Peter A Allard School of Law

Faculty Colloquium with Shigenori Matsui: Is Frozen Embryo Preserved at the Fertility Clinic a Person?

Event Description

The decision of the 2024 Alabama Supreme Court holding frozen embryo at the fertility clinic is a child for the purpose of Child Death Act left many unanswered questions in the U.S.. The decision also raised the same kind of questions for Japan as well as for Canada. Among them, the most important one is whether the frozen embryo preserved at the fertility clinic is included into “all the people” for Article 13 of the Japanese Constitution and into “everyone” for the section 7 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This talk tries to provide a Japanese perspective and asks what should be the Canadian solution.

Speaker

Shigenori Matsui

Professor Shigenori Matsui joined the Allard School of Law in January 2006 as Director of Japanese Legal Studies. Professor Matsui comes to UBC from Osaka University Law School where he worked as associate professor from April 1983 to March 1994; and as full professor from April 1994 to December 2005.  He worked for Osaka University, Faculty of Law, until he joined the newly established law school in 2004. He taught courses in Constitutional Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, Mass Media Law, Freedom of Information Law, and Internet Law.  He also served as an Osaka University Council member from April 2003-March 2004 and served as associate dean for the law school from April 2004 to December 2005.

Professor Matsui also served for the Japanese Government as a member of the National Freedom of Information Board, and as an examiner for the National Bar Examination Commission (Constitutional Law) as well as serving on a number of boards for Osaka Prefecture and numerous municipalities. 

An internationally-renowned expert in the fields of Constitutional Law, Mass Media Law and Internet Law, he has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, University College London, the University of Washington, the University of Western Australia and here at the University of British Columbia (1990-91).


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