Please join us for lunch and an exciting talk by Damon Barrett, international drug policy and human rights legal scholar. Damon will be discussing one of Canada's most important recent legal cases: the battle over the legality of Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection facility, and its implications on global drug policy.

Pivot Legal Society lawyer, Scott Bernstein, who represented Pivot at the Supreme Court on the Insite case, will speak to his experiences in this landmark ruling, and Damon Barrett will speak about harm reduction and drugpolicy on a global scale. The talk will be followed by a question and answer period

Time: Thursday November 10th from 12:30 – 2pm (Lunch Provided)
Location: Allard Hall (the new UBC Law building), Room 106

Speaker biographies:

Damon Barrett is recognised for his leading work on the development of a human rights based approach to drug policy at the international level. He has worked to raise the profile of drug policy issues at the UN Human Rights Council and among the UN human rights treaty bodies. He has authored numerous reports and articles on human rights and drug policy, and has spoken internationally and delivered trainings on human rights, the UN system and rights based approaches. Damon was a member of the UK delegation to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in 2008 where he helped to argue through the first ever human rights resolution adopted by the Commission. He was again a member of the UK delegation to the CND in 2009 and 2010.

He currently works as the Senior Human Rights Analyst for the International Harm Reduction Association in London. Damon holds an LL.B. in Law as well as a Masters Degree in International Human Rights Law. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal on Human Rights and Drug Policy.

Scott Bernstein
After a career in computer consulting and much world travel, Scott returned to school in 2003 and received an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin and a JD from UBC Faculty of Law. As a law student employed at the litigation firm Arvay Finlay, Scott worked on notable constitutional cases including the Insite case at the BC Supreme Court and Court of Appeal levels. Upon being called as a lawyer in 2010, he started his own social justice and environmental oriented law practice and continued his involvement with the Insite case, representing the Plaintiffs as co-counsel at the Supreme Court of Canada. In February of 2011 Scott became a staff lawyer at Pivot Legal Society and currently provides legal support for Pivot’s Health and Drug Policy and Housing campaigns.