jdk


Jacqueline D. Krikorian

Department of Politics
Department of Social Science

Professor
Law & Society (LASO) and Socio-Legal Studies (SLST)

Office: 672 Ross Building South
Phone: 416 736 2100 Ext: 66229
Email: jdk@yorku.ca


Jacqueline Krikorian is a professor and a member of the bar of Ontario. She received a PhD from the University of Toronto (Political Science), an MA from Dalhousie (Political Science) and her law degree from Queen's University. She also was awarded two years of funding from the British Council that she used to complete a master's research degree from the University of Oxford (Modern History). On her sabbatical in 2019, she was invited as a visiting scholar to teach at Tamil Nadu National Law University in India. In the winter 2014 term, Professor Krikorian held the prestigious Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in US-Canada Relations at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was appointed as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for International Economic Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Professor Krikorian holds a cross-appointment in the Departments of Politics and Social Science (Law & Society program) and is appointed to four graduate programs (Politics, History, Socio-Legal Studies and the Osgoode Law Faculty). She specializes in government and public law, with a particular emphasis on constitutional law and policy, international trade, and Canada and US relations. She has been the recipient of funding from a number of institutions including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Fulbright Canada, and the Commonwealth awards program.

Her research has been published on-line by Policy Options, the World Trade Organization and the Washington International Trade Association and in print by several leading academic publishers - the University of Toronto Press, the University of British Columbia Press, Cambridge University Press, and Les Presses de l'Université Laval. Her research also can be found in several noted scholarly journals, including the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the University of Toronto Law Journal and the Journal of International Economic Law.

She has recently co-edited Globalizing Confederation: Canada and the World in 1867 (2017) and Roads to Confederation, The Making of Canada, 1867, volumes 1 and 2 (2017) that was translated in French, Vers la Confédération, La construction du Canada, 1867, tomes 1 et 2. Her book, International Trade Law and Domestic Public Policy: Canada, the United States and the WTO (2012), adopts the methodological approaches traditionally used to study the effect of domestic high courts in order to analyze the policy impact of decisions issued by the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. It has received strong reviews, including:

"This book is an impressive work of scholarship, and sets a new standard in the scope of analysis appropriate in analyzing the implications of WTO case law. The particular strength of the author’s analysis is her detailed investigation of the political motivations and origins of challenged measures and even more so the meticulous investigation of the consequences of particular decisions and domestic policy responses thereto. Trade law scholars conventionally have settled for parsing the doctrinal rulings of the Appellate Body, with little regard for the impact of these rulings on the actual policy-making process in affected countries. For her, the latter is a central focus of her analysis - in effect the impact of law or legal rulings ‘on the ground’, so to speak. In the light of the ambitions (largely realized) by the author in this book, trade law scholars in future are unlikely to be able to settle simply for parsing passages in Appellate Body rulings."
-- Michael J. Trebilcock, University of Toronto, from World Trade Review, 2013

"Krikorian has engaged in original scholarship to produce an insightful analysis of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism and its limited policy impact on Canada and the United States. She presents a detailed examination of all of the relevant WTO complaints against Canada and the United States that illuminates the interplay between the WTO law in question and the surrounding domestic policy concerns. Applying the law and politics literature to the WTO dispute resolution mechanism, she succeeds in achieving real interdisciplinary work that crosses the international law and political science divide and brings the two fields closer together."
-- Linda C. Reif, CN Professor of International Trade, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, from The Canadian Yearbook of International Law, 2012

"The WTO dispute settlement mechanism is widely regarded as the most significant aspect of a very important attempt at international regime building. This book provides a new objective dimension in the analysis and understanding of this mechanism … It makes a significant original contribution across several academic subfields, including international trade law, international political economy, international law, and domestic legal theory."
-- Gilbert R. Winham, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science and Adjunct Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, Dalhousie University, 2012

“This book provides an original framework for analysis of the effects of the WTO’s binding dispute settlement on national policy making. It greatly adds to scholarly debate both in the field of WTO issues and, more generally, the interaction of supranational decisions on national policy making.”
-- Christopher Parlin is Principal, Parlin & Associates, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, 2012

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Professor Krikorian has supervised over 50 MA students in law, socio-legal studies and political science and also participates in PhD dissertation committees. She has worked with graduate students in a range of areas including, constitutional and administrative law and policy; international law and international legal regimes; multilevel governance, federalism and intergovernmental relations; courts, judicial politics, and judicial administration; women and the law; legal history; and comparative legal systems.

As a student, she participated in a number of experiential learning programs that complemented her academic research. In Cape Town, South Africa, she undertook constitutional policy research and assisted in civil rights cases as an intern with the Legal Resources Centre. In Portland, Oregon, she worked as an intern in Ron Wyden’s constituency office when he was a member of the House of Representatives. And in Ottawa, Ontario she worked for both government and opposition members as a Parliamentary Intern.

Professor Krikorian can be reached via email at jdk@yorku.ca.

Degrees

PhD Political Science, University of Toronto
LLB Faculty of Law, Queen's University
MLitt Modern History, University of Oxford
MA Political Science, Dalhousie University
BA Politics/History, Brock University

Appointments

Faculty of Graduate Studies

Research Interests

Politics and Government , Law and Justice