Le Programme de droit et technologie de l’Université d’Ottawa comporte de nombreux avantages, dont l’apport des partenariats conclus à l’étranger par le corps professoral.

Par exemple, les étudiants inscrits au programme de J.D. ou aux cycles supérieurs (LL.M., Ph. D.) sont admissibles à des cours en droit ou en technologie qui résultent d’initiatives conjointes entre l’Université d’Ottawa et d’autres universités de renom où se donnent des cours en droit et technologie.

(La description de cours est offerte seulement dans la langue d’enseignement du cours.)

Cours en anglais seulement.

Global Technology Law and Policy is an intensive two week seminar that examines the development of global technology law policy including privacy, intellectual property, and Internet regulation. The course is a joint initiative of the University of Ottawa, the University of Haifa, and Bocconi University in Milan with ten students from each university participating. The course runs each year in the first two weeks of May. The first week of the course is conducted in Ottawa. Classes include lectures on technology policy, a visit to the Supreme Court and Parliament, and other local events. All students then travel to Israel for a continuation of classes, group presentations, and guest lecturers including Israeli lawyers and government officials. The trip also includes visits to Jerusalem (which includes a meeting with an Israeli Supreme Court justice) and Tel Aviv. All University of Ottawa students receive a bursary to support related travel costs. The precise amount of the bursary is confirmed two months before the class, but is typically at least $1,500 per student. The course credit can be applied for the following academic year in either the fall or winter semesters. No additional fees are required.

This course is by special application and selection. For more information, please review the application requirements on the Academic Affairs page.

Ce cours est anglais seulement. Ce cours n'est pas offert pour cette année universitaire.

Techno-Rico is a January exchange course, taught one week in Ottawa, two weeks in Puerto Rico. The class is shared equally by uOttawa and University of Puerto Rico students.

We are entering an age of advanced robotics and automation. By the time that students enrolled in this course become established in their legal careers, it is anticipated that robots will be our surgeons and our domestic servants. They will drive our cars, diagnose disease and run major elements of our financial markets. Other complex services once offered by human beings (including some legal services) will be automated; these automated systems will become the proxy for human decision-making.

How do law and technology structure and constrain our possible future worlds? What laws or ethical rules ought to govern a society enmeshed in human-computer interaction? And, how will these various codes enable and disable the possibility of achieving what is good, what is right and what is just?

The subject matter of this course is the philosophy of law. We will read some of the greatest minds in analytic jurisprudence from Plato and Aristotle to Fuller and Dworkin. Edified by these canons of jurisprudential thought, we will interrogate the questions raised above through an exploration of the state of the art of robot and automation technologies and their introduction into society. We will consider the ethical and legal significance of robots in the workplace, the market, our roadways, and at home. Through a critique of existing and soon to be proposed ethical and legislative frameworks, we will contemplate the interrelationship between philosophy, ethics, law and technology by thinking about: the general goals of artificial intelligence, whether and how robots ought to be programmed, how automated systems ought to resolve conflicting rules and norms, and about the broader social implications of boarding this strange mothership.

Through this interrogation, students will consider core ethical and legal concepts including questions about sentience and personhood, legal and moral agency, servitude and slavery, criminal and civil liability, safety, privacy, and security. Students will also have the opportunity to further refine their skills in public speaking and oral argumentation, and to renew their abilities in legal research and writing.

This course is by special application and selection. For more information, please review the application requirements on the Academic Affairs page.