Faculty & Staff » Dr. Amar Khoday

Dr. Amar Khoday joined the faculty at Robson Hall in 2012 as an assistant professor. In 2017, he was promoted to associate professor with tenure.

Dr. Khoday is the author of over 15 published writings, including articles and book chapters. In addition, he has written over 100 blog posts.

Since his arrival at Robson Hall, Dr. Khoday has taught one of the three sections of Criminal Law & Procedure, a mandatory first-year course. During his time at the law school, he has also created two seminar courses which he enjoys teaching immensely: Law and Resistance, and International Criminal Justice. In addition, he teaches the Refugee Law and Immigration & Citizenship Law seminar courses. Dr. Khoday has also delivered guest lectures in other Robson Hall courses such as: Legal Systems; Canadian Legal History; Theory and Practice of Human Rights: Critical Perspectives; and Selected Topics in Human Rights Research and Methods. He has also given guest lectures at the University of Winnipeg.

Dr. Khoday earned his Doctor of Civil Law (2014) and Master of Laws (2008) degrees from McGill University’s Faculty of Law in Montreal and Juris Doctor (2004) from the New England School of Law in Boston. Working under the supervision of Dr. Frédéric Mégret, Dr. Khoday completed his doctoral thesis entitled “Legitimizing Resistance? International Refugee Law and the Protection of Individuals Resisting Oppression.” With respect to his doctoral studies, he was a recipient of both the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Research Fellowship and the O’Brien Fellowship for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism. In 2011, he was awarded a Doctoral Teaching Fellowship by the McGill Faculty of Law and taught criminal law during the summer session with Professor Angela Campbell. During his doctoral studies, Dr. Khoday also worked as a human rights researcher at McGill University’s Social Equity and Diversity Education Office. Prior to joining the faculty at Robson Hall in 2012, he completed a term as Executive Director of the McGill International Criminal Justice Clinic.

Prior to obtaining his law degrees, Dr. Khoday maintained a passionate interest in the study of history with a focus on South Asia. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in History and Southern Asian Studies, followed by a Master of Arts degree in History, both at Concordia University.

• Criminal Law & Procedure
  • Confessions and Interrogations
• Refugee, Immigration and Citizenship Law and Policy
• Law and Resistance
• Law and Popular Culture
• Legal History
• Legal Narratives
• Race and the Law
• Time and the Law

Articles and Book Chapters

• “‘We Want to Live!’ Climate Change and the Limits of Civil Disobedience” (2022) 35:1 Georgetown Environmental Law Review (forthcoming) (with Dr. Frédéric Mégret) – climate emergency; climate disobedience; civil disobedience; environmental protests; defences.
• “Black Voices Matter Too: Counter-Narrating Smithers v The Queen” (2021) 58:3 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 567 (peer-reviewed article) – race and the law; critical race theory; Canadian legal history; criminal law; narratives.
• "Every Moment Counts: The Legal Value of Time in Canadian Criminal Law" (2021) 69 Criminal Law Quarterly 63 – temporality; time and criminal law; constitutional protections; criminal procedure; murder; defences; sentencing.
• “Ending The Erasure?: Writing Race Into The Story of Psychological Detentions – Examining R. v. Le” (2021) 100 Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 165 (peer-reviewed article) – Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; race and the law; critical race theory; policing; psychological detentions; arbitrary detentions; racial profiling; minority status.
• “Safeguarding Confidential News Sources? Assessing the Protections in the Federal Journalistic Sources Protection Act” in Chris Hunt, ed, Perspectives on Evidentiary Privileges (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2019) at 115 to 140 – privileges, evidence law, journalist-source privilege, informants, journalists, law and resistance.
• “Once More Unto The Breach: Confronting  The Standard of Review (Again) And The Imperative of Correctness Review When Interpreting The Scope of Refugee Protection” (2019) 42:1 Dalhousie Law Journal 49 (with Dr. Gerald Heckman) (peer-reviewed article) –administrative law; standard of review; substantive review; questions of law; correctness; reasonableness; refugee law.
• “‘We  Have To Give Up Business As Usual’: Anti-Nuclear Protests and the Construction of a Defence of ‘Legitimate Civil Resistance'” in Jonathan Black-Branch and Dieter Fleck, eds, Nuclear Non-Proliferation in International Law, Volume IV (Hague: T.M.C. Asser Press, 2019) at 71-97 (peer-reviewed book chapter) – law and resistance; criminal law; international human rights law; international humanitarian law.
• “Valorizing Disobedience Within The Ranks: Law And Resistance in American Military Films” (2018) 36:2 Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal 369 (included in Karen B Tripp, ed, Entertainment, Publishing and the Arts Handbook, 2019-2020 ed (Thomson Reuters, 2019)) – law and resistance; law and popular culture; law and film; whistleblowing; disobedience.
• “Beyond Finality: R v Hart and the Ghosts of Convictions Past” (2017) 40:3 Manitoba Law Journal 111 (with Jonathan Avey, JD) (peer-reviewed article) – criminal law & procedure.
• “Robson Crim: A Vision for Multivalent Interrogations of Criminal Law” (2017) 40:3 Manitoba Law Journal 1 (with Dr. Richard Jochelson and Professor David Ireland) – criminal law & procedure.
• “Resisting Criminal Organizations: Reconceptualizing the “Political” in International Refugee Law” (2016) 61:3 McGill Law Journal 461 (peer-reviewed article) – law and resistance, international refugee law.
• “Resisting Revenge Pornography: When Victims Strike Back” (2016) 25:1 Canadian Cases on the Law of Torts (4th) 45 – tort law; privacy; cyberbullying; revenge pornography; law and resistance.
• “Visualizing Interrogative Injustice: Challenging Law Enforcement Narratives of Mr. Big Operations Through Documentary Film” (2016) 5 The Annual Review of Interdisciplinary Justice Research 152 (peer-reviewed article) – criminal law and procedure; law and popular culture.
• “Tough on Terror, Short on Nuance: Identifying the Use of Force as a Basis for Excluding Resisters Seeking Refugee Status” (2015) 4:2 Canadian Journal of Human Rights 179 (peer-reviewed article) – law and resistance; international refugee law; extradition law; political crimes; terrorism; human rights.
• “The State as Religious Gatekeeper: Human Rights, Resistance and Indian Anti-Conversion Laws” in Ashwani Peetush & Jay Drydyk, eds, Human Rights: India and the West (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015) (peer-reviewed book chapter) – law and resistance; law and religion; human rights; India; religious conversions.
• “Seen in its True Light: Desertion as a Pure Political Crime” (2014) 30:2 Refuge 93 (peer-reviewed article) – refugee law, political crimes; desertion; US Military Deserters; Canada.
• “Peddling the Margins of Gender-Based Violence: Canadian Media Coverage of Honour Killings” in Jennifer Kilty, ed, Within the Confines: Women and the Law in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc, 2014) (with Dr. Mythily Rajiva, first author) (peer-reviewed book chapter) – law; media constructions; honour killings; necropolitics.
• “R v Creighton Twenty Years Later: Harm Versus Death Revisited” (2013) 37 Manitoba Law Journal 167 (peer-reviewed article) – criminal law; unlawful act manslaughter; mens rea; principles of fundamental justice.
• “Reclaiming the Public Space: Breastfeeding Rights, Protection, and Social Attitudes” (2013) 7 McGill Journal of Law & Health 147 (with Dr. Anjana Srinivasan, MD) (peer-reviewed article) –breastfeeding rights; human rights; health.
• “Scrutinizing Mr. Big: Police Trickery, the Confessions Rule and the Need to Regulate Extra-Custodial Undercover Interrogations” (2013) 60:2 Criminal Law Quarterly 277 – Mr. Big operations; criminal law and procedure; common law; evidence.
• “Protecting Those Who Go Beyond The Law: Contemplating Refugee Status for Individuals Who Challenge Oppression Through Resistance” (2011) 25:3 Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 571 – law and resistance; international refugee law; legal pluralism; agency; victimhood.
• “Prime Time Saviors: The West Wing and the Cultivation of a Unilateral American Responsibility to Protect” (2009) 19:1 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 1 – law and popular culture; international law; laws of war.
• “Uprooting the Cell Plant: Comparing United States and Canadian Constitutional Approaches to Surreptitious Interrogations in the Detention Context” (2009) 31:1 Western New England Law Review 39 – criminal law and procedure; Canada; United States; Constitutional Law; Right to Silence; comparative law; cell-plant interrogations; undercover operations; detention.
• “Amicus Curiae Brief on Joint Criminal Enterprise in the Matter of the Co-Prosecutors’ Appeal of the Closing Order Against Kaing Guek Eav “Duch” Dated 8 August 2008, Before the Pre-Trial Chamber Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Case File No.: 001/18-07-2007-ECCC/OCIJ (PTC 02), (2009) 20:2 Criminal Law Forum 331 (contributed as researcher and co-author as part of multi-authored amicus brief submitted by the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, McGill University Faculty of Law) – international criminal law; joint criminal enterprise liability; ECCC; Cambodia.

Blogs

• “‘To Seek Justice’: The Mauritanian and Prosecutorial Responsibilities” (16 August 2021), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Everybody Has the Right to Counsel” (26 July 2021), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Against The Clock: Criminal Law and the Legal Value of Time” (17 June 2019), Robson Crim (blog).
• “Validating Ignorance of the Law?: R v HE, Sexual Assault and Marital Relations” (23 October 2017), Robson Crim (blog).
• “When Your Lawyer Drops the Ball: Guilty Pleas, Deportation and the Ineffective Assistance of Counsel” (5 July 2017), Robson Crim (blog).
• “Sullying the Process: Sully and the Construction of the National Transportation Safety Board” (23 June 2017), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Lies, Damn Lies, and Prosecutorial Abuse” (7 June 2017), Robson Crim, Migration Law Research Cluster (blogs).
• “Fraud in the First Degree: BBC’s Undercover, Sexual Assault and the Vitiation of Consent” (3 April 2017), Robson Crim, Jurisculture (blogs).
• “Photo Radar and the Speeding Ticket Blues” (11 January 2017), Robson Crim (blog).
• “Supporting Jurors with PTSD” (13 October 2016), Robson Crim (blog).
• “Legitimizing False Confessions in Popular Culture – A Look at Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and the Depravity Standard” (4 October 2016), Robson Crim (blog).
• “Legitimizing False Confessions in Popular Culture – A Look at Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and the Depravity Standard” (2 October 2016), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Exorcising S.230 (and other Poltergeists) from the Criminal Code” (16 September 2016), Robson Crim (blog).
• “War Crimes and Cultural Property – Recent Events at the International Criminal Court” (25 August 2016), Robson Crim (blog).
• “L’Affaire Efimova – Piercing the Villain Narrative” (15 August 2016), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Diplomatic Resistance and the Saving of Lives” (7 August 2016), Resistance and the Law (blog) and Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Constructing Border Security” (3 August 2016), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Is Faith The True Shibboleth? The West Wing and ‘Bible Trivia’” (13 June 2016), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Challenging Genocide” (4 June 2016), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• "Can Human/People Smuggling Be Qualified As A Humanitarian Act? – A Question Revisited" (27 May 2016), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Targeting the Habitual Drunkard – The Case of Ledezma-Cosino v Lynch (9th Cir 2016)” (19 May 2016), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Criminal Law, Morality and The Imitation Game” (8 March 2016), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Visualizing Administrative Law: The Case of Lean on Me” (29 February 2016) Jurisculture (blog).
• “Duress and The Material Support For Terrorism Exclusion: When Moral Involuntariness Is Not Enough” (11 June 2015), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Gender, Resistance and the Painter” (22 May 2015), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Conceptualizing a Jus Cultura: A New Basis for Citizenship or Legal Residency?” (13 November 2014), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Excluding Atonement: The Supreme Court of Canada and Serious Non-Political Crimes” (31 October 2014), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Law, Ballet and the Canadian Indian Residential School System” (October 26, 2014), Jurisculture (blog)
• “Separate and Privileged” (17 September 2014), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Subaltern Resistance in the City of Joy” (1 September 2014), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Eroding the Right to Citizenship?: Legal Residency and the Jus Soli” (17 August 2014), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Resisting Recruitment into Criminal Gangs” (17 August 2014), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Climate Change Refugees and the Refugee Convention” (12 August 2014), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog)
• “Can Human/People Smuggling Constitute A Humanitarian Act?” (15 July 2014), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Getting Close: Fatal Attraction and the Construction of Mental Illness” (7 June 2014), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Judicial Review, Questions of Law of Central Importance and Refugee Appeals” (21 May 2014), Migration Law Research Cluster (blog).
• “Resistance and Whistleblowing” (7 March 2014), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Legal Satire?: Doonesbury and “Transvaginal” Rape” (13 March 2012), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Songs of Freedom: Sun City and the Anti-Apartheid Movement” (25 February 2012), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Recognizing the Role of Protection” (7 January 2012), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Monsoon Resistance” (12 November 2011), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Honouring Legitimate Disobedience” (15 September 2011), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Deserting Oppressive Regimes” (28 June 2011), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Resistance and Territorial Space – The Vancouver Hockey Riot of 2011” (16 June 2011), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Planned and Deliberate – Comedic Violence in the First Degree” (11 June 2011), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Sexual Assault and the City” (5 June 2011), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Insider Defiance in the Libyan Context” (21 February 2011), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Hegemonic Deterrence” (18 February 2011), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Resistance Begets Resistance” (7 February 2011), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “The Tunisian Moment” (14 January 2011), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Cultures of Impunity” (28 October 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “The Norms of Restaurant Success” (18 October 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Liu Xiaobo and the Nobel Peace Prize” (8 October 2010), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Cyber-Dissidence and Communities of Resistance” (29 September 2010), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “The Darker Corners of Children’s Songs” (10 September 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “A Few Good Norms” (3 July 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “The Inside Job” (19 June 2010), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “The Sheriff’s Revolt” (28 April 2010), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Enlisting Former Enemies to Kill the Enemy” (10 April 2010), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “The Legal Narratives of a National Anthem: Part I – “In all of us command“” (17 March 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Beautiful Norms” (9 March 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Legal Narratives of Identification – The Curious Case of Children’s Storybooks” (6 March 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Ineffective Assistance of Coaching” (25 February 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “The Unbearable Lightness of Sis/Bro” (23 February 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “The Media Narratives of Olympic Resistance” (13 February 2010), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Subjectifying the Marine Object” (2 February 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Legal Subjectivity and Artificial Intelligence” (9 January 2010), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Christmas Day Resistance” (17 December 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Interstellar Omissions” (5 December 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Interstellar Intimacies” (22 November 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Refusing To Take The Pledge” (12 November 2009), Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (blog).
• “Janie’s Got A Gun and Justified Private Violence” (8 November 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Disturbing the Commons” (26 October 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Planting a tree and sowing the seeds of protest” (27 September 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Deterring Misconduct” (13 September 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Truth and Treason” (11 September 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Cultures of (il)Legality” (10 September 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Boycotting the Boycott” (31 August 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Resistance and Children’s Books” (10 August 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Flight of the Boxer” (2 August 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Rules of Engagement and the Hockey Rink” (5 July 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Resistance in Defence of the Environment: A Postscript” (2 July 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Resistance in Defence of the Environment” (1 July 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Resistance and the Internet Age: The Iranian Protests” (26 June 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Resistance in the Internet Age” (17 June 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Casualties of War and Law” (14 June 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Resistance in the Military: The Crimson Tide Paradigm” (30 May 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Dominance and Resistance in Dharhara” (15 May 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “The Pig Farmer Rebellion” (3 May 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Diffusing a Tense Situation” (3 May 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Charter 08 and the Government’s Discontent” (1 May 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Desperately Seeking Objectors” (26 April 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Forcibly Confining Your Employer” (31 March 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Romancing the Shoe Thrower: Misreading the Support for Resistance” (14 March 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Challenging Unfair Consequences of Anti-Terror Laws” (13 March 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Pardoning Freedom Fighters” (12 March 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Jury Nullification, Resistance and Law” (9 March 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “The Pay Revolt: A Postscript” (27 February 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “The Pay Revolt” (25 February 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Necessary ‘Vigilantism’” (18 February 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Defiance – The Film” (10 February 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “The Resistance Strain in Jurisculture” (6 February 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “No Apologies: Refusing to Say Sorry” (2 February 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Defying Cultural Fascism” (28 January 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Defiance and Filmmaking” (16 January 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Acid Oppression, Steely Resistance” (13 January 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “Under Fire – Defiant Journalism and Censorship through Assassination” (13 January 2009), Resistance and the Law (blog).
• “No More: When Resistance Turns to Terrorism” (9 January 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “”Your Inalienable Rights”: Melissa Etheridge and “Tuesday Morning“” (1 January 2009), Jurisculture (blog).
• “Envisioning Jurisculture” (1 January 2009), Jurisculture (blog) (with Dr. Alexandra Harrington).
• “The Plurality of Interrogation Techniques” (30 December 2008), Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (blog).
• “Litigation as a Form of Resistance” (28 December 2008), Resistance and the Law (blog).