Past News

  • The Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction at Western University is hosting a virtual workshop on April 19-22, 2022 on Sovereignty, Governance, and Indigenous Peoples: Engaging with Indigenous Political Thought. The workshop is co-organized by Valentin Clavé-Mercier (University of Aberdeen) and Dr. Karolina Werner (Western University) and brings together an international group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars to discuss issues of Indigenous sovereignty, recognition, and self-determination. Papers range from international perspectives to a focus on specific Indigenous nations, all highlighting the importance of engaging with Indigenous political thought, and re-thinking ‘modern’ political ideas, assumptions and dominant models of political authority, sovereignty, and governance.                                            

  • TJ Professors Tapped as "Experts" on ICJ TJ Professors Ryan Liss (TJ/Law) and the TJ Centre's Associate Director Valerie Oosterveld (TJ/Law) were interviewed for a Western News piece on the role of the International Court of Justice in stopping Putin. Read more

  • TJ Doctoral Student Chairs Western's Africa Institute Conversation Series TJ/Law PhD student Loyce Mrewa chaired the Africa Institute's "African Conversation Series" on Gender and Human Rights in Africa on March 8, 2022                                                                                               

  • Oosterveld Argues at International Criminal Court TJ Associate Director Professor Valerie Oosterveld (Law/TJ) served as an amicus at the appeal trial of Dominic Ongwen at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Amicus advise on matters before the court--in this case, drawing on her long scholarship on gender issues within international criminal justice, including on the concept of gender in international criminal law and the interpretation of sexual and gender-based crimes by international criminal courts and tribunals. Details surrounding the Ongwen case are available on the ICC website.

  • The TJ Centre is proud to co-host a workshop to be held May 4-6, 2022, entitled “The State and Indigenous Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa and North America.”  The workshop will bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars from sub-Saharan Africa and North America to explore common governance challenges and successes in the realization of Indigenous rights in these two diverse regions.  Details to come! Event Poster [PDF]

  • The important work of Professor Pauline Wakeham (TJ/English) on the narratives surrounding the 1989 blockades mounted by Kanien’kehá:ka activists and other Indigenous allies at Oka, Quebec has been highlighted in a recent piece in JSTOR Daily. Read more

  • The TJ Centre is delighted to welcome Dr. Jared O. Bell as a visiting research fellow for the Fall 2021 term.  Dr. Bell is a post-conflict development expert with technical focuses on justice, human rights, and reconciliation. He works in USAID's Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Democracy Office in Sarajevo where he serves as a Democracy and Governance Advisor.  While with the Centre, he will be working on a project that considers Canada's TRC in comparative frame with the utility of a prospective truth commission in the United States.  Welcome, Jared!

  • Prof. Mandy Grzyb (FIMS/TJ) has been awarded a seven-year, $2.5-million partnership grant for her work "Surviving Memory in El Salvador". Read more

  • Professor Joanna Quinn (Political Science/TJ) recently appeared on a podcast to talk about the role of acknowledging the past, in relation to the discovery of the burial site at the former residential school in Kamloops, BC. Have a listen.

  • The Canadian Association of Anthropology has published an FAQ with information about the use of remote sensing technology for grave detection.  The CAA makes clear that it is essential that communities control if, when, and how any investigation is carried out and how any messaging regarding that work is released to the public or media. Read more [PDF]

  • Acting Director Valerie Oosterveld (Law/TJ) has just published a new co-edited volume that provides an overview of the ICC's first two decades, focusing on the dominant narratives and counter-narratives that have emerged about the institution and its work. The Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Court can be found on the Elgar Online website.

  • Professor Joanna Quinn (POL/TJ) has a new piece in The Conversation that challenges people living across Canada to learn more about the harms and violences committed against Indigenous people, based on her work on thin sympathy. Read more

  • Freshly-minted TJ alum (MA POL/TJ 2020) Joy SpearChief-Morris had a recent piece published in the Globe and Mail about the important and intersecting Black and Indigenous justice issues that continue to confound Canada, told through Joy’s important perspective. Read more

  • Congratulations to Tammy Lambert (POL/TJ) on the successful defense of her PhD dissertation, entitled "The Goldstone Commission in South Africa’s Transition: Linking Gradual Institutional Change and Information-Gathering Institutions."

  • Congratulations to Tamara Hinan (POL/TJ) on the successful defense of her PhD dissertation, entitled "Exhuming norms: Investigating forced disappearances in Ireland and internationally."

  • TJ/WSFR Ph.D. student Florence Wullo Anfaara has been awarded a prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded based on demonstrated leadership skills, research potential, and a high standard of scholarly achievement in research. Florence's work looks at the role of peace huts in Liberia--spaces where women meet to resolve disputes and domestic violence through mediation and conflict resolution and promote community health and well-being, and the role they played in ending the 2014 Ebola epidemic, which they viewed as vital to sustainable peace. Read more

  • Dr. Joanna Quinn, Director of the TJ Centre, has published a new book, Thin Sympathy: A Strategy to Thicken Transitional Justice (University of Pennsylvania Press). Dr. Quinn spent twenty years working in Uganda and uses its particular case as a lens through which she examines the failure of deeply divided societies to acknowledge the past. She proposes that the needed remedy is the development of a very rudimentary understanding—what she calls “thin sympathy”—among individuals in each of the different factions and groups of the other’s suffering prior to establishing any transitional justice process. Read more

  • TJ/Political Science Master's student Joy SpearChief-Morris has an insightful blog post about the powerful calls for change being heard around the world following from what started as protests against the wrongful death of George Floyd. Read more

  • TJ/Anthropology Professor Andrew Nelson has published a new co-authored book about the profound socio-political transformation brought about by the Inca occupation of Farfán, Peru. Read more

  • The TJ Centre’s latest book, Transitional Justice in Comparative Perspective: Preconditions for Success (eds. Samar El-Masri, Tammy Lambert, and Joanna R. Quinn) looks at the challenges and the factors that hinder progress and prevent the transitional justice mechanisms from reaching their desired outcomes. Read more

  • Professor Andrew Nelson (TJ/Anthropology) is pioneering techniques to aid in the identification of remains in post-conflict contexts. Read more

  • TJ/Law Professor Valerie Oosterveld, Associate Director of the TJ Centre remembers the École Polytechnique in Montreal, and notes that it is not so far removed from the discriminatory violence experienced by women in armed conflicts around the globe. Read more

  • TJ Professor Samar El-Masri has published an op-ed in the Globe and Mail on the situation in Lebanon. Read more

  • TJ/Anthropology Professor Greg Beckett has provided detailed analysis of recent protests in Haiti. Read more

  • Law/TJ Ph.D. graduate Kirsten Stefanik has won the Governor General’s Gold Medal for her dissertation, entitled Bringing Non-State Actors into the Fold: Re-Framing International Humanitarian Law for the Realities of Modern Conflicts. Congratulations, Kirsten! Read more

  • Sociology/TJ Professor Emeritus Jerry White will be honoured in early November with a Peace Award from Atlohsa Family Healing Services, in honour of his contribution this past year in the spirit of truth and reconciliation. Congratulations, Professor White!

  • History/TJ Professor Jonathan Vance has been awarded the 2010 Floyd S. Chalmers Award for Ontario History by the Champlain Society, in recognition of his book A Township at War, published by WLU Press in 2018. Congratulations, Professor Vance!

  • Professor Jonathan Vance (History/TJ) talks about his research and his extracurriculars on Radio Western.  Listen here

  • Kirsten Stefanik (Law/TJ) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on August 13. The dissertation addressed “Improving Civilian Protection during War through Conflict-Specific Behavioural Regulation of Combatants.” Congratulations, Dr. Stefanik!

  • TJ Centre Director, Professor Joanna Quinn (Political Science) talks about her research into rebuilding societies on Radio Western’s PBnJ. Listen here

  • TJ Minor students Misha Apel and Lexie Hesketh-Pavillons share their experiences of a Rwanda Service Learning trip in a blog. Read more

  • TJ Grad Specialization Ph.D. Cand. Andy Pettit (Kin./TJ) co-launches new journal, “The Journal of Emerging Sport Studies” that will focus in part on sport for development and peace. Read more 

  • TJ/Hispanic Studies Professor Juan Luis Suarez talks about what makes him tick on Radio Western’s PBnJ: Professors Beyond Jobs. Listen to his interview

  • TJ/FIMS Professor Sharon Sliwinski’s Museum of Dreams provides a curated forum for “pedagogies of witnessing”. Read more

  • TJ/Anthropology Professor Greg Beckett documents the intricacies of what he calls “crisis as a way of life” in a new book, There Is No More Haiti: Between Life and Death in Port-au-Prince. Read more

  • TJ/FIMS Professor Amanda Grzyb and Holocaust survivor Max Eisen have collaborated on a powerful new book, entitled By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz. Read more

  • TJ Ph.D. Candidate Sarah Nimigan (Political Science) has joined the official delegation of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice at the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.  Her work will help to train and educate diverse Canadian audiences about the challenges, pitfalls and potential of the system of international justice, and about the priorities to improve the system, and will contribute to enhancing Canada’s role as a global leader in the fight against impunity. Read more [PDF]

  • TJ Centre Director and Graduate Chair Joanna Quinn (Political Science) competed in Western’s 3MT Kick-Off in January 2019 with a presentation about her research project, “What Makes People Care?” Watch her presentation on YouTube.

  • Craig Spurrier (Sociology/TJ) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, “Nationalism and Sovereignty in Niue, the Cook Islands, Fiji and Hawai‘i”. Congratulations, Dr. Spurrier!

  • TJ Specialization grad Alyssa Szilagyi has been appointed as Assistant Coordinator to Western’s International Learning team.  In that position, Alyssa supports the administration of international learning programs and related services. Congratulations, Alyssa!

  • Amneet Singh Bali (Law/LLM and TJ) has published an op-ed. for CBC News about learning to cope with past trauma. Read the full piece 

  • Mayme Lefurgey (WSFR and TJ) is profiled with her unique field research in the latest issue of the Western News. Read more

  • The TJ Centre is delighted to welcome Rachelle Kouassi as a postdoctoral research fellow for the next 18 months.  Dr. Kouassi’s project considers “Sexual violence as a weapon of war: what forms of reparations are appropriate for victims?” Her work is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. 

  • Samar El-Masri has published a provocative piece, “Prosecuting ISIS for the sexual slavery of the Yazidi women and girls,” in the latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights. Read more

  • TJ Director Joanna Quinn has been appointed a Fellow of the Broadbent Institute, as part of a diverse, multidisciplinary group of distinguished scholars, policy experts, and leaders from the Canadian business community and civil society who impact public debate in support of progressive change. Read more

  • Jenny Poon (Ph.D. Cand., Law and TJ) has been awarded the EUSA Haas Fund Fellowship Competition, a fellowship for graduate student EU-related dissertation research.  Jenny’s dissertation focuses on the principle of non-refoulement—not turning away asylum seekers—in the United Kingdom and Germany.

  • Mayme Lefurgey (Ph.D. Cand., WSFR and TJ) has completed her fieldwork in Bogotá, Colombia.  Mayme partnered with Colombian NGO Dunna to better understand how yoga can be used as a tool for peacebuilding.

  • Professor Valerie Oosterveld (Law and TJ) took part in a workshop on the politics surrounding international tribunals including the ICC and SCSL at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

  • Professor Mandy Grzyb (FIMS and TJ) is leading a team on two SSHRC-supported research projects focused exclusively on El Salvador, with relation to documenting testimonies, mapping the massacre sites, and making plans to build memorials; as well as historical memory workshops and photos exhibitions with former refugees now living in repopulated communities.  

  • TJ Professor Sharon Sliwinski (FIMS) has been elected to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada in recognition of her role in the emerging generation of scholarly, scientific and artistic leadership in Canada.  Congratulations, Dr. Sliwinski!

  • On Western’s Scholars at Risk Day, we will host Anthropologist Homa Hoodfar, who was detained in Tehran’s Evin prison for 112 days in 2016, accused of “dabbling in feminism”.  The Iranian-Canadian Professor of Anthropology was arrested while visiting and conducting research in Iran. Securing her freedom became an important cause for scholars around the world. Read more 

  • TJ/FIMS Professor Sharon Sliwinski’s influential work on the power of dreams was recently celebrated in the Huffington Post. Read more

  • TJ Professor Jerry White was awarded Emeritus status at Convocation on June 13th.  Congratulations to our esteemed collegue!

  • Newly-minted Ph.D. Tim Vine, one of the core students who effectively "shadowed" our graduate program before it was approved, has taken a position with the City of Elliot Lake that will put his "reconciliation" skills to the test, helping the city negotiate the purchase of Crown land, while respecting neighbouring indigenous communities.  Congratulations, Tim!

  • Professor Joanna Quinn was invited to present her work on thin sympathetic engagement in the "Big Ideas" series at FedCan's Congress on the theme "On Indigenous Lands: Empathy and Social Justice". Read more

  • Joanna Quinn has a chapter entitled “Cultivating Sympathy and Reconciliation: The Importance of Sympathetic Response in the Uptake of Transitional Justice,” published in the new book, The limits of settler colonial reconciliation: Non-Indigenous people and the responsibility to engage, eds. Tom Clark, Ravi de Costa, Sarah Maddison (New York: Springer, 2016).

  • Kirsten Stefanik, a fourth year PhD Candidate in both Western Law and the Collabortative Graduate Program in Transitional Justice, had the rare opportunity to attend the International Criminal Court's (ICC's) Assembly of States Parties in The Hague, Netherlands from Nov. 16-24. Read more about it here.

  • International Conference: Anaise Muzima, LL.M. Candidate, University of Western Ontario, recently attended an international conference ENFANTS, PAS SOLDATS (children, not soldiers) at the University of Laval. Read Anaise's report here.

  • Radio Presentation - Professor Marta Dyczok is a regular contributor to Hromadske Radio's Ukraine Calling, commenting on global events.  Listen to one of her episodes here.

  • Congratulations to Surer Mohamed, who has successfully defended her Master’s thesis, entitled “Doing Justice to Justice? Entanglements with Hegemony and Transitional Justice”.

  • TJ graduate Marko Kljajic has been named Associate Director of Research at Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (ccr2p.org).  Congratulations, Marko!

  • Western Law - Brenda Young, Community Justice Director of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation joins Western Law in 2016-17 as a Law Foundation of Ontario Community Leadership in Justice Fellow.  See more here.

  • TJ Professor Anna Dolidze has been named Parliamentary Secretary in the Republic of Georgia. Read about it here.

  • Pathways to Reconciliation along with its partners, the TJ Centre co-hosted the Pathways to Reconciliation conference in Winnipeg from June 15-18.  The keynote addresses can be watched here.

  • The TJ Centre partnered with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and University of Winnipeg for Pathways to Reconciliation‎, June 15-18, 2016. Portions of the program will be live-streamed on uwinnipeg.tv (link to pathwaysconference.ca)

  • The TJ Centre hosted for Indigenous Awareness Week a panel looking at "What is Reconciliation? Reflections from Indigenous Scholars" featuring Jonathan Dewar, Brock Pitawanakwat, and Cheryl Suzack on Wednesday, March 9 at 7:00 p.m. in room 38 of the Law Building.

  • The TJ Centre hosted a commemoration for victims of the Rwandan genocide on Thursday, April 7 at 4:30 p.m. in the Chu International Centre, located on the second floor of the International and Graduate Affairs Building.

  • Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili has named TJ Centre Professor Anna Dolidze as his candidate to become the latest judge of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Read more

  • Mayme Lefurgey, Women’s Studies & Feminist Research and Transitional Justice & Post-Conflict Reconstruction, was named among four Western PhD candidates to receive the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.Read more

  • TJ Director Joanna Quinn has been named to the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada. Read more

  • Eight Students Convocated on Friday, October 23, 2016 from the Collaborative Graduate Program in Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Congratulations to: Oline Ali (English), Narcis Bejtic (Polictical Science), Jessica Howsam (Political Science), Malith Kur (Theology), Kezza O'Bannon (English), Ikshaa Pai (English), Daniel Schloss (Political Science), and Rachel Ward (History).

  • Congratulations to three TJ Master's students who have recently defended Master's theses: Jessica Howsam, "The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Healing, Reconciliation, Resolution?” (Political Science), Malith Kur, “New Paradigm for South Sudan: The Christian Contribution to the South African TRC” (Theology),Daniel Schloss, “Elusive Peace, Security, and Justice in Post-Conflict Guatemala: An Exploration of Transitional Justice and the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala” (Political Science)

  • TJ Centre Professor Anna Dolidze has been appointed Deputy Minister for Defence of the Republic of Georgia in the former Soviet Union.  Read More

  • Associate Director Valerie Oosterveld will be participating in an International Academic Conference on Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict, in Hamburg, Germany in early July.

  • Jacob Damstra, a Masters student in the joint JD/MA Law, History and Transitional Justice program, is the winner of the Trandafir international Business Writing Competition for a paper called "Heroic or Hypocritical: Corporate Social Responsibility, Aboriginal Consultation, and Canada's Extractive Industries Strategy".

  • Professor Pauline Wakeham, Graduate Development and Placement Coordinator, Department of English and Chair of Undergraduate Studies, Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction was recently awarded the Graham and Gale Wright Distinguished Scholar Award for 2015-2016 in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.  Read more:

  • Prof. Bill Danaher Deputy Director and founding member of the TJ Centre, has been appointed as Rector of the Christ Church Cranbrook, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.  Read more.

  • Mrs. Jane Vincent-Havelka has generously donated eight new paintings by the late Dr. Jaroslav Havelka to the TJ Centre. Check out the Centre's Havelka collection on the Art Gallery tab below.

  • The TJ Centre has moved!  We are now located on the main floor of the Social Science Centre in room 2040 (the former Career Services office). 

  • Laura Huey, TJ Graduate Chair was at the Urban Futures Centre, Durban University of Technology in South Africa in August speaking about "Redefining the 'Community' of Community Policing: Building Social Justice through Collaborative Police-Homelessness Security Models".

  • The first five students have graduated with a TJ Minor at Western's Spring Convocation 2014.  Congratulations to Lauren Bak, Political Science; Brett Buchanan, Criminology; Daniel Holmes, Political Science; Marko Kljajic, International Relations and Victoria Marroccoli, Political Science.

  • Professor Valerie Oosterveld recently returned from the June 10-13 Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London, United Kingdom. This Global Summit was co-hosted by the UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and Special Envoy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Angelina Jolie. Read more

  • Alison Cordoba, graduate student in the TJ Collaborative Graduate Program, is conducting field research in Columbia in June and July.

  • On May 26, Professor Valerie Oosterveld co-hosted and chaired a roundtable in Ottawa, along with the British High Commissioner to Canada, Howard Drake, and the Nobel Women’s Initiative, to discuss the upcoming Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict which will be held in London, United Kingdom, from June 10-13 and will be the largest event ever held on the issue of sexual violence in conflict. Read more

  • Professor Anna Dolidze, Law, presents "Beyond the Binary of Exogenous and Endogenous Transitions: the International Governance of Transitional Justice in Georgia" at the 3rd Annual Minerva Jerusalem, International Conference on Transitional Justice  at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Law on May 18 and 19, 2014.

  • Pauline Wakeham's research project, "Decolonizing Reconciliation: Indigenous Justice-Seeking in Post-Oka Canada," has been awarded a SSHRC Insight Grant of $158,927.

  • Prof. Valerie Oosterveld (Western Law) recently published "The Influence of Domestic Legal Traditions on the Gender Jurisprudence of International Criminal Tribunals" in volume 2(4) of the Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law, pages 825-849. The article is available in open access form through the Journal's website: http://cjicl.org.uk/archive/.

  • Professor Valerie Oosterveld, Acting Director of the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Associate Professor at Western Law, has recently published a book chapter, titled “Evaluating the Special Court for Sierra Leone’s Gender Jurisprudence”, in Charles C. Jalloh (ed.), The Sierra Leone Special Court and its Legacy: The Impact for Africa and International Criminal Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 234-259.  Read more

  • Western Law professor Michael Coyle along with Prof. John Borrows from the University of Minnesota co-chaired a national colloquium on the legal implications of historical treaty making in Canada October 7 to 9, 2013. Read more

  • Western Law Ph.D. student, Kirsten Stefanik, has been awarded the prestigious Governor General’s Gold Medal for 2013.  She is the first student at Western Law to complete the new collaborative graduate program in Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.  Read more here and here

  • The first three students have successfully completed the Collaborative Graduate Program and will have their degrees conferred at the Fall 2013 convocation ceremony.  Read more

  • Professor Joanna Quinn took part in a workshop entitled, "The Fate of Latin American Truth Commission Recommendations: Bridging Success and Impact,” held in Solstrand, Norway, 17th – 19th September.  The other participants included Elin Skaar, Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, Jemima Godos-Garcia, Hun Joon Kim, and Catalina Smulovitz.

  • Professor Sara Seck delivered a paper co-written with Professor Anna Dolidze on evolving principles of corporate responsibility under international law relating to sustainable development and deep seabed mining at an international conference held in Vancouver June 26-28, 2013.  Read more

  • Professor Joanna Quinn presented at a conference "Peace From the Ground Up: Post Conflict Socialization, Religion, and Reconciliation in Africa,” in Cape Town, South Africa, from June 5-7, 2013.  Read more

  • Professor Sara Seck presented on a panel concerning the future of extraterritorial jurisdiction at the third Teaching Business and Human Rights Workshop, May 30-31, 2013, Columbia Law School, New York. Read more

  • Dr. Bill Danaher has been named a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology. His project, “Witnesses, Confessions, Archives: The Ethics of Transitional Justice,” seeks to understand the different approaches to achieving justice and its limitations in addressing human rights abuses.

  • Professor Anna Dolidze has published a policy piece, "Justice or Injustice in Georgia?  The First 100 Days after the Power Transfer,” in Transatlantic Academy’s Analysis (March 2013).

  • Professor Marta Dyczok presented a paper, “Ukraine’s Media in the Context of Global Cultural Convergence" at an international conference she co-organized at Columbia University, New York City, “Braking’ News: Censorship, Media, and Ukraine" February 21-22, 2013. 

  • Professor Dyczok - New Article:  Open Democracy published Prof. Marta Dyczok’s article about the conflict between developers and activist protecting historical monuments in Ukraine, 20 February 2013.  Read the article

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