Valerie Oosterveld
Professor, Faculty of Law
B.Soc.Sc. (Ottawa), LL.B. (Toronto), L.L.M. and J.S.D. (Columbia)
vooster@uwo.ca
519-661-2111 ext 80037
Research Interests / Specializations: International criminal accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes; sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflict
Valerie Oosterveld is a full Professor at the Faculty of Law. Her research and writing focus on gender issues within international criminal justice, including on the concept of gender within international criminal law and the interpretation of sexual and gender-based crimes by international criminal courts and tribunals. Professor Oosterveld is a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, and was awarded Western University’s Faculty Scholar designation from 2017-2019. She is also a member of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is the Associate Director of the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.
Before joining the Faculty of Law in 2005, Valerie served in the Legal Affairs Bureau of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In this role, she provided legal advice on international criminal accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, especially with respect to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. In 1998, she was a member of the Canadian delegation to UN Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an ICC. In this role, she negotiated various gender provisions, as Canada played a leading role in pressing for a gender-sensitive Rome Statute. In 2010, she served on the Canadian delegation to the Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the ICC in Kampala, Uganda.
For more information, visit her faculty page.
