University of Toronto Faculty of Law to Celebrate Contributions of Retired Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Silberman Abellawho sat for 17 years on Canada’s highest court, at an event that brings together leading judicial figures from around the world.
The September 22 event at the Isabel Bader Theater – Justice Beyond Borders: Justice Abella’s Global Legacy – will be recognize Abella for her contribution to legal thought around the world and as an ambassador of Canadian values and jurisprudence.
Abella will participate in a conversation with current and former judges of the International Supreme Court: Justice Susanne Baer of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany; Lord John Anthony Dyson, former Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice (2012 – 2016) and former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (2010 – 2012); and Associate Justice Elena Kagan of the United States Supreme Court.
“We are honored and delighted to welcome Judge Abella and her international peers,” said university teacher Jutta Brunnee, Dean of the Faculty of Law and holder of the Dean James Marshall Tory Chair. “The law is sensitive to its global context. We have seen time and time again how decisions here at home impact broader thinking on legal issues elsewhere, and vice versa.”
“We look forward to a lively and thoughtful discussion.”
The event will be moderated by Professor of International Law Stephen ToopeVice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and former Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. ITickets for n people or live are $17 – one dollar for each year Abella served on the Supreme Court of Canada.
“International lawyers take a keen interest in Abella’s work,” says Toope.
“Her judgments are always in step with developments in other jurisdictions, and she has always shown an interest in connecting Canadian law to the international legal system.”
Abella, whose parents survived the Holocaust, was born in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany in 1946. She came to Canada as a refugee in 1950.
Her legal career was marked by a series of firsts: she was the first Jewish woman appointed to Canada’s highest court; the first pregnant woman appointed to the bench in Canada; and the first refugee appointed to the bench in Canada. She graduated from University College in 1967, earned her law degree from U of T in 1970, and received an honorary degree from U of T in 1990.
Among her many accolades, Abella received the Rose Wolfe Distinguished Alumni Award in 2019 in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the University of Toronto, Canada and the world. In 2020, she was awarded the German Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit (with Badge and Star), one of the country’s highest national decorations for non-civilians, in recognition of the lessons she learned from the Holocaust on the need to protect minority rights and the rule of law.
Since retiring in 2021, Abella has served as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at U of T Law and Pisar Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
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