Dear all,

Thank you to those who joined the call online or in person yesterday. As a follow up and thanks to the help of Shayna Plaut, I am sharing some notes from the discussion for your review.

Participants:

1. Welcome and short introductions: Mona Pare – Interdisciplinary Laboratory of the Rights of the Child – Uottawa, Shannonbrooke Murphy – Atlantic HR Centre (St. Thomas), Mirja Trilsch – UQAM HR Clinic, Sharon Webb – Centre for HR at McGill, Anne Purkey – St Paul College of Social Justice (Univ of Waterloo), Nicole Bennet – International Justice and Human Rights Clinic – UBC, Melinke Yimaz – Centre for Human Rights at McMaster, Virginia Caputo – Landon Pearson Centre for childhood and Children’s Rights, Carleton, Shayna Plaut – Centre for Human Rights Research, University of Manitoba, Viviana Fernandez and John Packer – Human Rights Research and Education Centre, U Ottawa.

2. Shared CAHRI initiatives:

• Human Rights Research Network from the Centre for Human Rights Research at the University of Manitoba. Open to publicizing in-person events taking place in Winnipeg or surrounding areas, online events being organized/sponsored/supported by CAHRI or AHRI members.  Can put on calendar, social media, listserve. Email chrrman@umanitoba.ca
• Students Essay Competition regarding children’s rights organized by Interdisciplinary Laboratory on the Rights of the Child. Annual at uOttowa. Annual deadline May 15^th. Essay must be submitted to a course and with the approval of the professor can be submitted for consideration for the contest. Winning essay is published in the Canadian Journal for Children’s Rights.

3. Canadian Yearbook of Human Rights.

• Two issues published to date (2015 and (2016-2018) since John Packer resuscitated the yearbook in 2014. Solely online now. Next issue (2019-2021) should be published soon.
• Offer a Canadian look at human rights - focus is human Rights in Canada and human rights AND Canada.
• Audience is both academic and practitioners (law, NGO) and can perhaps be used as a reference for journalists and others if the format changed (more applied and synoptic). Perhaps renamed? “Snapshot of Human Rights in Canada Year XXXX”. The format of the yearbook could be

• Year in review (“Developments in human rights in Canada” - world events, Canadian events, legislation, juridical, opportunities)
• Thematic focus (this year it is COVID 19 – next time it could be the 40^th Anniversary of Human Rights? Or perhaps “What can be learned from Canada’s response to the war in Ukraine?”)
• People behind the scenes (Canadians in Human Rights i.e.: there is a housing human rights advocate – what is that?)

• Currently the budget is $10-$15K (layout and production takes the bulk, some money for RAs and a small honorarium for a managing editor. The main obstacle is the lack of having a specific point person (managing editor) that can dedicate their time/focus in executing the yearbook (i.e.: tracking down authors/pieces, ensuring drafts become finalized, submit for layout, etc.)
• Ideas: turn the Gordon Henderson Post Doc Fellowship in Human Rights (uOttawa) into a TWO year post doc and have the “yearbook” be under their job description (i.e.: they would be the managing editor, have a say in the foci, write a piece that can be published in it and then organize an outreach event for it and  by going through the process 2x they can help train the next person). Have the Research Assistants come from different members of CAHRI to ensure that this is a CAHRI publication (mutual ownership/accountability/pride) not solely UOttawa.
• Next steps: John to form the editorial board (ideally one representative per CAHRI member), board to choose 2 assistant editors, determine possible foci based on John’s proposals and discussions, uOttawa/HRREC to evaluate the option of using the postdoc as proposed.

Please feel free to add if we forgot something important. Enjoy the summer!

Viviana and Shayna

Viviana A. Fernandez

Directrice adjointe / Assistant Director

Centre de recherche et d’enseignement sur les droits de la personne /

Human Rights Research and Education Centre

Université d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa

Twitter: @vafi1217

Fêtons le 40e anniversaire du CREDP / Celebrate the 40^th anniversary of HRREC

Vous pouvez aussi communiquer avec moi via Teams (uOttawa). | You can also contact me via Teams (uOttawa).