Global Spotlight of the Month: Faculty of Law
Faculty of Law
UVic Law’s global footprint spans decades. Beginning with partnerships in South Africa in the 1980s to annual faculty exchanges in Hungary today, UVic Law’s strong tradition of international engagement endures through research, exchange opportunities and shared scholarly interests. Today, the faculty is strategically growing partnerships across the Global South, including Bhutan, Taiwan and India.
UVic Law’s global reach
UVic Law’s connections extend to transnational institutions, Asian legal systems, the European Union, Oceania and Indigenous communities across the globe. UVic Law students and faculty benefit from a series of agreements that support international exchanges, enabling them to study and teach law within different legal systems around the world.
As a partner with the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives (CAPI), UVic Law supports conferences, research and student internships focused on Asian law, while maintaining close links with leading Asian law schools. CAPI helps increase the faculty’s international profile by attracting international students to the Graduate Program in Law and Society as well as a stream of international visiting scholars.
Student Exchange program
UVic Law partners with 14 top law schools around the world. The law school’s international exchange program offers students globally informed legal experiences and perspectives in countries like Australia, Bhutan, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore and more. In a typical year, over 20 UVic Law students go out on exchange during the academic year. And in 2025 UVic Law welcomed its highest number of inbound exchange students in five years – 17 students for the 2025-26 academic year.
Did you know?
UVic Law is marking its 50th anniversary in 2025–26!
International stories
A collaborative approach to climate change
UVic Law and the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives partnered with JSW Law School in Bhutan with funding from the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada to deliver the 2025 Paro Forum (Feb 23-25), a biennial platform for interdisciplinary dialogue that tackles pressing global challenges. This forum addressed water management and climate change, aiming to unify diverse stakeholders, foster collaboration, and create a comprehensive action plan. In June 2025, UVic and Bhutanese participants reconvened at a workshop at UVic to explore the Forum’s implications for Canada.
Advancing Indigenous Trade Relationships
UVic Law and the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives hosted an Indigenous Laws and Transpacific Trade symposium in May 2025. This gathering initiated important conversations to strengthen capacity of Indigenous communities and businesses to participate in global trade. The emerging themes will be explored further at the second symposium in Taiwan in Spring 2026. This project is supported by Global Affairs Canada and led by Professor Pooja Parmar, Presidents Chair in Law & Indigeneity in a Global Context.
Rebuilding Indigenous Law
UVic Law launched Next Steps: Rebuilding Indigenous Law, an Indigenous-led, global first initiative dedicated to comprehensively revitalizing entire Indigenous legal orders. This Indigenous-led initiative aims to rearticulate and restore citizenship, lawfulness, intersocietal relations, legal pluralism, civil society and healthy communities through Indigenous law, institutions and legal processes. Drawing from the UVic’s JD/JID (dual law degree) program and Indigenous Legal Research Unit, Next Steps begins in partnership with the Secwépemc Nation and will work to inspire similar efforts worldwide – reaffirming Indigenous laws as living systems necessary for addressing challenges both in Canada and beyond.
Modernizing Science, Respecting our Animal Kin
In 2024 Professor Deckha held a Visiting Professorship at the Faculty of Law, University of Zurich. Through its Center for Animal Law and Ethics, she convened a symposium on what universities can and should do to accelerate a transition to animal-free research. Read more about in a paper from the event: “Accelerating Animal Replacement: How Universities Can Lead — Results of a One-Day Expert Workshop in Zurich, Switzerland.”
Partnership Fun Fact
UVic Law has maintained a student exchange partnership with Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Law in Bangkok, Thailand, since 1988.