Sponsored by the Consortium for Innovative Legal Education, the NAFTA Summer Program made its way to Toronto, Canada from July 5 to 14, 2005 at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. 

While the focus of the first part of the NAFTA Summer Program (San Diego-Tijuana region) is on the labor and environmental consequences of free trade in North America, the Toronto session of the Program, which featured the eight-day course “NAFTA and Business Law Issues”, explores the business related issues that have emerged from free trade.  We explore the booming entertainment industry in Canada and the related issues that affect North American free trade in media (i.e. so-called “run away production” from the U.S. to Canada, tax credits, Canadian Content rules, and other practices that may amount to unfair subsidies provided by the Canadian and its provincial governments to attract business to the North). 

We also explore differing corporate governance regimes, with particular reference to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.   We also examine the legal issues concerning North American trade in intellectual property, from generic drugs (on-line and over the border sales of pharmaceuticals) to fashion items, from entertainment products to software.

The Toronto sessions (NAFTA and Business Law Issues) provides law students from around the United States with an in-depth look at the business and legal cultures in Canada’s financial capital.

The class met with Mr. Justice John Laskin of the Ontario Court of Appeal and went on a tour of the courts and Osgoode Hall.  The students also enjoyed lectures from Toronto-based lawyers Neill May, Jon Johnson, Andrew Muroff, Alfred Apps, Christopher Aide, Joel Michelson, Jim Fisher, Tim Gilbert, Laurie May, as well as Debra Forman from the law firm of Bennett & Jones.  Geoff Garver, Director of the Citizens Submissions program at the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, based in Montreal and created by the NAFTA treaty itself, also lectured.  Jan Berkovic, an investor originally from Chile, provided some context on U.S. and Canadian investments and the advent of intense competition in textiles from China. Tours of Chinatown, the Financial District and Queen’s Park were also part of the program.  

 “This course rocked,” said Arizona-based law student Trevor Gardner.  “It was great fun and we learned a lot,” concurred Trina Pangalilingan, a fellow law student at California Western School of Law.   For Bill Beck, a law student at New England School of Law, “the course helped flesh out the challenges businesses face.

please go here for more pictures of the program