Hilary Evans Cameron
Hilary Evans Cameron teaches Evidence Law, Administrative Law and Advanced Legal Research and Writing. A former litigator who represented refugee claimants for a decade, she holds adoctorate in refugee law from the University of Toronto.
Much of Prof. Evans Cameron’s research centres on fact-finding, with a focus on deception judgments in refugee status rejections. She explores questions at the intersection of law and psychology: How do decision-makers decide that a refugee claimant is lying? What inferences do they rely on to justify these conclusions? What assumptions underlie these inferences, and how well-founded are these assumptions? Her work in legal logics explores the principles that guide fact-finding in a courtroom or a hearing room: What structures constrain the drawing of factual conclusions from evidence, and what normative principles should guide the development of these structures? Beyond this, Prof. Evans Cameron has written about administrative law, pedagogy, pseudoscience, and the coming of AI to refugee hearings.
Prof. Evans Cameron is the author of many publications, including a book about the law of fact-finding in refugee status decision-making (Refugee Law’s Fact-finding Crisis: Truth, Risk, and the Wrong Mistake, Cambridge 2018). Her work is cited widely within the academy and by decision-makers and judges in Canada and internationally. She regularly gives lectures and training sessions to audiences around the world.
Prof. Evans Cameron is a member of the Bridging Divides research team. Her work has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities’ Research Council, the Law Foundation of Ontario and the British Academy. She was the SSHRC’s 2017 Bora Laskin National Fellow in Human Rights Research; the recipient of the Dean’s Scholarly Research and Creativity Award (2023); and was named ‘Professor of the Year’ by Lincoln Alexander’s inaugural graduating class (2023).
Book
Hilary Evans Cameron, Refugee Law’s Fact-Finding Crisis: Truth, Risk, and the Wrong Mistake (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)
Book Chapters
Hilary Evans Cameron, “Indigenous Oral History in Canadian Courts: The Law of Fact-finding and the Wrong Mistake,” in Joe Tomlinson & Anne Carter, eds., Facts in Public Law Adjudication (Hart Publishing, 2023) 225-243
Hilary Evans Cameron & Talia Joundi, “Procedures for claiming asylum within Canada, acceptance and rejection,” in Ervis Martani & Denise Helly, eds., Asylum and Resettlement in Canada: Historical development, successes, challenges and lessons (Genova University Press, 2022) 101-117
Refereed Articles
Hilary Evans Cameron, “Risk and the Reasonable Refugee: Exploring a Key Credibility Inference in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections,” (2023) 35 International Journal of Refugee Law 10, 10-36
Hilary Evans Cameron, “Sin of Omission: Exploring a Key Credibility Inference in Canadian Refugee Status Rejections” (2023) 60 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 1, 127-174
Jane Herlihy, Hilary Evans Cameron & Stuart Turner, “Psychological Evidence in Refugee Status Determination” (2023) Journal of Refugee Studies, 1-20
Sean Rehaag & Hilary Evans Cameron, “Making Space for Online Research Experiments in Law School Courses” (2022) Canadian Legal Education Annual Review 113-131
Hilary Evans Cameron, Avi Goldfarb & Leah Morris, “Artificial intelligence for a reduction of false denials in refugee claims” (2020) 35 Journal of Refugee Studies 493-510
Hilary Evans Cameron, “The failures of a ‘model’ system: RSD in Canada” (2020) 65 Forced Migration Review 8-10
Sean Rehaag and Hilary Evans Cameron, “Experimenting with Credibility in Refugee Adjudication: Gaydar” (2020) 9 Canadian Journal of Human Rights 1-34
“The analysis of nonverbal communication: The dangers of pseudoscience in security and justice contexts” (2020) 30 Anuario de Psicología Jurídica 1, with Vincent Denault and others (Denault first author)
“Experimenting with Credibility in Refugee Adjudication: Gaydar” (2020) Canadian Journal of Human Rights, with Sean Rehaag, second author.
“The Battle for the Wrong Mistake: Error Preference and Risk Salience in Canadian Refugee Status Decision-making” (2019) 42 Dalhousie Law Journal 1
“The E-Team Project: A Teamwork Approach to Clinical Legal Education” (2014) 23 Journal of Law and Social Policy 30-61
“Substantial Deference and Tribunal Expertise Post-Dunsmuir: A New Approach to Reasonableness Review” (2014) 27 Canadian Journal of Administrative Law and Practice 1
“Under the IRPA and after Irving: The Right to Standing before the Federal Court for Canadian Children Seeking to Challenge Their Parents’ Deportations” (2013) 46 UBC Law Review 205 (first author; second author Josh Stark)
“Refugee Status Determination and the Limits of Memory” (2010) 22 International Journal of Refugee Law 469
“Risk Theory and ‘Subjective Fear’: The Role of Risk Perception, Assessment and Management in Refugee Status Determinations” (2008) 20 International Journal of Refugee Law 567
Named Professor of the Year' by Lincoln Alexander Law’s inaugural graduating class, 2023
Dean's Scholarly Research and Creativity Award, 2023
Bora Laskin National Fellow in Human Rights Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, 2017
| Degree | Institution | Year |
|---|---|---|
| SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science) | University of Toronto | 2016 |
| LLB (Bachelor of Laws) | Osgoode Hall Law School | 2001 |
| BA Hons. (Bachelor of Arts, Honours) | McGill University | 1998 |