Fall 2021
Julie Ada Tchoukou
On August 12 of this year, Julie Ada Tchoukou defended her thesis, titled Legal Development and the Democratization of Human Rights in Post-modern Africa: A Case for the Legal Regulation of Cultural Violence against Girls (PDF, 2.49 MB). Ada studied under the supervision of Professor Mona Paré, vice-dean for graduate studies in law, full professor and a children’s rights expert.
Ada’s thesis addresses the problem of cultural violence against girls in Nigeria, with a focus on the practice of child marriages within Muslim communities in Northern Nigeria. The conflict between the need to preserve minority culture and the protection of rights explains why legal reforms have failed to solve the real issues affecting girls within cultural communities. Using a critical legal studies and feminist framework, the thesis analyzes the complexity of the problem of cultural violence through a focus on co-existing institutional frameworks, that is, formal and informal legal structures and the roles they play in shaping the experiences of girls within cultural communities.
Julie Ada Tchoukou is a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Laboratory on the Rights of the Child and the Human Rights Research and Education Centre. She is a replacement professor in the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, and will be the Shirley Greenberg Fellow in Women and the Legal Profession in 2021–2023.
Spring 2021
Haewon Chung
On November 20, 2020, Haewon Chung successfully defended her PhD in Law thesis, titled Patent Conflicts in User-Driven Biotechnology: Examining Knowledge Management Strategies for Patentable Research Resources to Stimulate DIY Bio and Other Social Production in Biotechnology, written under the supervision of Professor Teresa Scassa.
Chung studied computer science and law before starting her doctoral degree in law at the University of Ottawa. Her research interests include digital knowledge management, open access and intellectual property law.
In addition to her supervisor, Chung’s doctoral defence committee consisted of Professors Chidi Oguamanam, Michael Geist and David Fewer, as well as Tina Piper of McGill University, the external examiner.
Haewon Chung was a recipient of the prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships Program.
Aboubacar Dakuyo
For over six years, Aboubacar Dakuyo has focused his research on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. In his doctoral thesis, À la recherche d’un modèle de justice transitionnelle efficace pour le Soudan du Sud, written under the supervision of Professor Pacifique Manirakiza, he dissected the implementation of transitional justice based on local norms. He chose to analyze the community norms applied by the Dinka and Nuer of South Sudan, the two major ethnic groups that have been waging war since 2011.
The interethnic fighting in South Sudan has killed at least 50,000 people and displaced two million, according to the International Crisis Group. Dakuyo is trying to determine whether a local approach to transitional justice can be an effective mediation tool between the conflict protagonists while complying with the state’s legal obligations under international law.
Aboubacar Dakuyo is a community member of the uOttawa Human Rights Research and Education Centre.
Uchenna Ijoma
Uchenna Ijoma holds a Master of Laws (cum laude — with distinction) from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. She has many years of experience as a commercial and corporate lawyer and litigant. Professor Heather McLeod-Kilmurray of the Common Law Section supervised her doctoral thesis, titled Promoting Sustainable Development in Nigeria through Rural Women’s Participation in Decision-making about Renewable Energy Law and Policy.
Ijoma has diverse interdisciplinary research interests in global governance of energy, the environment and sustainable development, with a particular focus on the relationships within and between law, inclusive governance, renewable energy systems, gender equity, social justice, human rights, investment and sustainable rural development. She has written several papers on international environmental policy law, renewable energy policy and law-making, natural resources law (oil and gas, water and land), sustainable development law, rural development, agriculture, gender and inclusive governance.
Uchenna Ijoma is a Queen Elizabeth Advanced Scholar.
Ghazaleh Jerban
In her thesis, Does Traditional Knowledge Have Gender? Unmasking the Experience of Female Traditional Knowledge-Holders in the Production of Iranian Saffron and Handwoven Carpets, Ghazaleh Jerban examines the issue of legal protection for traditional knowledge from a gender perspective. She has done several qualitative studies examining indigenous and local women’s role in the traditional knowledge system and whether and how it should be addressed in intellectual property law and policy. In 2019, her policy brief won an award as part of the International Policy Ideas Challenge (IPIC 2019), organized by Global Affairs Canada and the SSHRC.
Jerban has received several scholarships, including the Nicole Senécal Doctoral Scholarship in International Law in 2019, and completed various internships for the United Nations, think tanks, governmental bodies, NGOs and academic institutes. The most recent scholarship she received, the Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology, is for the Open African Innovation Research Network project.
Angela Lee
Angela Lee’s thesis is titled Seeding Sustainability over Extracting Capital: Advancing a Vision for Technology Justice in the Canadian Agri-Food Sector. It was supervised by Professor Lynda Collins.
Angela's research interests lie at the intersection of law and policy, technology and innovation, the environment, society and various forms of justice. Her doctoral work, in which she developed a framework for technological justice in the context of the Canadian agri-food sector, has been supported by a number of awards, including a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship, an Ontario Graduate Scholarship and the Shirley E. Greenberg Fellowship in Environment and Sustainability. Her recent research examines the state of innovation policy in Canada, arguing that a better understanding and broader conceptions of innovation are needed to better direct innovation towards common social and environmental ends.
Lee is a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Law and Society Association and the Canadian Association for Food Law and Policy. She is a Ryerson University assistant professor, at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law.
Alexandre Lillo
Alexandre Lillo is a postdoctoral researcher with the Public Law Centre, under the supervision of Professor Marie-France Fortin. His research project, part of the University of Ottawa’s Forum on Water Law and Governance, focuses on the legal mechanisms of water governance in Canada, on how they could be continuously and actively adapted, and on questions of representativeness of water stakeholders.
Alexandre Lillo holds a PhD in law (’20) completed under the joint supervision of Jamie Benidickson of the University of Ottawa and Catherine Ribot of the Université de Montpellier (France). His thesis, titled The Shape of Water – La construction d’un cadre juridique de gestion de l’eau au Canada (The Shape of Water — Building a Legal Framework for Water Management in Canada), proposes twelve guiding principles to lay the foundation for a Canadian water strategy. He has published several articles on issues related to Canadian and Quebec water management, environmental governance and the legal personality of nature. He served as assistant director of the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability in 2020. He is currently the co-holder of the Research Chair in Teaching Innovation at the University of Ottawa’s Civil Law Section and a part-time professor in the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ottawa.
He was awarded the Medal of the Bar of Paris for the best doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Law during the Civil Law Section’s Rentrée solennelle des cours in September 2021.
Danielle Lussier
To accompany her 536-page thesis, Danielle Lussier, a proud Red River Métis, made a beaded honour shawl. “Canadian law can also be expressed through beading,” she said. This is the first time in Canadian history that a doctoral thesis has included a piece of beadwork.
Danielle Lussier holds a licentiate in law, a JD and a master’s from our faculty. She is also the last of the late Katherine Lippel’s students to defend her thesis, which is titled Law with Heart and Beadwork: Decolonizing Legal Education, Developing Indigenous Legal Pedagogy, and Healing Community. Learn more about Danielle Lussier’s project.
Danielle Lussier is director of Indigenous and community relations at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law.