The Community

The COMRADES project

The Community for Research-Action on Economic and Social Rights (COMRADES) gathered its members around research-action projects that focus on the international law of economic and social rights and its relationship with Canadian and Quebec domestic law, on constitutional quasi-constitutional law and on the Canadian provinces’ law in order to document the obstacles to the implementation of economic and social rights, and, at the same time, to make visible the place it occupy in the law and its different forms.

The members of COMRADES mobilize various research methods to understand better the practices in the field of economic and social rights and to make them accessible and mobilizable by the various actors of the law (legislator, executive power, courts, first peoples, national protection institutions rights, lawyers, professors, non-governmental organizations, etc.)

COMRADES is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and currently has over 25 members.

Our history

On June 6, 2019, the symposium entitled « Culture juridique des droits de la personne et justiciabilité des droits économiques et sociaux : nouvelles perspectives » took place at the Faculty of Law of Laval University.

On that occasion, students, partners in the field, lawyers and researchers questioned the legal culture of human rights as an obstacle to the justiciability of economic and social rights. In other words, together, they led a reflection on the ways in which economic and social rights are thought about and practiced by the actors of the judicial arena, likely to explain the resistance of the courts to giving effect to economic and social rights. Some of these contributions were subsequently published in a thematic issue of les Cahiers de droit.

These exchanges have made it possible to create or consolidate the links between the students, partners in the field, lawyers and researchers who are at the base of the Community for research-action on economic and social rights (COMRADES), directed by Christine Vézina, director and principal researcher of the project. The Community is also anchored in a previous research partnership led by certain members of COMRADES (Lucie Lamarche, Bruce Porter, Martha Jackman, Margot Young, Vincent Greason, Ligue des Droits et Libertés): “ The Social Rights in Canada Project: Reconceiving Human Rights Practice for the New Social Rights Paradigm ”.

The objectives

Main objective :

Propel economic and social rights into human rights practices to bring out a new paradigm.

Objective 1

Produce and activate the diffusion of knowledge on the theory and practice of economic and social rights

Objective 3

Impulse changes in tools and methods in state accountability (federal, provincial, and municipal) based on economic and social rights knowledge

Objective 2

Strengthen the practices that give effect to DES, both in Quebec, in Canada and at the international

Objective 4

Include economic and social rights in the debate on access to justice

Governance

The partnership brings together individuals and organizations who have, for the most part, already collaborated with each other in one way or another in the past.

The partnership was created based on a collective approach where all members were able to participate in the development of the orientations and in the decision-making. The governance structure of COMRADES is based on the values ​​of co-construction of knowledge, inclusion, and participation.

Funding

In 2022, the Community for Research-Action on Economic and Social Rights (COMRADES) obtained from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada a grant of $199,147 over 3 years as part of the “development of partnership “.

Join the community

  • You are a community organization and you want to develop tools for economic and social rights;
  • You are a lawyer working on a file relating to economic and social rights;
  • You want to pursue higher education in economic and social rights;

COMRADES © 2025 All rights reserved | Design by boréale

Funded by :

COMRADES © 2025 All rights reserved | Design by boréale

Funded by :