Dwight Newman

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Professor of Law, University of Saskatchewan

Dwight Newman, Q.C., holds a B.A. (Economics), J.D., B.C.L., M.Phil., and D.Phil. (Legal Philosophy), and has also recently completed an M.A.T.S. in History of Christianity and an M.Sc. in Finance and Financial Law (graduations pending). He is a Professor of Law and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law at the University of Saskatchewan. He is also a Munk Senior Fellow (Constitutional Law) of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He has published over a hundred articles or chapters and fifteen books, and his writing has been cited at all levels of courts. Prior to his faculty role, he clerked for Chief Justice Lamer and Justice LeBel at the Supreme Court of Canada, worked for NGOs in South Africa and Hong Kong and for the Canadian Department of Justice, and completed his graduate studies at Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He has been a visiting fellow in recent years at Cambridge, Oxford, and Princeton, the Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC), the Université de Montréal, and the University of Western Australia. He is a member of the Ontario and Saskatchewan bars (and was designated a QC in 2018) and carries on some practice work, mainly on constitutional issues.

Recent Research by Dwight Newman

The Supreme Court of Canada and Transboundary Indigenous Rights Claims: Understanding the Implications of the 2021 Decision in Desautel

— Mar 22, 2022

The SCOC and Transboundary Indigenous Rights Claims: Understanding the Implications of the 2021 Decision in Desautel finds that a ruling last year by the Supreme Court of Canada set a precedent, which may open the door for Indigenous groups outside Canada to claim certain rights—including title and constitutionally protected rights—within Canada’s borders.

The Top Ten Uncertainties of Aboriginal Title after Tsilhqot’in

— Oct 5, 2017

The Top Ten Uncertainties of Aboriginal Title after Tsilhqot’in finds that the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2014 ruling in the Tsilhqot’in Nation case has made it unclear how First Nations can use and develop their own land, threatening the potential for economic prosperity.

Mining and Aboriginal Rights in Yukon: How Certainty Affects Investor Confidence

— Sep 24, 2015

Mining and Aboriginal Rights in Yukon: How Certainty Affects Investor Confidence finds that the legal certainty established by modern land claim agreements in Yukon — once seen as an advantage in attracting new investment — is now being undermined by Canadian courts. Specifically, the courts have forced unforeseen obligations upon governments and third-parties, beyond the requirements already spelled out in modern treaties, thus leading to a decline in investor confidence. The study warns that Yukon’s experience could be a harbinger of uncertainty right across the country and particularly British Columbia.