Joanna Harrington is a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the Associate Dean Research for the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. She also holds the Eldon Foote Chair in International Business and Law at the University of Alberta.
A law professor for over 20 years, she works on issues of foreign relations law, public international law, human rights, and transnational crime. Recent work has focussed on the foreign corruption of public officials, the corporate commission of transnational crimes and non-trial resolutions, including victim-centred creative sentencing and deferred prosecution agreements, and extradition. Her work has been published widely in law journals and edited collections, including the American Journal of International Law, The Canadian Yearbook of International Law, the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, McGill Law Journal, and the Supreme Court Law Review. She is also a co-author of the leading Canadian textbook, International Law: Doctrine, Practice, and Theory, and a long-serving member of the board of directors of the Canadian Council on International Law.
Professor Harrington has also taught law courses as an invited professor in Australia, China, Japan, Puerto Rico and Suriname. She has held visiting research appointments at the University of New South Wales, the University of Oxford, and the University of Texas at Austin, the latter as a Fulbright scholar and the holder of the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Policy Studies. From 2010-2015, she served as an associate dean with university-wide responsibilities for post-graduate education. Funded by Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, her research has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitution Committee of the UK House of Lords, the International Law Association's Committee on International Human Rights Law and Practice, and the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
Beyond the academy, Professor Harrington has served as a member of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (2018-2021), and internationally, she has contributed to UN human rights capacity-building projects in Viet Nam (2008-2009) and Suriname (2008 & 2012). From 2006-2008, she was on secondment to the Government of Canada and served as the scholar-in-residence in the legal bureau of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (now Global Affairs Canada). She has represented Canada at the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. She has also testified as an expert witness in court and before parliamentary committees, and served as an independent investigator of complaints of discrimination and misconduct. She has assisted counsel in private practice on such matters as diplomatic immunity, international human rights law, foreign bribery, and extradition, and contributed to training programs for judges, diplomats, and military lawyers. Media mentions include The New York Times, The South China Morning Post, CBC News, The Globe and Mail, the National Post, and Maclean's.
Prior to academia, Professor Harrington served as the parliamentary legal officer on matters of constitutional reform for a member of the House of Lords, working on the enactment of the Human Rights Act and the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, the creation of a Scottish Parliament, and the implementation of the Good Friday Peace Agreement. She articled with one of Canada's largest law firms and was called to the bar in British Columbia in 1995, and Ontario in 2002. She also worked as a foreign-trained lawyer in London, England under the Pegasus Trust scheme with the Inns of Court. With a BA from the University of British Columbia and a JD from the University of Victoria, she completed her PhD in law at the University of Cambridge as a Tapp scholar at Gonville and Caius College. She also holds an Academy of European Law diploma in human rights law from the European University Institute in Italy.
Career honours include the Martha Cook Piper Research Prize (2007), a Killam Annual Professorship (2012), a Fulbright Scholar award (2016), the Canadian Association of Law Teachers Prize for Academic Excellence (2018), the Faculty of Law's Honourable Tevie H. Miller Teaching Excellence Award (2019), the inaugural Canadian Council on International Law Scholarly Paper Award (2019), and the Canadian Bar Association-Alberta Branch & Law Society of Alberta Distinguished Service Award in Legal Scholarship (2022).
Recent Books
Recent Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Recent Commentary
Recent Workshops, Webinars and Consultations
Recent Work as an Expert Witness
A survey of the foundational principles, structure and institutions of public international law, including the nature of the international legal system, the sources of international law, and the relevance of international law to the Canadian legal system. The role of international organizations, such as the United Nations, will also be discussed.
Fall Term 2022An introduction to the international legal framework for the prosecution of international crimes and crimes of international concern, and the examination of the international community's response to these crimes through the creation of international and internationalized criminal tribunals, including the International Criminal Court. Topics for further examination include immunities, amnesties, and sentencing, as well as the domestic prosecution of international crimes in Canada and other forms of Canadian cooperation.
Winter Term 2023