Dwight Newman

Background

About Dwight Newman

Dwight Newman, KC, DPhil (Oxon) is Professor of Law and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Rights, Communities, and Constitutional Law at the University of Saskatchewan, where he has been on faculty since 2005. He previously served the maximum two terms in a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Rights in Constitutional and International Law from 2013 to 2023. He also previously served a term as Associate Dean of Law. He has over 200 publications of various types, including 15 books. His writing is regularly cited as an authority in judicial decisions, and he has been cited in at least 18 Supreme Court of Canada decisions. He has been on academic fellowships or visitorships at a range of prestigious institutions, including Cambridge, Oxford, l'Université Laval, McGill, Princeton, l’Université de Montréal, Toronto, University of Western Australia (UWA), and University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). He is a member of the bars of Ontario and Saskatchewan and works on some constitutional law files. He was a law clerk to Chief Justice Antonio Lamer and Justice Louis LeBel at the Supreme Court of Canada and has also worked for Justice Canada (seconded part of the time to the Pay Equity Task Force Secretariat) and for human rights organizations in Hong Kong and South Africa. His initial studies were in his home province of Saskatchewan (BA in Economics at Regina and JD at Saskatchewan), and he completed three graduate degrees at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar (BCL, MPhil, DPhil). He recently completed two additional graduate degrees deepening his interdisciplinary understandings and sense on the social place of law (MATS in History of Christianity and MSc in Finance and Financial Law). He serves as a Commissioner of the Law Reform Commission of Saskatchewan, and he has served in various board or committee roles, including at different times as Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Rights of Indigenous Peoples Interest Group, member of the International Law Association (ILA) Committee on the Implementation of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, voting member of the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) national council, Vice-President of the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA), Vice-Chair of the board of a non-profit providing homes for individuals with intellectual disabilities, and member of the boards of organizations involved in public interest litigation and education (Canadian Constitution Foundation and Advocates for the Rule of Law). In addition to all Canadian provinces and territories, he has travelled to over 80 countries.