Jean-Christophe Bédard Rubin
SJD Candidate
Thesis title:
Claiming Constituent Authority in Non-Revolutionary Constitutionalism: State, Sovereignty and Representation in the formation of French-Canadian Constitutional Culture
Office in Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park
Toronto, M5S 2C5

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin (LL.B. Laval, LL.M. Toronto) is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto and a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholar. His doctoral dissertation titled Claiming Constituent Authority in Non-Revolutionary Constitutionalism: State, Sovereignty and Representation in the formation of French-Canadian Constitutional Culture provides a genealogical account of the intellectual history of public law thought in the French-Canadian liberal tradition. His research draws on a variety of methodological approaches to explore Canadian constitutional culture from a comparative perspective writ large. His work has appeared or is forthcoming, in English or French, in the Canadian Journal of Law and SocietyOsgoode Hall Law Journal, the Review of Constitutional Studies, the International Journal of Canadian Studies, the Bulletin d’histoire politique, Constitutional Forum, Linguistic Minorities and Society as well as an edited collection by Brill. In 2020-2021, Jean-Christophe was the R. Roy McMurtry Fellow of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. In 2021-2022, he is a visiting assistant in research at Yale University's MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies.

Education
Visiting Assistant in Research, Yale University's MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies (2021-2022)
LL.M. University of Toronto (2016)
LL.B. Laval University (2013)
Cert. Philosophy Laval University (2013)
Awards and Distinctions
SSHRC Michael-Smith Foreign Study Supplement
Ontario Graduate Scholarship 2021-2022 (10 000$)
R. Roy McMurtry Fellowship in Legal History of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History 2020-2021
Dean's Graduate Student Leadership Award 2019
SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholarship 2018-2021 (105 000$)
FRQSC Quebec Government Scholarship 2018-2022 (80 000$) (declined)
Nathan Strauss Q.C. Graduate Fellowship in International Law University of Toronto (2018-2019)
Central European University visiting scholarship (2018)
DAAD (German Academic Exchange Fund) and Goethe University Frankfurt-am-Main scholarship (2018)
W.C.G. Howland Prize for best overall performance in the LL.M. University of Toronto (2016)
Nathan Strauss Q.C. Graduate Fellowship in Canadian Constitutional Law University of Toronto (2015-2016)
Lieutenant-Governor Tribute Laval University (2014)
Dean's Honour List Laval University (2013)
Professional Affiliations
Member of the Quebec Bar
Member of the Canadian Political Science Association
Member of the Quebec Political Science Society
Member of the Quebec Constitutional Law Association
Member of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History
Selected Publications

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin, "L'analyse comportementale du jugement judiciaire dans l'angle mort des études sociojuridiques francophones au Canada", [Judicial Behavior Studies in the Dead Angle of French Canadian Socio-legal Studies] (2022) Revue de droit de l'Université de Sherbrooke (forthcoming).

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin & Tiago Rubin, "The Elusive Quest for French on the Bench: Bilingualism Scores for Canadian Supreme Court Justices, 1985-2013", (2022) Canadian Journal of Law & Society (forthcoming).

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin, "Comparing Regimes of Constitutional Historicity: The Case of Precedents in Canada and the United States", in Jason Mazzone, Justin Frosini & Francesco Biagi, eds., The Uses of History in Constitutional Adjudication: Comparative Perspectives, Leiden, Brill, 2022 (forthcoming).

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin, "L'émergence inattendue de la dualité institutionnelle à la Cour suprême du Canada depuis Pepin-Robarts" [The Unexpected Emergence of Institutional Duality at the Supreme Court of Canada since Pepin-Robarts], (2021) 29:2 Bulletin d'histoire politique 125, online: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/bhp/2021-v29-n2-bhp06227/1079767ar/

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin, "La Couverture médiatique du bilinguisme à la Cour suprême du Canada: entre légalisme, pragmatisme et polémique", [Media Coverage of Supreme Court Bilingualism: Between Legalism, Pragmatism and Polemics] (2019) 59 International Journal of Canadian Studies 51, online: https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/epdf/10.3138/ijcs.59.x.50

Book review of Samuel V. LaSelva, Canada and the Ethics of Constitutionalism: Identity, Destiny, and Constitutional Faith, Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018, 324 p., in (2020) 14 Linguistic Minorities and Society 101, online: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/minling/2020-n14-minling05565/1072314ar/

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin, "Senate Reform and the Political Safeguards of Canadian Federalism in Québec", (2019) 28:1 Constitutional Forum constitutionnel 19, online: https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/constitutional_forum/index.php/constitutional_forum/article/view/29375

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin, "Des Causes et des Conséquences du Dialogue Constitutionnel" [Causes and Consequences of Constitutional Dialogue] (2018) 23:2 Review of Constitutional Studies/Revue d'études constitutionnelles 287, online: https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/03_Bedar...

Jean-Christophe Bédard-Rubin & Tiago Rubin, "Assessing the Impact of Unilingualism at the Supreme Court of Canada: Panel Composition, Assertiveness, Caseload, and Deference", (2018) 55 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 715, online: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol55/iss3/3/

Research Interests
Administrative Law
Canadian Constitutional Law
Comparative Law
Economic Analysis of Law
International Law
Judicial Decision-Making
Law and Globalization
Legal Ethics
Legal History
Legal Process
Legal Theory
Political Philosophy and Theory
Supervisor
Committee Members