Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights

Balsillie School, Department of Global Studies (WLU)

Contact Information

Office Location: Dr. Alvin Woods Building, 5-119
Phone Number: 519.884.0710, X2780 (or via Wendy Webb, Assistant to the Chair, wwebb@wlu.ca, or 519.884.0710
Email: hassmann @ wlu.ca
Personal web site: hassmann.wlu.ca

Education

Ph.D. (Sociology), McGill University, 1976
M.A. (Sociology), McGill University, 1972
B.A. (Political Science, with distinction), McGill University, 1969

Areas of Specialization

International Human Rights
Comparative Genocide Studies
Human Rights and Globalization
Human Rights and Retrospective Justice
Sociology and Politics of Human Rights
Women's and gay/lesbian right

Bio

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann is Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada, where she holds a joint appointment in the Department of Global Studies and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, and Professor Emerita at McMaster University. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from McGill University (1976), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2006 she was named the first Distinguished Scholar of Human Rights by the Human Rights Section, American Political Science Association. She originated and directed McMaster's now defunct undergraduate minor Theme School on International Justice and Human Rights (1993-99).
Dr. Howard-Hassmann is the author of Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Ghana (1978), Human Rights in Commonwealth Africa (1986), Human Rights and the Search for Community (1995), Compassionate Canadians: Civic Leaders Discuss Human Rights (2003), Reparations to Africa (2008), and The Second Great Transformation: Human Rights Leapfrogging in the Era of Globalization (forthcoming 2010). She is also co-editor of an International Handbook of Human Rights (1987); Economic Rights in Canada and the United States (2006); and The Age of Apology: Facing up to the Past (2007). Compassionate Canadians was named 2004 Outstanding Book in Human Rights by the Human Rights Section, American Political Science Association; Economic Rights in Canada and the United States was named a notable book for 2008 by the United States Human Rights Network, a coalition of 200 non-governmental organizations. Dr. Howard-Hassmann has also published numerous articles and book chapters on human rights and development in Africa; women's rights; gay and lesbian rights; Canadian foreign and refugee policy; and theoretical, methodological and sociological issues in international and Canadian human rights. Her current research interests include human security and state-induced famine.
From 1987 to 1992 Professor Howard-Hassmann was Editor of the Canadian Journal of African Studies, and she remains on its Editorial Board. She is also a member of the Editorial Boards of the Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, Citizenship Studies, Human Rights and the Global Economy, Human Rights and Human Welfare, Human Rights Quarterly, Human Rights Review, Journal of Human Rights, Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, the Georgetown University Press series Advancing Human Rights, and the forthcoming Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Human Rights. She established and remains editor of a website on political apologies, which can be visited at http://www.political-apologies.wlu.ca.
Dr. Howard-Hassmann conducted research in Ghana in 1974 and 1977. In August 1992, she was visiting scholar at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University, South Africa, and from July through December 2000 she was visiting scholar at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, University of Utrecht. She has been Marsha Lilien Gladstein Distinguished Visiting Professor of Human Rights at the University of Connecticut (2001); James Farmer Visiting Professor of Human Rights at Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, Virginia (2003); and Torgny Segerstedt Visiting Professor of Human Rights, University of Goteborg, Sweden (2005).

Most recent scholarly publications

2009. "Universal Human Rights: How Public Sociology Can Help Shape This Universal Value," in Vincent P. Jeffries, ed. Handbook of Public Sociology, Lanham, Md; Rowman and Littlefield.

2009. "Reply to Paul O'Connell," Human Rights Law Review, vol. 9, no. 1, 127-33.

2008. Reparations to Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

2007. Co-Editor (with Mark Gibney, Jean-Marc Coicaud and Niklaus Steiner) The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press)

2007. "Reparations for the Slave Trade: Rhetoric, Law, History and Political Realities," Canadian Journal of African Studies. Vol. 41, no 3, pp. 427-54.

Recent academic/professional awards

2008.Co-Editor, Economic Rights in Canada and the United States (2006): named a notable book for 2008 by the United States Human Rights Network.

2006. Named first Distinguished Scholar of Human Rights, by the Human Rights Section, American Political Science Association.

2005.Named Torgny Segerstadt Visiting Professor of Human Rights, Goteborg University, Sweden.

2004. Awarded 2004 Outstanding Book in Human Rights, by the Human Rights Section, American Political Science Association (for Compassionate Canadians: Civic Leaders Discuss Human Rights, University of Toronto Press, 2003)

2003.Named Canada Research Chair in International Human Rights, Wilfrid Laurier University.

Courses taught

GV 760, International Human Rights
IP 633, Economic Human Rights
IP 634, Interdisciplinary Seminar