Tony VanDuzer joined the Common Law Section in 1989. He served as the Vice Dean of the English Program (1994-5) and Vice Dean (Research) of the Section (2006-8). From 2018 to 2022, he held the Hyman Soloway Chair in Business and Trade Law. Prior to joining the Section, he practised corporate and commercial law in Toronto with Fasken & Calvin (now Fasken). He retired from the Section in 2024.
Professor VanDuzer taught courses on domestic and international business law at the law school and in the University of Ottawa’s Executive MBA program, including Business Organizations and the TradeLab International Economic Law Clinic course. He has been a visiting professor at Queen’s University’s Bader International Studies Centre in England, the Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat in Germany, the University of Waikato Te Piringa Faculty of Law in New Zealand, and the Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia in Italy and a visiting researcher at the World Trade Institute of the University of Bern. Professor VanDuzer has also delivered more than 20 short courses to officials from Canadian government departments and more than a dozen foreign states on trade and investment issues both in Canada and abroad.
Professor VanDuzer’s main areas of research are corporate law and international economic law. His publications include The Law of Partnerships and Corporations (now in its fifth edition and cited more than 50 times by courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada) as well as more than 100 other publications on business, trade, and investment law issues. In 2013, along with Professor Simons and Professor Mayeda, he wroteIntegrating Sustainable Development into International Investment Treaties: A Guide for Developing Country Negotiators published by the Commonwealth Secretariat.In 2020, he completed an edited collection entitled Promoting and Managing International Investment: Toward an Integrated Policy Approach, co-edited with Patrick Leblond, CN-Paul Tellier Chair on Business and Public Policy.
During his career, Professor VanDuzer was often involved in law and policy reform. With Professor Gilles Paquet of the School of Management, Professor VanDuzer wrote Anticompetitive Pricing Practices and the Competition Act: Theory, Law and Practice, a major study for the Competition Bureau published in 1999. Many of the recommendations for reform of the Competition Act were included in amendments passed in 2009. In 2005, his study for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Health, Education and Social Services in Canada: The Impact of the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services was tabled before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He was a member of the Academic Advisory Council to Canada’s Deputy Minister for International Trade from 2002 to 2006 and participated in technical assistance projects relating to business and trade law in transition and developing economies, including Armenia, Bangladesh, China, El Salvador, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, and Vietnam. He served as an outside legal assessor for the Central and Eastern European Law Initiative of the American Bar Association providing advice on a draft Foreign Trade Law for Bosnia-Herzegovina and a draft Competition Protection Act for Bulgaria. He advised on the development of a new foreign trade law for Russia which was passed by the Duma in 2005.
Professor VanDuzer was a long-time co-chair of the Faculty’s International Law Group and an Adjunct Research Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. He received a number of Common Law Section awards, including Excellence in Teaching (English Program) and Public Engagement: Public Education and Outreach. Professor VanDuzer was very involved in mooting at the law school. For many years, he coached the Foreign Direct Investment Moot team (with Professor Daimsis and Jolene Hansell) and the Canadian Corporate/Securities Law Moot team (with Professor Vasudev) and still helps out as a practice judge.