Carmen Gustafson

Author: Carmen Gustafson

Carmen Gustafson, B.Sc. (Alberta) is a second year LL.B. student at the University of Calgary. She spent her 2009 summer as a Canadian Lawyers Abroad intern with the Yukon River Inter-tribal Watershed Council in Whitehorse, Yukon. Her interests are in Aboriginal, resource, and environmental law.

Case Considered: O & M Investments Ltd. v. Edmonton (City), 2010 ABQB 146

PDF version: Defining Art in the Commons: The Case of Building Owners and Graffiti in Edmonton

Graffiti, or street art, is hardly new and neither is the debate around whether it is a public nuisance or art in the commons, as was shown in O & M Investments Ltd. v. Edmonton (City). Graffiti is likely one of the world’s most contentious art forms, perhaps in part due to the subjective nature of art appreciation but also due to the renegade qualities of the installation of a piece. In O & M, a building owner contested an order issued by the City of Edmonton’s Community Standards Branch to “[r]emove all graffiti on any structures on the property that are visible to any surrounding property” (at para. 3). The order referred to graffiti that had been applied to a large wall facing a vacant lot in what can best be described as a mixed-use neighbourhood (see map here and in “street view”, move around to the west side of the building to observe the graffiti).

Case considered: Stout & Company LLP. v. Chez Outdoors Ltd., 2009 ABQB 444

PDF Version: A Web from a Bundle: A Reconstitution of Stout & Company LLP. v. Chez Outdoors Ltd.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe”: John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)

John Muir’s famous quote has encapsulated North American conservation thought for nearly 100 years. As environmental science, industry and protected areas movements advanced through the previous century, it became increasingly apparent that one could not separate the constituents of the environment in an attempt to understand or protect them. A holistic view was necessary to counter the destructive effects of increasing human populations and industrialization in Muir’s day. Today we have even more compelling evidence of the profound interconnectedness of the natural world and human systems and the need to view them inclusively.