Researchers

Meyer Aaron is currently the CEO, 3Pi Capital Advisory Inc. which is developing market-based models for sustainable finance initiatives. Prior to this, Meyer was a Policy Adviser at the bank of Canada.

As Policy Adviser in the Funds Management and Banking Department at the Bank of Canada, Meyer contributed to the Bank’s work on emerging financial technologies. Meyer’s other roles while at the Bank of Canada included Adviser, Policy and Markets, in the Financial Markets Department, where he led a review of the Bank’s framework for financial market operations, as well as the development and implementation of the margining policy for the Government of Canada’s USD60B cross currency swaps portfolio used for its foreign reserves.

Meyer represented the Bank on the Trading Book Group, a Basel committee which conducted a fundamental review of regulatory capital for banks’ trading books.

Meyer was a member of the Bank’s Pension Fund Investment Committee. Meyer’s career at the Bank has included managing the Bank’s pension fund. He was awarded the Terry Staples Award in 2012 for his contributions by the Pension Investment Association of Canada. Meyer also contributed to the Bank’s work on financial system function, developing market-based models for domestic and international financial system assessment.

Prior to joining the Bank, Meyer worked as partner in a venture capital firm, and as partner in a law firm specializing in international banking and corporate financing. Meyer holds a BSc, MSc, MA (Economics), JD, MBA, and a CFA designation. He has contributed to the Bank’s publications and to leading scientific journals.

Dr. Susan Breau is a research Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria. Previously she was Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria and was the Head of the School of Law at the University of Reading, UK. She has a distinguished record of achievement as a researcher, teacher and administrator. She specializes in international law particularly in the law of armed conflict, international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international disaster law. She is currently working on a second edition of her Research Handbook in Disasters and International Law (Edward Elgar).

She completed her Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Laws and Masters of Arts degrees at Queen’s University. She practiced law in Kingston, Ontario, for almost 20 years before completing Master of Laws and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has taught and lectured at law schools throughout the United Kingdom and Australia. Dr. Breau was the Dorset Fellow in Public International Law at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

Marlea specialises in comparative politics and the Global South (particularly Africa). Her broad research interests are globalisation, employment and labour market restructuring from a comparative and feminist political economy perspective, regional (African) clothing production networks, and south-south labour migration and investment (specifically Asia-Africa). Her current, SSHRC-funded, five-year research project focuses on changing patterns of trade and global production of clothing, especially regional production networks and labour standards in sub-Saharan Africa. This research includes an exploration of the role of Asian migrant workers in clothing production in Lesotho and Mauritius, and Asian investment in African clothing and textiles industries.

Jingjai Hanchanlash received his Ph. D. in Public Law from France. His Post–Doctorate training included “Project Analysis” at the University of Connecticutt, USA and “Mid Career Management” at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He has a wide range of experience in working in the public sector, international organizations, NGOs, academic and private sectors.

He started his career working with the Thai Government for 9 years coordinating technical and economic cooperation programs between Thailand and major European Countries. He then joined the International Development Research Center, where he served for 23 years, mainly as Asia Regional Director overseeing development research grants. He has been in the private sector since 1997.

Jingjai Hanchanlash's positions include: Chairman, Rutnin-Gimbel Lasic Center; Chairman Loxpac Co.; Chairman GMS Business Forum; Executive Board Member, The Thai Chamber of Commerce; Chairman, The French-Thai Business Council. He is also currently serving as Board member in several public organizations such as the National Education Council, the National Science and Technology Development Agency, and the Health Promotion Fund. His academic responsibilities include: Chairman of the Executive Board, University of Thai Chamber of Commerce and Council Member of King Prajadhipok Institute. He actively interacts with the civil society through his position as Secretary General of the Development Cooperation Foundation.

Robert J. Hanlon is an Associate Professor in Politics and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, History and Politics at Thompson Rivers University. He is also Director of the Canada-Asia Pacific Policy Project, and an Associate Faculty member in the School of Humanitarian Studies at Royal Roads University. His research explores the links between human security and business in emerging Asian economies. Outside academia, Dr. Hanlon has worked for the Asian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.  He holds a PhD in International Relations and Asian Politics from City University of Hong Kong.

Dr. Dulma Karunarathna was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and Program Coordinator at CAPI University of Victoria from 2021 to 2024. She received a Merit-based Commonwealth Scholarship in the United Kingdom in 2011 and completed her Ph.D. in Archaeology at Newcastle University, United Kingdom, in 2015. She completed her MPhil and BA in Archaeology at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. She was a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the same University from 2002-2021. Her research interests are Sustainable Built Environment,  Heritage and Climate Change, and Gender Archaeology. She completed several UKRI and AHRC-funded research projects in collaboration with the School of Geo-Sciences, University of Edinburgh, UK. She is currently working on a cookbook highlighting the Asian food heritage and holistic well-being approach. 

Asad G. Kiyani joined the University of Calgary Faculty of Law in 2019 after two years at UVic. He holds an LL.B from Osgoode Hall, an LL.M from Cambridge, and a PhD from UBC, where he was awarded a Four-Year Fellowship, a SSHRC Vanier CGS Scholarship, the Charles Bourne Graduate Scholarship in International Law, and the Dean of Law PhD Prize. Prior to joining UVic, Asad was an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law and an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction at Western University.

Asad researches and teaches in domestic and international criminal law, immigration and refugee law (including national security issues), evidence, postcolonial theory, legal pluralism, and comparative law. His current research projects focus on three areas. The first critically examines the major obstacles to legal pluralism as a practical method in international criminal law, and the role of international bodies and Third World governments in co-opting pluralist practices. The second considers the utility and risks of extending Gladue-based sentencing principles to non-Indigenous communities, and the extent to which those principles turn on the specific colonial experience of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The third examines the racialized effects of contemporary Canadian national security policy, and the commingling of administrative and criminal law.

Asad has written a number of book chapters and articles, including for the Supreme Court Law Review, the American Journal of Comparative Law, the Journal of International Criminal Justice, the NYU Journal of Law & Politics, and the American Journal of International Law: Unbound. He is a recipient of the 2017 Antonio Cassese Prize for International Criminal Law Studies for his article “Group-Based Differentiation and Local Repression: The Custom and Curse of Selectivity”, and his article “Al-Bashir & the ICC: The Problem of Head of State Immunity” was cited by the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa in its decision on the South African government’s obligation to arrest suspects indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Before beginning his doctoral studies, Asad articled with the Department of Justice in Toronto, worked as a Pegasus Scholar with barristers at Garden Court Chambers and 2 Bedford Row in the United Kingdom, and was part of the appeal team for Issa Hassan Sesay before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He also worked with various Toronto-area legal aid clinics, including Parkdale Community Legal Services and the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, and was posted to Ethiopia as part of a capacity-building partnership between the Canadian Bar Association and the Ethiopian Bar Association.

Asad was called to the bar by the Law Society of Upper Canada in 2006, and is currently a member of the National Council for Canadian Muslims Advisory Panel on National Security. 

Jae Woon (June) Lee is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law in the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Born in Seoul and educated there as well as at McGill University (LLM) and National University of Singapore (PhD), June’s main re­search and teaching interests are aviation law and competition law. He has seven years of legal affairs experience in the airline industry prior to joining the academia and is the sole editor of the book Aviation Law and Policy in Asia: Smart Regulation in Liberalized Markets (BRILL, 2020).

Dr. Carol Liao is an Associate Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law and the UBC Sauder Distinguished Scholar of the Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at the UBC Sauder School of Business. Her research focuses on business law, corporate governance, corporate sustainability, and business ethics. She is the Principal Investigator of a SSHRC Insight Grant-funded project studying the evolution of international corporate law and governance principles from an economic, social, and environmental sustainability lens. She is a Principal co-Investigator of the Canada Climate Law Initiative, a cross-disciplinary research hub advancing knowledge on fiduciary obligation and climate governance. Asia's interconnectedness with the world, growing influence on international norms, and leading drivers of climate change has also necessitated her research towards sustainable governance in Asia. She is the Director of the Centre for Business Law, a national research centre that hosts and co-hosts numerous events throughout the year on contemporary issues in business law.

Dr. Liao is currently editing three books on sustainable business, including Innovating Business for Sustainability: Regulatory Approaches in the Anthropocene (Edward Elgar), Corporate Social Responsibility and the Law from the Next Generation of Lawyers (McGill-Queen’s), and Contemporary Theories in Corporate Law and Corporate Governance. Before joining UBC, Dr. Liao was a faculty member at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, where she received the 2016 Law Students’ Society First Year Class Teaching Award.

Prior to academia, Dr. Liao was a senior associate in the New York Mergers & Acquisitions Group of Shearman & Sterling LLP, where she represented public and private multinational corporations in a variety of transactional and governance matters. On behalf of the firm, she also served as a legal researcher for the Office of the Prosecutor on location at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, and was featured in the New York Law Journal for her pro bono asylum work. She is a former judicial clerk of the BC Court of Appeal.

Qian Liu completed her Ph.D. in Law and Society at the Faculty of Law, University of Victoria in 2020 and is now an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Calgary. Her research interests include legal consciousness in Chinese societies, legal pluralism, feminist legal theory, postcolonial feminist theory, sexual orientation and the law, qualitative research, and gender issues in China. Dr. Liu is the author of several articles including “Legal Consciousness of the Leftover Woman: Law and Qingin Chinese Family Relations,” which won the 2019 Asian Law and Society Association Graduate Student Article Award. She is currently working on a monograph on the impact of the interaction of state law, family relations, and social expectations on Chinese leftover women’s choices in marriage and childbearing.

Dr. Andrew Marton specializes in contemporary Chinese studies. His research revolves around spatial economic transformation in China’s mega-urban regions, with a particular focus on the lower Yangzi delta. Dr. Marton is founding member of the Diffuse Cities & Urbanization Network with a comparative focus on Asian and European urban regions. Other research interests in China include studies of administrative restructuring, hybrid spaces of production and consumption in the countryside, education, and the emergence of new spaces for the visual arts and other creative activities. Dr. Marton is also undertaking research examining the doctrine of the unequal treaties and China’s approach to international law.

Dr. Marton served as CAPI Director from 2014 to 2017.

Jeremy Webber is Professor of Law at the University of Victoria. He has written widely in constitutional law, Indigenous rights, federalism, cultural diversity, and constitutional theory in Canada and in relation to other countries (especially Australia). He is the author of Reimagining Canada: Language, Culture, Community and the Canadian Constitution (1994), The Constitution of Canada: A Contextual Analysis (2015), and Las gramáticas de la ley: Derecho, pluralismo y justicia (2017). 

Professor Webber was UVic’s Dean of Law from 2013 to 2018. He held the Canada Research Chair in Law and Society at UVic from 2002 to 2014, when he surrendered the chair to serve as Dean of Law. Prior to joining UVic, he was Dean of Law at the University of Sydney, Australia (1998-2002) and Professor of Law at McGill University (1987-1998). He was appointed a Fellow of the Trudeau Foundation in 2009 and a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada in 2016.

Catherine Morris has been involved in the field of conflict resolution since 1983. She has played key roles in numerous Canadian and international conflict resolution organizations and initiatives in academic, community, nonprofit, public and private sectors. She is a founding director of Peacemakers Trust, a Canadian charitable organization for education and research in conflict transformation and peacebuilding. She is a member of the bar in British Columbia.

Catherine is an Associate and a former Executive Director of the Institute for Dispute Resolution at the University of Victoria, where she worked in several leadership roles from 1992-1998. She is also an Associate of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives (CAPI) at the University of Victoria. She has taught internationally in non-formal and formal settings, including graduate-level courses at the University of Victoria, Osgoode Hall Law School, Chulalongkorn University and the Royal University of Phnom Penh. Her papers and publications include works on mediator ethics and qualifications, conflict and culture, ADR in legal education, religion and conflict, and peacebuilding in Cambodia. Her LLM thesis is entitled "Peacebuilding in Cambodia: Transforming Public Dialogue about Human Rights."

Sada Niang obtained his B.A. Honours and his M.A. from the Université of Paris X, Nanterre and a PhD from York University in Toronto. He has been teaching at the University of Victoria since 1991.

In addition to his book, Djibril Diop Mambéty, un cinéaste à contre courant (L'Harmattan, 2002), he ahs published articles and reviews in Research in African Literatures, The Dalhousie Review, Etudes Francophones, Presence Francophone, Notre Librairie, and book chapters in numerous critical collections. He is most recently the principal investigator of a major research grant on the Aesthetics of African cinemas, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

His teaching interests include African literatures, Caribbean literatures, African cinemas, Caribbean cinemas and French phonetics. He is currently at work on several projects, in various stages of completion. They involve the relationship between African and world cinemas, the artistic legacy of Ousmane Sembene and Diaspora literature in France.

Thanh Phan currently teaches Engineering Law at UVic. He previously worked for the Vietnamese government for ten years as a delegate negotiating free trade agreements and an expert in competition law enforcement. He was educated at Hanoi Law University, Nagoya University, and received his PhD in Law from UVic. He has published journal articles in the Houston Journal of International Law, Louisiana Law Review, American Bar Association’s International Antitrust Bulletin, and Journal of Fair Trade of Japan. He is interested in transnational law, law and technology, and corporate governance.

M. Cody Poulton is Professor of Japanese literature and theatre in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada, where he has taught since 1988. Active as a translator of Japanese fiction and drama, he is author of Spirits of Another Sort: The Plays of Izumi Kyōka (2001) and A Beggar' Art: Scripting Modernity in Japan, 1900-1930 (2010). He is also co-editor, with Mitsuya Mori and J. Thomas Rimer, of The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Drama (2014) and a contributing editor to The Cambridge History of Japanese Theatre (2016).

In fall 2018, Cody organized a four-day CAPI conference called "The Nonhuman in Japanese Culture and Society: Spirits, Animals, Technology," featuring a line-up of leading international scholars and artists whose areas of exploration cover a wide array of "nonhuman" issues in Japanese society, from animal studies and new materialism to augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and performance and puppetry. He continues to bring Japanese-focused programming to CAPI.

Mr. Stephens has more than 35 years of government and business experience in the Asia-Pacific region. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, he is currently Vice Chair of the Canadian Committee on Pacific Economic Cooperation (CANCPEC), Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Executive Fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, and an associate faculty member in the School of Business at Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC. Before returning to Canada in December 2009, he was Senior Vice President (Public Policy) for Asia-Pacific for Time Warner for almost a decade, located at the company’s regional headquarters in Hong Kong. In this capacity he managed Time Warner’s public policy program in Asia Pacific for Turner Broadcasting, HBO, Warner Bros, Time Inc. and AOL.

Mr. Stephens has been an active leader in a number of regional business organizations in Asia. He served on the Executive Committee of the Board of the US National Center for APEC and is a past Executive Committee Board member of the US-Korea Business Council. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the US-ASEAN Business Council, Governor of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong and Vice Chair of the Quality Brands Protection Committee, a coalition of more than 180 multinational companies engaged in strengthening IPR protection in China.

In recent years, he has written and commented extensively on Canada’s engagement with the Asia Pacific region and has testified before the Foreign Affairs and International Trade committee of the Canadian Senate.

Prior to joining Time Warner in 2000, Mr. Stephens spent 30 years in the Canadian Foreign Service with the Department of External Affairs, later the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). His last Ottawa assignment was as Assistant Deputy Minister for Policy and Communications in DFAIT. He also served abroad as Canadian Representative in Taiwan (Head of Mission-Canadian Trade Office in Taipei), Counsellor and Charge d’affaires at the Canadian Embassies in Seoul, Korea and Islamabad, Pakistan, among a number other overseas and headquarters assignments, including service at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing and Mandarin language training in Hong Kong.

Mr. Stephens was educated at the University of British Columbia (UBC), University of Toronto and Duke University, and has a Certificate in Mandarin from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.