INTRODUCTION: A SYMPOSIUM EXAMINING REMEDIES FOR VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Remedies remain an understudied topic. This is particularly so when one compares the scant literature on remedies for violations of human rights to the massive literature on human rights. As Canada's longest-serving chief justice, Beverley McLachlin, has observed: '"[W]e are endowed with rights" slips off the legal tongue... "we are endowed with remedies" has a more prosaic ring... Viewed as "practical" but not necessarily "exciting", remedies are relegated to the "if I have room" or "if I must" categories of most student and teaching timetables.' Nevertheless, Chief Justice McLachlin eloquently defends remedies as 'the law stripped of its pretensions.' They allow 'us to mend our wounds and carry on - as individuals and as a society.' This symposium adds to the small, but growing, literature on remedies for violations of human rights. We were fortunate to be able to gather a number of leading scholars who have already contributed to this literature for a symposium that was sponsored by the 'University of Toronto Law Journal' in September 2018, where preliminary versions of the articles that appear in this special issue were given. We are grateful to the 'University of Toronto Law Journal' and its editor David Dyzenhaus for this opportunity.