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Futsum Tesfatsion Abbay - O'Brien Fellow

Futsum Tesfatsion Abbay (Email) is a distinguished legal scholar from Eritrea. He obtained his LL.B. (with distinction) from the University of Asmara in 1998, following which he was appointed as a graduate assistant in the law program of the university.

Futsum has the unique distinction of being the only visually impaired academic in the country. He received a USAID scholarship in 1999 that allowed him to pursue a LL.M degree at McGill. Since obtaining his LL.M. in 2002, Futsum has been teaching at the Faculty of Law of the University of Asmara.

He has committed his life to promoting the rights of persons with disabilities, particularly the rights of the visually impaired. In spite of numerous legal and political challenges, Futsum remains committed to carrying his advocacy work forward.

Idil Atak

Idil Atak is currently completing a doctoral degree in international law at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of professor François Crépeau. Her thesis explores the impact of the European migration policies on the fundamental rights of irregular migrants. It focuses on the process of the europeanization of return policy and detention. A recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada fellowship and of Fonds québecois de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC) fellowship (2007-2009), Idil Atak obtained her LL.M. degree in social sciences from the University Marmara (1994) on the topic of the supranational protection of human rights in Europe, and her LL.B in political science and international relations from the Bosphorus University of Istanbul. She worked for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a legal expert in Ankara (1993-1994), then in Strasbourg as a deputy to the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the Council of Europe (1995-2004). From 2005 to 2008, she was the coordinator of the Canada Research Chair in International Migration Law.

Enrique Boone Barrera

Enrique Boone Barrera obtained his law degree from the Tec de Monterrey, in Mexico, with honorific mention. He worked for the government of his home state having different responsibilities and positions. Enrique obtained a Certificate in Alternative Dispute Resolution from York University in 2003 and, in 2006, an LL.M degree from Queen's University. His research project focused on the legal and socio-economic conditions that affect accountability mechanisms of public officials in the municipalities of his state. Enrique is currently a D.C.L candidate under the supervision of Professors Víctor Muñiz-Fraticelli and Fabien Gélinas. He is researching the effects that the interaction of different power players have on politics and society and their impact on the rights and freedoms of individuals in a federalized context. His interests are in law and development, human rights, law and politics, and law and economics.

Basak Baglayan Ceyhan

Basak Baglayan Ceyhan received her MA in Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Essex in 2005. While doing her MA, she also worked for the Human Rights Centre on cases litigated before the European Court of Human Rights. She is currently a doctoral student at Université de Montréal pursuing her degree under the supervision of Professor François Crépeau. Her research focuses on human rights and non-state actors, with particular attention to business enterprises. In addition to her academic background, Basak was employed by a firm of solicitors in London working with refugees and asylum seekers for several years. She was also a research intern at the United Nations University, Zero Emissions Forum working on a project evaluating different national policies and legislation on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. Her current research interests include theory of human rights, legal pluralism and international human rights law.

Maya Chivi

Maya Chivi received her BA degree from Concordia University in Child Studies (with Distinction) and was awarded the Malone Medal for her outstanding contribution to the internal Concordia community, mainly for her volunteer work with international students. She is currently pursuing her MA in Educational Leadership, under the supervision of Professor Shaheen Shariff. Her thesis examines Quebec policies that focus on safety and children and teacher’s rights in private day-care centres, as well as leadership’s role in implementing these policies.

Maya is currently a Policy Fellow at the McGill University Institute for Health and Social Policy where she conducted a case study in Amman, Jordan under the institute’s 2009 theme of ‘Equity and Civic Participation’. The study focuses on Jordan River Foundation’s Queen Rania Family and Child Center and their work on the prevention of child and youth abuse through the education of all members of society on children and youth’s social and emotional development. Her broader research interests cover issues related to children’s rights, teacher’s rights, environmental education, and the impact of policies on participation in society.

Julie Cousineau

Since September 2006, Julie Cousineau has been a Doctoral Candidate in Civil Law (D.C.L.) at the Institute of Comparative Law at McGill University under the supervision of Professor Angela Campbell. Her thesis work focuses on laws of anonymous gamete and embryo donations. In this context, Me. Cousineau is interested particularly in dialectic language, internormativity, and the relationship between ethics and law. Me. Cousineau is the recipient of an FQRSC Doctoral Research Fellowship, a McGill Graduate Studies Fellowship (Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Office), and a John Dobson Foundation Fellowship. In the Fall 2009, Me. Cousineau will be furthering her research at Centre de recherche Droit, Sciences et Techniques, l'UniversitÈ de Paris 1 PanthÈon-Sorbonne, under the supervision of Christine Noiville, on French law of assisted procreation, made possible through an International Internship Bursary offered by the Minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade. Me. Cousineau is a member of the Quebec Bar since 2002.

Erin Crandall

Erin Crandall (Email) received her MA in political science from the University of British Columbia in 2006.

Presently pursuing a Doctoral degree in political science (under the supervision of Professor Christopher Manfredi) at McGill, Erin’s thesis proposes to examine the correlation between rights reform and changes to the judicial appointment processes in Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand.

Her research interests include legal pluralism, constitutional law, and federalism.

Chanya Chaowanasongtham

Chanya obtained her LL.B. from Assumption University of Thailand in 2004. She pursued her interests in human rights in the LL.M. in International Human Rights program, Northwestern University School of Law.

Her current research project at McGill, under the supervision of Professor Alana Klein, proposes to explore the interplay between the offence of women trafficking and the law of evidence and how related international and domestic, particularly Thai and the United States, laws translate into practice on the ground.

Maude Choko

Maude Choko (Email) obtained her LL.B. degree from University of Montreal and passed her Quebec Bar before starting an LL.M. in Law at McGill University. She is currently pursuing her researches in comparative labour law under the supervision of Professor Adelle Blackett.

Her thesis explores the relationship between international labour law as regards freedom of association and domestic labour law (Canada and more particularly Quebec).

Nelcy López Cuéllar

Nelcy López Cuéllar (Email) is interested in understanding the role of judges in the construction of a constitutional democracy. Her research focuses on the Colombian case from 1991 to date. As a previous clerk of the Colombian Constitutional Court for several years, and currently a DCL candidate at McGill Law Faculty, she has a rich understanding of the Colombian Constitutional story. To retell this story, Nelcy has embraced a critical discourse analysis of several paradigmatic decisions of the Colombian Constitutional Court. She graduated from Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Law Faculty, with meritorious thesis (2000); she obtained her Masters in Public Law from Universidad Externado de Colombian and published her master’s dissertation (2004); recently, she pursued her LLM at Yale Law School (2007).

Maria del Pilar Vanegas Guzman

Maria is a Colombian lawyer, who holds graduate law degrees from the London School of Economics and Universite de Paris II Pantheon-Assas. She obtained an L.L.M. in International Business Law and a degree in Public International Law respectively, and did her law degree in Colombia at Universidad del Rosario. She has worked as delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross for several years, covering Rwanda, Central Asia, Guinea, the Balkans, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Peru and Ecuador. She is currently doing research on the discourse of the International Committee of the Red Cross for the promotion of International Humanitarian Law, with particular focus on the role of moral, legal diversity and human behaviour as key factors for compliance and adherence to the law, in contrast with legal positivism. Her research includes the vision of a common humanity as an emerging narrative in law. This research is integral part of the Master of Law she is doing at McGill to specialize further in the areas of International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, Human Rights and Legal Traditions of the World. Other than humanitarian work, Ms. Vanegas Guzman has varied experience in the private and public sectors. She was a corporate lawyer in Colombia and in-house legal counsel for the Colombian State Oil Company ECOPETROL, as well as for Coca-Cola's subsidiary in Bogota. She worked in reinsurance brokerage in London and Bogota and did internships at the Constitutional Court and the Ministry of Finance of Colombia.

Maureen T. Duffy - O'Brien Fellow

Maureen T. Duffy (Email) is originally from the United States, where she obtained her Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, after completing a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a member of the Bars of the State of Illinois and the Northern District of Illinois. She practiced law in Chicago for several years, first in private practice with Rudnick & Wolfe (now DLA Piper Rudnick), then as a specialist in the area of children’s rights, with the Office of the Cook County Public Guardian, and, more recently, as an administrator/attorney with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. During law school, she was a legal intern for the Legal Aid Bureau. She has extensive trial and appellate experience, as well as experience before administrative and legislative bodies, and she has published in the field of children’s rights. In addition to her legal experience, Maureen has experience as an editor and writer within the publishing field.

She completed her LL.M. degree, with Dean’s Honours, at McGill’s Institute of Comparative Law. Her thesis was written under the supervision of Professor Patrick Healy and addressed the use of the immigration system to detain terrorism suspects within the United States. During the LL.M. program, she worked as a legal researcher in the Special Court for Sierra Leone Clinic.

A recipient of the O’Brien Fellowship for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Fellowship, Maureen is presently pursuing a doctoral degree in international law under the supervision of Professor René Provost. Her thesis explores shifting presumptions relating to criminal detentions, specifically focusing on these shifts in the context of terrorism detentions. She has diverse research interests, including domestic and international criminal law, constitutional law, human rights, media law, environmental law, and legal pluralism.

Valerie Foulkes

Valerie Foulkes received her BA (Honours) in Political Science with distinction from the University of Western Ontario in 2008. She spent one year of her undergraduate degree on a scholarship exchange, studying International Relations at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She is currently working towards her MA in Political Science at McGill University. With the guidance of her supervisor, Professor Catherine Lu, Valerie is researching post-conflict justice and reconciliation. Her current emphasis is on exploring the justifications for the role of the international community after mass atrocities and particularly justifying legal responses, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her other research interests include humanitarian intervention, particularly the Responsibility to Protect, and global poverty.

Carlos Iván Fuentes - O'Brien Fellow

Carlos Iván Fuentes (Email) obtained his Law and Political Sciences degree (summa cum laude) from the Universidad Católica Santa María La Antigua (Panama City, Panama) in 2005. His thesis, supervised by Dr. Jaime Franco, was recommended for publication by the jury. In the same year he was granted the certification to practice law in Panama. He received his LL.M. degree from McGill University in 2007. Under the supervision of Prof. Evan Fox-Decent, he studied Canadian Aboriginal title and proposed its redefinition using the doctrine of Indigenous right to land of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. During his master studies he worked as a legal researcher for the Special Court for Sierra Leone Clinic, and received American University’s 2006 Human Rights Award (Spanish) for his essay “Protegiendo el Derecho a la Salud en el Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos”.

Before returning to McGill to pursue his doctoral studies, Carlos Iván briefly worked for the US-based management consulting firm Casals & Associates, Inc. as a legal advisor and grant manager in USAID’s Central America Transparency and Accountability Program. He was also a seasonal lecturer on philosophy of law at the Universidad Latina de Panamá. Carlos Iván is currently an O´Brien Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism. Under the supervision of Prof. Mark Antaki, he is exploring the normative plurality within the international legal order, particularly international human rights law. His interests include inter-american human rights law, international humanitarian law, sustainable development and public governance. Recent publications can be found at the American University International Law Review and the Revista Colombiana de Derecho Internacional.

Carlos Iván is a member of the Centro de Iniciativas Democraticas (CIDEM), a Panamanian NGO dedicated to the promotion of human rights and democracy. He was recently selected through the United Nations’ national competitive recruitment examination, for future placement in the UN Secretariat-Office of Legal Affairs.

Sepideh Golzari

Sepideh graduated in 2006 from King's College London with an LLB and the Law School Prize in Jurisprudence. She was selected for the British Government's Fast Stream program that year and has since been working at the intersection of law and policy at the Ministry of Justice in the area of international and domestic human rights. At the same time Sepideh held a position as visiting tutor at King's College London Faculty of Law, teaching Jurisprudence and Legal Theory to final year law students. She is currently on career break, pursuing her LLM thesis under the supervision of Professor Frédéric Mégret, having been generously awarded the Provost's Graduate Fellowship and the BUNAC Educational Trust Scholarship to pursue her studies. Sepideh's research interests include Legal Pluralism, Law and Geography and International Human Rights, Humanitarian and Trade Law. She is currently pursuing work in the field of International Trade Law for submission to the Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence. Since arriving at McGill she has worked as a researcher at the McGill International Criminal Law Clinic and the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law.

Arthur Green

Arthur Green received his MS (cum laude) in Natural Resource Management from North Carolina State University in 2005. As a McGill Major Fellow and USINDO Fellow, he is currently working on his doctoral dissertation under Dr. Jon Unruh in the Department of Geography. His research examines how land reforms in post-conflict and legally pluralistic contexts impact access to resources and subsequently the dynamics of resistance, conflict, and peace. His dissertation focuses specifically on conflict transformation and land reform in Aceh, Indonesia. His general research interests include land reform; legal pluralism; evolutionary economics; uneven spatial development; spatial statistics; and resistance, conflict, and peace studies. He combines his academic work with applied practice through consulting in Africa (Cameroon) and SE Asia and management of a non-profit organization, Green Consensus.

Jing Guan - O'Brien Fellow

Jing obtained her LL.B. (Distinction, 2005) and LL.M. (International Law, Distinction, 2008) degrees from School of Law, Xiamen University, China. She then pursued another LL.M. degree at Harvard Law School as a Victor and William Fung Fellow. During Jing’s studies at Xiamen University, she had the opportunity to participate in the Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot and Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. For 2005 Vis, her team advanced to top 32 finalists and she gained honorable mention prize for best oralists. For 2006 Jessup, her team won world champion in Dillard Best Memorials Competition and she received “The Top Oralist from the Team that Received the Award for the Best Memorial (Non-US University)” award. As a result of her Jessup awards, Jing obtained full tuition scholarship from the International Law Institute to participate in its 2006 orientation courses on the US Legal System in Washington DC. She then interned at Allen & Overy LLP, New York Office for six weeks.

Conducting extensive legal research for Jessup and Vis moots cultivated Jing’s fascination for international law, especially public international law and international trade law. Under the supervision of Prof. Yixin Liao (Xiamen) and Prof. William Alford (Harvard), Jing’s research topics included the International Criminal Court (ICC), state succession and UN membership, indigenous people and their human rights, and international sale of goods. Jing has several Chinese publications, including two on Chinese national key journals.

As a 2009 O’Brien Fellow, Jing is currently pursuing her D.C.L. degree at McGill under the supervision of Prof. Rene Provost. Her proposed dissertation topic is the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) – a new solution aimed at replacing the notoriously controversial concept of “humanitarian intervention”. Given China’s traditional strong ideology of absolute state sovereignty and thus non-intervention, Jing’s deeper research goal is to better understand the dynamics between international law and China. She wishes to explore how China, a rising power claiming to act as a responsible big nation in world affairs, should adapt to normative changes such as the ICC and R2P, and more importantly, what role China should play in contributing to the further shaping of these international law norms.

Claris Harbon - O'Brien Fellow

Complete biography [.doc]

Claris has LL.B. (1998, with honors) from Northumbria Law School, and LL.M degrees respectively from Yale University and from Tel-Aviv University. She is a member of the Israeli Bar Association.

Claris is engaged in clinical education and social justice in Israel, mainly from a communitarian perspective. Hers is an activist legal scholarship, focused on revealing the societal causes of her clients' disadvantaged status. She focuses on disempowered groups or silenced minorities, such as Mizrahis (Jews of Arab descent), Arab-Israelis, Palestinians, Ethiopians, women and children.

By her exploration of the presumably "neutral" role that the Law plays in constructing the ethnic and racial identities of underprivileged minorities, which can result in structural, legal and social inferiority, she seeks to develop an alternative legal discourse that reflects the needs of the community and by which the community can translate personal legal problems into social change.

For example, she has been researching the Eurocentric discriminatory basis of the Israeli Land Law and the crucial role it has played in discriminating against Mizrahis and Palestinians in Israel, especially with regard to public housing policies. She argues that the differential land policies directed against Mizrahis formed the basis for their legal and social inferiority, and resulted in creating unique structural legal problems that collectively affect Mizrahis. Specifically, she represented Mizrahis and Palestinians who resisted the ruling order, especially through land and property lawbreaking. It is this notion of resistance and civil disobedience that she now wishes to explore further for her doctoral research at McGill as an O'Brien Fellow.

Among her publications are "Squatting and Invasion to Public Houses in Israel: Mizrahi Women Correcting Past Injustices" (in Law, Gender and Feminism. Daphne Barak - Erez et al. eds., 2006, Nevo Publishers), and "On Sense and Sensitivity - A Deconstructive Quest for My Mizrahi (Grass) Roots and Identity in Legal Representation" (in To My Sister: Mizrahi Feminist Politics. Shlomit Leer et al. eds., 2006, Babel Publishers). Claris Harbon has other scholarly articles in progress, and she is about to publish a children's book, along with a poetry book. Many of her poems have already been published in major poetry journals.

Alexandra Harrington

Alexandra R. Harrington graduated cum laude from New York University with a BA in Politics and a BA in History. She received her J.D. from Albany Law School of Union University and was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2006. During her studies at Albany Law School, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology. In 2007 she graduated summa cum laude from Albany Law School with an LL.M. in International Law.

She is currently a DCL student at McGill University’s Faculty of Law. Her doctoral thesis, conducted under the supervision of Professor Frédéric Mégret, will examine the transformation of territory in international law. She has published over fifteen law review articles on a variety of topics including human rights law, military law, criminal law, corruption law, international trade law, food law, constitutional law, privacy law, international and comparative law, religious law, aviation law, international organizations, international and regional environmental law, health law and international policing.

Edin Hodžić – O’Brien Fellow

Edin Hodžić (Email) graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Sarajevo and obtained his Master's Degree in international human rights law (with Distinction) from the University of Oxford, for which he was supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Open Society Institute joint scholarship scheme.

From 2002 to 2005, Edin worked as a project coordinator at Media Center Sarajevo, following which he took up a post of an analyst at the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he worked until mid-2007. He was engaged as a consultant on a number of occasions and participated in several research projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since May 2006 he has been engaged as the Human Rights Editor for Open Society Fund Bosnia and Herzegovina’s The Pulse of Democracy, a bi-monthly online publication aimed at featuring critical analysis of the current policy issues in BaH.

Edin came to Montreal in September 2007 as an O’Brien Fellow to work on his doctoral research under the supervision of Professor Mark Antaki. His doctoral thesis is devoted to a human rights analysis of the possible approaches to constitutional engineering in, and legal recognition of ethno-cultural groups within, societies characterized by deep cleavages along ethno-cultural lines. His research interests are mostly related to constitutionalism and international human rights law, respectively, with a particular focus on theory and practice of collective and minority rights, international criminal law and transitional justice in general.

Kinga Janik

Kinga Janik is of polish origin. She obtained a LL.B in Civil Law from Sherbrooke University and a LL.M., specialization in International Law and Criminal Law, from Ottawa University. In 2000, she started her law career in Ottawa by working for the central administration; first as a legal advisor for the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, and after as a special advisor for the Assistant Deputy Attorney General's Office (Citizenship, Immigration and Public Safety Portfolio). In 2008, Kinga did one year of litigation at the Montreal and Quebec regional immigration offices.

Currently, Kinga is working full time on her doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor François Crépeau, the Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Professor of Public International Law at McGill University. Her thesis explores two different eras in Refugee Law, the 80s and the post 2001 period. Her research interests include Immigration Law, Human Rights Law, State Partnership on People’s Migration, National Security, Ethics, Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. In December 2008, she participated in a winter course at the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Calcutta, India, in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (www.mcrg.ac.in). Kinga is also member of a global multidisciplinary project concerning migrants, their narratives and their rights (www.storiemigranti.org).

Graciela Jasa-Silveira

Graciela Jasa-Silveira (Email) received her Licenciado degree from the University of Sonora in Mexico. After a brief experience working in the civil law section of the Public Defender’s Office, she went on to complete her LL.M. in International Trade Law at the University of Arizona, writing her thesis “Parallel imports in the NAFTA Region” under the direction of Prof. David Gantz. Graciela has been a full time professor at the University of Sonora for 7 years, where she has taught mainly in the areas of international public and private law. She has also collaborated with the NACLE network in the Family Law Module. Her research interests include legal education, family law and international trade law. Graciela is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the area of comparative law under the supervision of Prof. Patrick Glenn. Her thesis research centers on a pluralist perspective of Mexican family law.

Samantha Jones

Samantha graduated with an LL.B. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2008. She is pursuing an LL.M. at McGill University in comparative international law and human rights law and has been awarded a Provost's Graduate Scholarship. Samantha’s particular areas of interest are international human rights law and international criminal law, having conducted substantial research in both areas and internships at the Coalition for the International Criminal Court and the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association. For her final research project, Samantha is exploring equal access to antiretroviral drugs through the recognition of the right to healthcare in an Economic, Social and Cultural rights framework. After completing her LL.M., Samantha plans to conduct field research in human rights and eventually take the Bar in England to become a Barrister.

Noura Karazivan

Noura Karazivan graduated from the McGill Faculty of Law in 2003. Prior to starting her graduate studies, she clerked at the Québec Court of Appeal and practiced law in a large Montreal firm. Noura obtained her LL.M. degree in public international law from Leiden University (honours). She is now a J.-Armand Bombardier SSHRC scholar at the Université de Montréal where she is writing her doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professors François Crépeau and Jean-François Gaudrault-DesBiens. Her field of study touches upon the relationship between law and territory, and the ways in which the territoriality paradigm shapes Canadian constitutional rights. She studies contemporary and global constitutional design through the lenses of legal geography scholarship. Noura is also researching and publishing in the field of the reception of international law into Canadian domestic law. She taught constitutional law at the Université de Montréal in 2008 and will teach the same class in 2009.

Christine Kennedy

Christine Kennedy (Email) recently obtained her BA in Political Science (International Relations) degree, with high honours, from the University of Saskatchewan. She has experience with NGOs engaged in advocacy on issues related to human rights, peace and security. In 2004 and 2005, she worked as the refugee coordinator for World University Service of Canada (Saskatoon). In addition, Christine has worked as a researcher with the Department of Political Science at the University of Saskatchewan on Canadian foreign policy and intergovernmental relations projects. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Political Science at McGill University (Catherine Lu, supervisor). Her thesis research is concerned with the legitimization of warfare, with a focus on the gap between legitimacy and legality that characterizes humanitarian intervention. More broadly, Christine’s research interests include the use of force in international politics, international humanitarian law, peaceful resolution of intrastate conflict, and Canadian foreign policy.

Amar Khoday - O'Brien Fellow

Amar Khoday (Email) earned his J.D. from the New England School of Law in Boston and his LL.M from McGill University’s Faculty of Law. Amar completed his LL.M thesis under the supervision of Professor Ronald Sklar. He previously obtained his M.A. (South Asian History) and B.A. (Double Major in History and Southern Asian Studies) from Concordia University. He is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the state bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Amar worked as an associate (and prior to that, as an articling student) at Shell Lawyers, a progressive labour and employment law firm located in Toronto. During his LL.M, he worked as a researcher for the McGill Clinic for the United Nations Special Court for Sierra Leone.

A recipient of both the O’Brien Fellowship for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship, Amar is currently pursuing his doctoral degree under the supervision of Professor Frédéric Mégret. His research explores the ways that refugee law legitimizes and in some ways legalizes otherwise illegal acts of resistance when such conduct is waged against oppressive regimes and/or normative legal systems that undermine human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Vanessa Lentz

Vanessa Lentz (Email) completed a Bachelor of Science (Honours) at the University of Winnipeg in 2005, before enrolling in the Master’s Specialization in Bioethics here at McGill University. She has considerable volunteer experience in community health, having volunteered at HIV/AIDS clinics in both Winnipeg and Montreal, and as an HIV Prevention and Education volunteer with an NGO in Belize, Central America. Within her master’s degree, Vanessa has been able to further develop her interest in HIV/AIDS. Working under the supervision of Professor Angela Campbell, her dissertation examines the ethical and legal issues related to the utilization of assisted reproductive technologies by HIV-positive couples, focusing on the professional role responsibilities of the providing physician. Recently, she also served as a small group discussion leader for second-year medical students at McGill, in the context of the Faculty of Medicine’s Medical Ethics and Health Law course.

Isabelle Martin

Isabelle Martin (Email) completed a B.A. (honours) in economics at McGill University before studying law at Université de Montréal (LL.B. and LL.M.). Her LL.M thesis (La justice distributive et le droit aux services socio-sanitaires à travers la jurisprudence québécoise) was written under the supervision of Pr. Andrée Lajoie. She is a member of the Quebec Bar and has clerked at the Quebec Court of Appeal for Justice Baudouin and Justice Rothman. Before beginning her doctoral studies, she worked at Melançon Marceau Grenier Sciortino, a firm specialized in labour law. A SSHRC Canadian Graduate Scholar, she is now working on her thesis under the supervision of Pr. Jean-Guy Belley. Her thesis examines the regulation of the tension between dignity and efficiency in firms. Three particular problems are studied: the nature of the relationship between shareholders and the firm, the duty to accommodate workers, and the regulation of marketing.

Isabelle Martin is mainly interested in the interaction between law and economics, particularly in labour, corporate and health law. She seeks to study the relationship between the discourses of economics and law while being attentive to their social and institutional contexts.

Melissa Martins Casagrande

Melissa Martins Casagrande (Email) obtained her BA in Law and Master of Sciences in Public Law from the Universidade Federal do Paraná in Curitiba, Brazil. Her Master’s thesis is entitled “The Principle of Self-Determination of Peoples: its applicability, its instrumentality in international human rights law and its contextualization in the Latin American conjuncture”. Presently pursuing a doctoral degree under the supervision of Professor Colleen Sheppard, Melissa’s thesis proposes to address issues related to the legal status of indigenous peoples in Brazil in connection with the recognition of their right to self-determination. She holds a Macdonald Graduate Fellowship in Law and has worked as a researcher with the Special Court for Sierra Leone Clinic. Melissa’ s research interests include legal pluralism, constitutional law, sociology and the law, human rights, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and legal research methodology.

Thomas McMorrow

Thomas McMorrow (Email) obtained his LL.B. from Trinity College, University of Dublin. Enrolled at Trinity in the Law & French programme, he spent his junior sophister year studying French constitutional law and legal theory at the Université de Poitiers in Poitiers, France. In 2007 he completed his LL.M. thesis, "Law at L'Arche: Reflections from a Critical Legal Pluralist Perspective". The thesis is based on participant field work Thomas carried out at a community serving persons with intellectual disabilities in Montreal called L'Arche and it was nominated to the Dean’s Honour List.

Currently he is pursuing doctoral work involving empirical research into the role students play in the creation of laws governing everyday life within secondary schools. He is working under the supervision of Professor Roderick A. Macdonald. Thomas is a Dobson and McDonald Fellow as well as a graduate student member of The Major Collaborative Research Project on Indigenous Peoples and Governance. Thomas’ broader research interests include legal theory, legal pluralism and social justice.

Françoise Montambeault

Françoise Montambeault (Email) obtained her BA (2002) and MA (2004) in Political Science from Université de Montréal, both with great honor. A SSHRC Canadian Graduate Scholar and an IDRC Doctoral Research Awardee, she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in political science at McGill University under the supervision of Prof. Philip Oxhorn. Since 2006, she is also a Graduate Student Fellow of the Centre for Developing Area Studies (CDAS). Françoise’s dissertation explores the relationship between local governance, citizenship rights and democracy in Latin America, with a focus on the cases of Mexico and Brazil, where she did extensive fieldwork. She is interested in issues of development, democracy, and citizenship.

Ugochi Nnadozie

Ugochi Nnadozie (Email) received her LLB from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Her undergraduate work focused on the environmental and human rights challenges in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Her recent activities cover local and international developments that affect the rights and welfare of children, including making presentations at workshops and seminars on behalf of UNICEF Quebec on these issues. Her LLM thesis, under the supervision of Prof Kirsten Anker, explores the intersection between Culture, Literature and Human Rights. Her thesis uses a literary rendition of the socio-cultural realities of the Igbo society as told in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart as a backdrop to investigate the role, perceptions and, therefore, "the rights" of a child in an African context and how these roles and perceptions interface, and how they correspond with the concept of "best interest of the child" as postulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Taking this approach her intention is question the credibility of the CRC as a universal instrument in light of Africa traditional cultures and customary norm.

Her research interests cover issues related to Legal Pluralism, Children's Rights, Multiculturalism, Culture and Cultural Defenses, and Social Justice. Ms Nnadozie is on the Board of Directors of Art of Raising Children (ARC), a non-profit organization that aims to enhance parent-child and family interaction as well as help strengthen family interpersonal relationships through education, support groups and mobilization of resources.

Matthew Pritchard

Matthew Pritchard is a Master’s student currently working on his thesis under Dr. Jon Unruh in the Department of Geography, McGill University. His research examines the relationship between formal and informal property systems within the socially and legally pluralistic environments of post-conflict contexts. Matthew’s thesis focuses specifically on the evolution of informal land tenure systems in post-genocide Rwanda. His general research interests include: land reform, legal pluralism, post-conflict development, political ecology, food security, peace studies & agricultural development. He combines his current work with academic experiences in the US and UK, and fieldwork in Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.

Mario Prost

Mario Prost (Email) is a graduate of Université Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), with an LL.B. and an LL.M. (cum laude) in international law and institutions. A McGill Major Fellow, Mario is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in international law under the supervision of Professor Stephen Toope. His dissertation proposes to address issues of unity/fragmentation of international law from a critical perspective, with particular emphasis on how the rhetoric of unity contributes to the depolitisation and overscientification of the discipline.

Mario's areas of research and publication include international legal theory, international trade law, international environmental law, human rights law, peaceful resolution of international disputes and international institutional law. His contributions are forthcoming in the Chinese Journal of International law, the German Law Journal, and the Revue Belge de Droit International.

Vincent-Joël Proulx

Vincent-Joël Proulx (Email) obtained his LL.L. and LL.B. degrees from the University of Ottawa before completing an LL.M. in International Legal Studies at New York University School of Law. While at NYU, he wrote his thesis under the supervision of Professor Joseph H.H. Weiler. A recipient of the Canadian Council on International Law’s John Peters Humphrey Fellowship in International Human Rights Law and Organization, the Department of National Defence’s Security and Defence Forum PHD Scholarship, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Canadian Graduate Scholarship and the McGill Graduate Studies Fellowship, Vincent-Joël is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in international law at McGill University under the supervision of Professor René Provost. His dissertation explores the relationship between international state responsibility and terrorism, with particular emphasis on the broader implications for human rights, compliance and international relations.

Hilmi Abdul Rahman

Hilmi Abdul Rahman (Email) is currently completing a doctoral dissertation on the failure of the international legal system to adequately respond to gendered violence in ethno-national conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, under the supervision of Professor Payam Akhavan, Faculty of Law, McGill University. Previously, he received his LL. B., (BAU), Lebanon; DGSL, Faculty of Law, Khartoum University; M.A., Islamic Economic Comparative Law, the Punjab University of Lahore; Ph.D., International Energy Political Economics, CPU, California; and Masters in International Comparative Law, a joint program between the Faculty of Law and the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University.

Hilmi Abdul Rahman, having taught numerous subjects at both Kuwait University and Bishop’s University, has been a prominent speaker and author on a number of hotly debated legal issues. He has addressed major academic and professional gatherings in a number of Middle Eastern countries, Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and at home in Canada. His current primary research areas are: human rights legal advocacy; the international criminal justice system; cross-cultural legal viewpoints on women and war; women and the law from the Islamic and international legal perspectives; the Islamic law of nations (siyar); humanitarian and human rights law; and conflict analysis and resolution. He has been a human rights activist over the last three decades and an advocate of the human rights of wartime rape victims ever since the first reports of war crimes during the Yugoslav dissolution war of 1992-1995. Most recently, he served as a co-chair at the 9th IRCT International Conference on Torture, held in Berlin, where he addressed the panelists on “Impunity or Immunity: Wartime Male Rape and Sexual Torture as a Crime against Humanity,” published in (2007) 17:1 Torture Journal. He is the author of several prize-winning books on international humanitarian and human rights law, including Is Jihad a Just War? War, Peace, and Human Rights under Islamic and Public International Law (2001) and Ethnic Cleansing, Wartime Rape and Genocide in the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda: A Selected Socio- Legal Bibliography, with Ibtisam M. Mahmoud. His forthcoming work Gendered Violence in Ethno-National Conflict: Systematic Mass Rape as a Crime against Humanity will be published by The Edwin Mellen Press, New York, in 2008. As a well-established poet, playwright, and novelist, his literary works have been translated into several languages and made the focus of research in a number of M.A. and Ph.D. dissertations.

Aviad Rubin

Aviad Rubin (Email) is a doctoral candidate in Political Science, and recipient of a Steinberg Recruitment Fellowship and a McGill Majors McConnell Memorial Fellowship. He obtained his undergraduate degrees in law and political science (magna cum laude) from Tel Aviv University, before completing a Master degree in political science under the supervision of Professor Philip Oxhorn, the director of the Centre for Developing Area Studies (CDAS). Aviad's final MA research project compared trends towards democratization in Israel and and Palestine pre-independence and is about to be published. In 2006-2007 Aviad was a graduate fellow of CDAS, and also spent the 2007 summer at Bogazici University, studying intensive Turkish and observing the election.

Aviad's PhD dissertation, supervised by Professor Oxhorn and critically explores the relationship between transitions to democracy and the role of religion in state affairs in Israel and Turkey. This project aims to outline an optimal setting for religion-state coexistence in democratic settings, one that integrates religion into state affairs in traditional socieities without compromising the basic human rights, beliefs, and worldviews of individuals and groups in society. Among Aviad's fields of expertise are: democratization theory and transitions to democracy in the developing world, religion and state, legal and constitutional role of religion in democracies, civil society and state institutions, global immigration and its consequences, Middle East politics, the Arab-Israel Conflict, international relations theory and international law.

Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs (Email) received his MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago in 2007, where he studied religion and Islamic activism in contemporary Egypt. Presently pursuing a doctoral degree in Islamic Studies at McGill under the supervision of Professor Khalid Medani, Jeffrey’s dissertation proposes to explore the process of Islamization in Sudan and Egypt, with a concentration on issues of secularism, law, and human rights. His research interests include codification of religious law, education reform, and religion in the public sphere.

Andrea Sanche

Andrea Sanche is an LL.M. Candidate (Thesis) at McGill University, where she is specializing in human rights law and comparative law. In addition to her membership with the CHRLP, she is a member of the Faculty of Law's Institute of Comparative Law. Andrea obtained her J.D. from the University of Toronto and her B.A. (Advanced) from the University of Manitoba. She is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and was called to the Ontario Bar in 2005. Prior to commencing her LL.M. studies, she practiced civil litigation and class action litigation at Teplitsky, Colson LLP in Toronto, Ontario. Andrea has also worked as a student advocate for injured workers and has co-authored a publication on the iteration of gender-based refugee guidelines. Throughout her academic career, Andrea has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the University of Toronto's John Sopinka Entrance Scholarship and the Ting Sum Tang Memorial Prize for highest standing in Canadian or International Human Rights Law. Andrea's thesis research is in the areas of feminist legal theory, human rights law, and law and society. In particular, her research is on the municipal and criminal regulation of massage parlours and the inter-relationship between these areas of law. This research also explores fundamental questions such as the intersection of municipal and criminal regulation with human rights issues, the evolving definitions of public and private space, and devolution as it affects local government.

Mourad Shalaby

Mourad has a Bachelor`s degree in Human Environmental Geography from the University of Montreal, where he conducted multiple studies on urban issues in Third World countries, field assessments of land management, Environmental Impact Assessments and Natural Resources managements. Some of his work included the analysis of air pollution in the city of Cairo, the history of transport policy and planning in the city of Montreal and the evaluation of quality of life in the city of Montreal, with the University of Montreal and the help of the cities of Cairo and Montreal. He has a certificate in Trade, Development & the Environment from the London School of Economics, where he conducted research on the issue of Climate Change and the role of the United States. He is currently enrolled in the Geography Masters program at McGill University, where he is preparing a thesis on Climate Change, Development and Adaptation in the Congo Forest Region. During the summer of 2009, he will be working for the World Bank collecting data for his research.

Efrat Shemesh Idelson

Efrat obtained her LL.B. degree from The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel. She did her internship in the legal department of the Office of the Prime Minister, where she participated in legal procedures in the Israel Supreme Court of Justice and in Military Courts. Efrat passed her Israeli Bar in 2004. Upon her arrival in Montreal she worked for a student organization as a program coordinator and director of advocacy focusing on educating students about anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and coexisting on campus while promoting dialog. Efrat is currently pursuing her LL.M in the Institute of Comparative Law. Her research project deals with the right to self determination of geographical sub-groups, mostly with regard to Palestinian groups.

Alexander Yiu

Alexander Yiu received his B.A. (2003, with Distinction) and LL.B. (2006) from the University of Alberta. He was called to the Alberta Bar in 2007 and carried out a general practice of law with the law firm of Prowse Chowne LLP in Edmonton, Alberta, prior to undertaking his LL.M. studies at McGill in 2008. Alex's research interests include legal theory, administrative law, immigration and refugee law and policy, and international human rights law. Under the supervision of Professor Evan Fox-Decent, Alex's thesis undertakes a comparative examination of the use and limits of social science expertise in the adjudication of claims for refugee status, particularly in the area of sexual orientation asylum adjudication.

Jon Waind

Jon Waind received his Master of Theological Studies degree from Trinity Western University (Langley, BC) in 2007. He is currently working towards a PhD in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University. He studies under the supervision of Professor Daniel Cere in the area of religion and culture. Jon’s main area of interest resides in the intersection between religion, human rights, and the institution of the family. Growing out of this interest, his thesis research will focus on how to approach the vulnerability of children in a pluralist society. It will be the aim of this research project to articulate a way of doing justice to children that takes into account the pluralism of our contemporary social context. Jon also has research interests in Christian ethics, political theology, political theory, and the interface between religion and globalization. In addition to studying, Jon enjoys life in Montreal with his wife Tonja and their four children.