Join us for a keynote address and panel discussion with this year’s recipient of the OBA Award of Excellence in International Law, Ms. Valerie Hughes, and other leading practitioners highlighting the challenges and opportunities in promoting diversity in trade law. The discussion will be followed by the award presentation and a networking reception.

Despite ever-increasing evidence that the economic empowerment of women and people of diverse backgrounds facilitates sustainable economic development and yields greater productivity and economic growth, women and minority entrepreneurs continue to face disproportionally complex barriers to accessing economic opportunities. The Joint International Trade and Investment Law Practicum at the University of Ottawa and Queen’s University, which is supervised by Valerie Hughes, gives law students a platform to explore these issues and assess the approaches and tools used in various countries to address economic discrimination against women and minorities. In her keynote address, Ms. Hughes will identify gender-inclusive trade policies, laws, regulations, and trade agreements, as well as gender-mainstreaming approaches for small business. A panel of experts will also comment on the strengths and weaknesses of public procurement models and tools used in several countries to address economic empowerment of women and minorities, including workplace equality principles and legislation promoting equal remuneration for workers, workforce gender and diversity composition targets, as well as ownership and control targets.

PROGRAM CHAIR

Jessica Horwitz, Bennett Jones LLP

SPEAKERS

Fernando Acuña, Trade Commissioner of Chile in Canada

Patricia Goff, Senior Fellow, Center for International Governance Innovation and Professor of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University

Honoured award recipient Valerie Hughes, Bennett Jones LLP with Panel of Expert Commentators