This award recognizes and encourages outstanding scholarship by law students in Nova Scotia, on topics pertaining specifically to issues of race and law. The Society’s Racial Equity Committee presents the award and Stewart McKelvey sponsors the award.
Congratulations to the 2023 Race and the Law Essay Prize recipient Keita Szemok-Uto! Keita received the 2023 prize for his paper “Conflicting Decisions: Why the Privy Council Drifted from Precedent in Deciding Cunningham v Homma.”
“Thank you to the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society. I am honoured and humbled to receive this award. As a Canadian with mixed Asian heritage, writing this paper was a deeply engaging and rewarding experience for me. Racial discrimination and xenophobia are unfortunately not issues of the past. Only by exploring how the law has been used to diminish the lives and experiences of racialized people in this country can we understand how necessary it is to promote diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and in all aspects of society. Thank you.” – Keita Szemok-Uto