal, Macquarie Law Journal, Indigenous Law Journal  and  Law&History.  She is also the President of the Australian and New Zealand Legal History Society. From 2005-2017 she was Visiting Professor at the Law School, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland where she taught comparative obligations law. She has also been a visiting Fellow at UCLA, University of East Anglia, New England Law School, Boston, the Vrije Universteit, Amsterdam and the University of Padua, Italy. In 2017 her work was recognised by her being made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law which recognises exceptional distinction in the discipline of law.  In Succession Law Professor Vines has written widely, including on the power of the court to dispense with formalities. She is the Editor of a Case Series: Australian Succession and Trusts Law Reports a member of the NSW Supreme Court Probate Advisory Committee. She has written extensively on the needs of Indigenous people in relation to succession and death, and how the common law has impacted on them in Australia. She wrote the only handbook in the world designed to assist First Nations people and their lawyers to draft culturally appropriate wills. She is the Editor of a Case Series: Australian Succession and Trusts Law Reports. She is also a member of the NSW Supreme Court Probate Advisory Committee.  In Succession Law Professor Vines has written widely, including on the power of the court to dispense with formalities. She is the Editor of a Case Series: Australian Succession and Trusts Law Reports a member of the NSW Supreme Court Probate Advisory Committee. She has written extensively on the needs of Indigenous people in relation to succession and death, and how the common law has impacted on them in Australia. She wrote the only handbook in the world designed to assist First Nations people and their lawyers to draft culturally appropriate wills. She is the Editor of a Case Series: Australian Succession and Trusts Law Reports. She is also a member of the NSW Supreme Court Probate Advisory Committee.

Christopher Whitehead (AUT)

Christopher Whitehead is a Lecturer in Law who teaches and researches the law of the English- and French-speaking worlds (particularly as it relates to the financial services) and the Pacific. Before joining AUT Law School, he practised for 10 years in Paris, France, as legal counsel to a French banking group and then to a United States insurance group. In these roles, he advised on the law of several countries (including France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom) as it applied to his employers’ business — on questions of insurance law, as well as banking and general business law. More recently, he worked in Montreal, Canada, as a data-protection consultant for a Japanese conglomerate. Also, from 2001 to 2004, Christopher worked at AUT as a Lecturer in French.

Frankie Young (Western)

Frankie Young (Mi’kmaw) joined Western Law in 2019. Her scholarly research and teaching areas include Indigenous economic development and self-government, the legitimacy of Indigenous laws, trust law, banking and finance law, business law and secured property transactions. After working overseas on Native Title claims in Sydney, Australia from which she received the Saskatchewan Innovation and Opportunity Scholarship, Professor Young worked in the area of specific claims, trusts, secured transactions and litigation funding. She also served as the Regional Vice President at RBC Wealth Management in the Indigenous Trust Services division where she was responsible for the oversight of the administration of trusts for numerous Indigenous clients throughout Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Atlantic Canada. She currently provides consulting services to lawyers and Indigenous communities on trusts and wealth management initiatives. Professor Young is currently involved as a research partner with the Legal Reform for Indigenous Economic Growth Project, a multi-jurisdictional research initiative involving scholars from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The mandate of this project is to explore critical legal options for Indigenous economic growth and to make research readily accessible to scholars, lawyers and government and Indigenous policymakers. Professor Young is the recipient of the Dean’s Research Fellowship where she is exploring how constraints in current Canadian laws and legislation impact the ability of Indigenous Nations to create and develop sustainable economies on their own terms. Economic development provides a pathway for Indigenous peoples to become self-sustaining. The research explores how Nations can do this on their own terms without compromising culture. To this end, the research asserts the legitimacy of Indigenous laws in Canada, an already multi-juridical legal system.

This content has been updated on 3 December 2020 at 13 h 43 min.