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Schulich School of Law

Jocelyn Downie

Professor Emeritus Faculties of Law and Medicine; Adjunct Professor, Australian Centre for Health Law Research - QUT

law_faculty_Jocelyn Downie March 2017

Connect with me

Schulich School of Law , Dalhousie Health Justice Institute

Email: jocelyn.downie@dal.ca
Mailing Address: 
Weldon Law Building, 6061 University Avenue
PO Box 15000 Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2
 
Research Topics:
  • Health law
  • Health care ethics
  • Health policy
  • End-of-life law and policy

Education

  • BA Philosophy (Queen's University)
  • MAĀ Philosophy (Queen's University)
  • MLitt Philosophy (The University of Cambridge)
  • LLB (The University of Toronto)
  • LLM (The University of Michigan)
  • SJD (The University of Michigan)

Bar admission

Nova Scotia, 2000

Selected awards & honours

  • Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal (2022)
  • Order of Canada (2018)
  • President's Research Excellence Award - Research Impact (2018)
  • The Canadian Academy of Health Sciences Scientific Lecture Award (2016)
  • Trudeau Fellow (2015)
  • pilipiliĀž»­ Research Professor
  • CIHR Barer-Flood Prize for Health Services and Policy Research
  • Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
  • Fellow, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences
  • Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy (2003ā€“13)

Recent publications

  • Eliana Close and Jocelyn Downie, ā€œAssisted Dying in Canadaā€ in Ben White (ed.) Law and Assisted Dying Handbook (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2025).
  • Ruthie Jeanneret, Eliana Close, Jocelyn Downie, Lindy Willmott, and Ben White, ā€œā€˜My advocacy is not about me, my advocacy is about Canadiansā€™: A qualitative study of how caregivers and patients influence regulation of medical assistance in dying in Canadaā€ Medical Law Review, 2024.
  • Eliana Close, Ruthie Jeanneret, Jocelyn Downie, Lindy Wilmott, and Ben White, ā€œA qualitative study of institutional objection of medical assistance in dying: ongoing challenges and catalysts for changeā€ 24(1) BMC Medical Ethics, 2023.
  • Jocelyn Downie, ā€œThe Value of a Feminist Approach in the Ethics of End of Life Careā€ in Vikki Entwistle and Wendy Rogers , eds., Routledge Handbook of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022).
  • Jocelyn Downie, Mona Gupta, Stefano Cavalli, Samuel Blouin, ā€œAssistance in Dying: A comparative look at legal definitionsā€ 46(7) Death Studies 2022, 1547-1556.
  • Jocelyn Downie, ā€œFrom Prohibition to Permission: The Winding Road of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canadaā€, 34:4 HEC Forum 321-354.
  • Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Katrine Del Villar, Jayne Hewitt, Eliana Close, Laura Ley Greaves, James Cameron, Rebecca Meehan, Jocelyn Downie, ā€œWho is Eligible for Voluntary Assisted Dyingā€ Nine Medical Conditions Assessed Against Five Legal Frameworksā€ (2022) 45:1 UNSW Law Journal 401-444.
  • Jocelyn Downie and Kate Scallion, ā€œFrom Rodriguez to Carter to Bill C-14: Lessons learned from Canadaā€™s journey to legal medical assistance in dyingā€ in Ben While and Lindy Willmott, eds., International Perspectives on End-of-Life Reform: Politics, Persuasion and Persistence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
  • Gina Bravo, Lieve Van den Block, Jocelyn Downie, Marcel Arcand, and Lise Trottier, ā€œAttitudes toward withholding antibiotics from people with dementia lacking decisional capacity: findings from a survey of Canadian stakeholdersā€ (2021) 22:119 BMC Med Ethics.
  • Udo Schuklenk and Jocelyn Downie, ā€œSocial determinants of health and slippery slopes in assisted dying debates: Lessons from Canadaā€ (2021) Journal of Medical Ethics.
  • Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Eliana Close, and Jocelyn Downie, ā€œLegislative Options to Address Institutional Objections to Voluntary Assisted Dying in Australiaā€ (2021) 3 UNSW Law Journal Forum 1-19.
  • Ben White, Lindy Willmott, Jocelyn Downie, Andrew Geddis, and Colin Gavaghan, ā€œAssisted dying and evidence-based law-making: a critical analysis of an articleā€™s role in New Zealandā€™s referendumā€ (2020) 133:1520 New Zealand Medical Journal 83-90.
  • Adeline Iftene and Jocelyn Downie, ā€œEnd-of-Life Care for Federally Incarcerated Individuals in Canadaā€ (2020) 14:1 McGill Journal of Law and Health 1-50. 

Current service & activity

  • Member, Board of Directors, Watershed Legal Projects
  • Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport
  • Vice Chair, Board of Directors, Andrus on Hudson, New York
  • Member, Board of Directors, Helen Andrus Benedict Foundation