Democratizing Human Rights Workshop: Towards an Inclusive & Participatory Human Rights Agenda
Exploring how participatory processes can address critical tensions in democratic practice and human rights protection, this collaborative workshop will delve into contemporary debates in democracy and human rights as well as examine deliberative democratic innovations from a plurality of perspectives. Together, we aim to create a space for knowledge sharing; explore the current state of universal human rights and participatory governance, emphasizing grassroots activism, democratic innovations, and digital participation; and examine paths forward to overcome the limitations inherent in traditional democratic and human rights advocacy models. Raising questions about the concerns that emerge at the intersection of democracy and human rights, the Democratizing Human Rights Workshop will investigate whether participatory governance and collective decision-making can facilitate the democratization of human rights, and whether universal human rights can uphold democratic principles, and in turn, protect vulnerable populations.
The workshop will take place October 23-24, 2025, in hybrid format. Though the workshop is only for registered participants, the keynote address is open to the public.
Keynote Address
Date: October 24, 2025
Time: 3pm EDT
“An Imperative of Accountability for Gross Human Rights Violations”
Presented by Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji,
Former President of the International Criminal Court, The Hague
Keynote Speaker Biography
Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji was the 4th President of the International Criminal Court. He is the Distinguished International Jurist at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at the Toronto Metropolitan University. From 2012 to 2021, he served as a judge at the ICC, first as a trial judge and eventually as an appellate judge. Prior to joining the ICC, Dr Eboe-Osuji served as the Legal Advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. Earlier in his career, he worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, as a senior prosecution counsel. He has authored several books on international law, including “End of Immunity: Holding World Leaders Accountable for Aggression, Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity” (2024); “International Law and Sexual Violence in Armed Conflicts” (2013); and “Protecting Humanity” (2010).
Workshop Agenda
Day 1 – Thursday, October 23, 2025
8:30-9:00am: Tea and coffee
9:00-9:10am: Land acknowledgement & Welcome - Bonny Ibhawoh & Melissa Levin
9:10-9:20am: Opening remarks by the Dean, Faculty of Humanities - Stephen Heathorn
9:20-9:30am: Opening remarks the Head of Department, History - Megan Armstrong
9:30-11:00am: First panel: Contemporary Debates in Democracy and Human Rights – I
– Ron Levy (The Australian National University), “The Deliberative Democratic Turn in Human Rights”
– Abhiruchi Ojha and Leslie Keerthi Kumar (Jamia Millia Islamia and University of Delhi), “Reconceptualizing Human Rights for the age of Artificial Intelligence: A Global South Perspective”
– Ross Ryan (McMaster University), “Realistic Idealism: Jacques Maritain, Democracy, and Human Rights”
11:00-11:15am: Brief break
11:15-12:45pm: Second panel: Contemporary Debates in Democracy and Human Rights – II
– Oyinade Adekunle (McMaster University), “The Death Penalty in a Democratic Age: Exploring Innovations in Retentionist and Abolitionist Contexts”
– Salvador Santino Regilme (Leiden University), “Decolonizing Human Rights and Global Development”
– Chika Aniekwe and Lawrence Emehel (IOM-Somalia and Nasarawa State University), “Re(Imagining) Religious Extremism in Nigeria: Expanding, Articulating and Correcting a Global Held Misnomer”
12:45-1:45pm: Lunch break
1:45-3:15pm: Third panel: Majority Rule, Minority Rights and Democracy
– Ernest Ako & Julia Selman-Ayetey (University of Cape Coast), “Universal human rights versus majoritarian rule: Legal perspectives from Ghana on democratizing human rights”
– Josiah Bagayas (Mariano Marcos State University), “Participatory Governance and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights: Progress and Pitfalls in the Philippine Legal Framework”
– Nnamdi Nnake (McMaster University), “Digital Participation and the Protection of Civil and Political Rights”
3:15-3:30pm: Brief break
3:30-5:00pm: Fourth Panel: Deliberative Democracy and Human Rights: Innovations from Below
– Kate Ogg (The Australian National University), “Mini-Public Adjudication of Human Rights Disputes: An Empirical Evaluation”
– Robert Richards (University of Arkansas), Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm (Binghamton University) and Kwami Abdul-Bey (Independent Researcher), “Dialogue and Memory: The Participatory, Local, Transitional Justice Work of the Arkansas Peace and Justice Memorial Movement”
– Lin Sun (Shanghai International Studies University), “The Idea of Human Rights in Traditional Chinese Culture and the View of Human Rights in Chinese Modernization”
5:00-5:30pm: Plenary Lecture by Professor James Gao (Shanghai International Studies University), “Chinese-Style Modernization and Chinese-Style Humanitarianism”
5:30-6:00pm: Podcast Interviews
6:00-9:00pm: Welcome Dinner at The Buttery
Day 2 – Friday, October 24, 2025
8:30-9:00am: Tea and coffee
9:00-10:40am: Fifth Panel: Universal Rights and Democracy in International Politics: Experiences from Below
– Omri Grinberg (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), “Achieving Human Rights Failure: NGO Archives in Israel/Palestine Between Democratization and Decolonization”
– Erika Jimenez (Queen's University Belfast), “‘Just ink on paper?’ A comparison of youth’s perspectives on international law and the universality of human rights from the occupied Golan and West Bank”
– Augusto Leao (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), “Brazil's Dual Role as LGBTQ + Refugees”
– Shannonbrooke Murphy (St. Thomas University), “Human Rights Enforcement ‘From Below’: The Human Right to Resist in International and Constitutional Law”
10:40-10:45am: Brief break
10:45-12:15pm: Sixth Panel: Children’s Rights/Human Rights and Democratic Praxis
– Dustin Ciufo (King’s University College at Western), “A Childist Approach to Advancing an Inclusive and Participatory Human Rights Agenda: The Sociopolitical Implications of a Child-Centred Form of Deliberative Democracy”
– Ali Dunbar and Robert Richards (University of Arkansas and Syracuse University), “Centering Adoptees’ Voices: Protecting the Human Rights of Adopted Persons Through Participatory-Democratic Practices”
– Julia Rodriguez (University of New Hampshire), “The UNICEF Child-Friendly Cities Initiative at 30: Assessing Child and Youth Participation in Global Perspective”
12:15-1:15pm: Lunch break
1:15-2:45pm: Seventh Panel: Deliberative Democracy, Participatory Governance and Human Rights
– Jesi Carson (Participedia), “Participatory Design for Human Rights: Local Change, Global Insights”
– Lydia Chibwe and Sindiso Nkomo (Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria) “Democratizing Women's Rights in Zimbabwe: Addressing Gender-Based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights through Legal and Participatory Reforms”
– Johannah Keikelame and Mfalatsane Motsuenyane (Independent Researchers), “Exploring Deliberative Democracy and Mechanisms for Inclusive Governance: Lessons from a South African Case Study”
2:45-3:00pm: Brief break and Venue Change
3:00-3:30pm: Keynote Address by Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, “An Imperative of Accountability for Gross Human Rights Violations.”
3:30-3:45pm: Keynote Q&A
3:45-4:15pm: Panel Discussion on Human Rights, Leadership and the Sustenance of Democratic Principles with Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh of Participedia, Dr. Melissa Levin of the University of Toronto, and Dr. Lara Campbell of the Wilson College of Leadership
4:15-4:30pm: Panel Discussion Q&A
4:30-4:45pm: Wrap-up and Reflection - Melissa Levin
4:45-5:00pm: Ways Forward and Closing Remarks - Bonny Ibhawoh
5:15-8:00pm: Closing Dinner at The Phoenix
Participant Bios
Kwami Abdul-Bey is an Afro-Indigenous abolitionist. He is the founding director of the Washitaw Foothills Youth Media Arts & Literacy Collective (WFYMALC), which has produced PHAT LIP! You(th)Talk Radio since 1994 and hosted the Arkansas Peace & Justice Memorial Movement (APJMM) since 2018. Kwami heads statewide electoral justice and participatory democracy programming for the Arkansas Public Policy Panel and is a public historian, a legislative drafter, a community paralegal, and the author of The Tables Have Turned: A Street Guide to Guerrilla Lawfare. Kwami obtained a Bachelor of Science in Paralegal Studies at Liberty University School of Law and a Master of Public Service from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.
Oyinade Adekunle is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of History at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada, and an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of History and Strategic Studies at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) and a Master of Arts (Hons.) in History and Strategic Studies from the University of Lagos. Adekunle’s research interests encompass African History, Legal History, Human Rights, and Crime. Her doctoral dissertation examines the complexities of capital punishment in colonial Nigeria, highlighting its historical, legal, and societal implications. Adekunle serves as a Research Assistant in the Human Rights Cluster at Participedia and the Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice.
Ernest Ako is Head of the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana and a member of the International Law Association, South African Branch. He has a Doctor of Laws degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Pretoria and previously worked with Ghana’s national human rights commission. Ernest’s publications include works in the Oxford Handbook of Foreign Relations Law, the African Human Rights Yearbook, and the African Human Rights Law Journal. Ernest is a Solicitor & Barrister of the Supreme Court of Ghana.
Chika Charles Aniekwe is a Strategic Stabilisation Advisor with the IOM-Somalia. He has over 20 years of multidisciplinary and multisectoral experience in international development across different countries. His research interests include electoral democracy, political dialogue and mediation, conflict transformation, peacebuilding, the African Union, the Lake Chad Basin, vigilantism, and Stabilisation.
Josiah Patrick Bagayas is a lawyer and foreign service officer in the Judicial Cooperation and Legal Proceeding Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Philippines. He obtained his Bachelor of Public Administration and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of the Philippines Diliman. He is completing his MA Political Science specializing in comparative politics at the same university. He serves as pro bono legal volunteer at Justice Without Borders and is part of Pacific Forum’s Young Leaders Program.
Jesi Carson is a design researcher and interaction designer specializing in community engagement. She is Design Director of Participedia, Board President of the Vancouver Design Nerds Society and Co-founder of the Global Classroom for Democracy Innovation. Rooted in design justice, Jesi's work bridges research, education and public practice across global and local contexts.
Lydia Tambudzai Chibwe is a Project Officer and Research Fellow in the Women’s Rights Unit at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. She focuses on advancing gender equality, women’s rights and the empowerment of marginalized groups across Africa. Lydia holds a Ph.D. in Development Studies and has extensive expertise in migration, women’s rights and sustainable development. Her work at the Centre includes research, advocacy and capacity building, with a particular interest in fostering innovative approaches to promoting women’s rights. Lydia is committed to creating transformative policies and programs that address systemic barriers to equality and justice.
Dustin Ciufo is a faculty member in Childhood and Youth Studies at King’s University College at Western in London, Ontario, Canada. His teaching and research focus is on children’s rights, participation, and activism. These areas of study are contextually explored across peace and conflict, migration, and global development issues that includes transnational youth activists in mine action, unaccompanied minors in Canada, and child domestic labourers in Haiti. His academic focus is intent on critiquing adult-centric norms, values, and institutions as a means by which to facilitate child and youth-adaptable practices.
Ali Dunbar is a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. She has extensive experience working with human rights organizations, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Youth Initiative for Human Rights Serbia, the El-Hindi Center for Dialogue & Action, and most recently as Program Manager at CCAI (Cherish Children Adoption International), where she oversaw intercountry adoptee programming and led the recruitment and training of adoptee youth leaders.
Lawrence Chukwunweike Emehel is a Catholic priest of Sokoto Diocese. A graduate of Philosophy and Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Urban University, Rome. Post-Graduate studies in Arabic, Islamic & Interreligious Dialogue studies at Dar Comboni Institute for Arabic Studies, Cairo and the Pontifical Institute for Islamic and Arabic Studies, Rome. He is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student with the Nasarawa State University on Peace Education and Conflict Management Studies.
Omri Grinberg is a postdoctoral fellow at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows (2022-2026). With a considerable inter-disciplinary background and a PhD from the University of Toronto (2019), he situates himself as a political-legal and socio-cultural anthropologist studying violence and human rights. His ethnographic research examines how texts depicting violence through human rights practices are produced and circulated, and the unfolding struggles over the ethical and political meaning of witness testimonies and archives. His work has been published in journals including Anthropologica, International Journal of Human Rights, Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, and Children & Society.
Erika Jiménez is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast on a project entitled: Golani youth, human rights and the forgotten occupation. Her monograph, Rethinking Human Rights: Critical Insights from Palestinian Youth (Hart/Bloomsbury 2024) explores Palestinian youth’s views and experiences of human rights and how these are shaped by what they learn through human rights education at school and their everyday lived experiences. Erika strives to conduct research that centres marginalised voices and ways of knowing. She has experience of conducting rights-based approaches, participatory research and working alongside advisory groups of minoritized populations.
Mpoe Johannah Keikelame is an independent qualitative researcher with a PhD from Stellenbosch University, focused on collaborative research in democracy, social accountability, and human rights. Her peer-reviewed publications reflect her commitment to legitimate, emancipatory research aimed at empowering local communities.
Leslie Keerthi Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in Lady Shri Ram College of University of Delhi. He completed PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2015. He was a visiting research fellow at Free University, Berlin. He has several research publications and books to his credit, and his present work focuses on the ethics of Artificial intelligence and developing Non-Western IR perspectives.
Ron Levy is a Professor at the College of Law, Governance and Policy at the Australian National University. His work adapts the political theory of deliberative democracy to understand how contentious constitutional problems can be better managed. He explores deliberative democratic approaches to polarising human rights cases, constitutional design in divided societies, and armed conflict. Levy currently co-leads the Deliberative Peacemaking collaborative project, which draws on more than 25 contributors from 14 countries. He has published several scholarly works and most recently co-authored Deliberative Peace Referendums (Oxford University Press, 2021).
Augusto Veloso Leão is a resident post-doctoral researcher at Grupo de Pesquisa em Mídia e Esfera Pública, in Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. He holds a PhD in International Relations from Universidade de São Paulo (IRI/USP), and works with the themes of deliberative democracy, public debate, public policy and international migration. His work combines academic research and political engagement in the promotion of human rights and participation. He was a member of the outreach and research projects "Educating for the World" and "Cosmopolis", both focused on human rights of migrants.
Mfalatsane Priscillah Motsuenyane is a social scientist experienced in Asset-Based Citizen-led Development and participatory citizen-centred research. Skilled in qualitative research and participatory action-learning, she collaborates with research institutions to foster inclusive democracy, social accountability, and participatory governance through citizen-centered research. She holds a master’s degree and is a PhD candidate.
Shannonbrooke Murphy is Endowed Chair and Associate Professor of Human Rights at St Thomas University, where she is also Director of the Atlantic Human Rights Centre, and serves on the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission. Previously, she acted as a legislative, policy and political advisor to Irish elected representatives at all levels on the justice, equality, human rights, international affairs, and constitutional change portfolios. Her book The Human Right to Resist in International and Constitutional Law is published by Cambridge University Press, and her research has been cited in the Oxford Commentary on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and in litigation before the South African Constitutional Court.
Nnamdi Nnake is a PhD candidate at McMaster University researching the history of communications technology in Africa. His current research uses decolonial perspectives to examine the intersections of telegraph technology with material culture and the political economy in colonial Nigeria. Nnamdi has shared his research at various international conferences and has several publications in view.
Sindiso Nozitha Nkomo is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, under the Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa Programme. She holds Bachelor, Master, and Doctor of Laws degrees, all from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her expertise spans sexual and reproductive health and rights, women’s rights, Indigenous Peoples' rights, and civil society law in Africa. With over eight years of experience in human rights, Nkomo focuses on advancing sexual and reproductive rights, women’s empowerment, and the international protection of human rights across the African continent.
Abhiruchi Ojha is an Assistant Professor of International Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, India. She completed PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2015. She was a visiting research fellow at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa and is presently a Visiting Fellow at Nepal Institute for International Cooperation and Engagement (NIICE). Her latest publication is a co-edited book, South Asian Women and International Relations, published by Palgrave Macmillan (2023). Her research interests include gender and technology, women in IR, and global political thought.
Kate Ogg is a Professor at the College of Law, Governance and Policy at the Australian National University. She undertakes interdisciplinary research in the areas of refugee law, human rights, litigation, access to justice and feminist legal theory and method. Kate is the author of Protection from Refuge: From Refugee Rights to Migration Management, which was published with Cambridge University Press in 2022. This monograph is the first global and comparative examination of the role courts play in refugee journeys. Amongst other things, Kate is currently working on an Australian Research Council funded project on community sponsorship for refugees.
Salvador Santino Regilme is a tenured Associate Professor and Chair of International Relations Program at the Institute for History at Leiden University, Netherlands. Born in the Philippines and educated in Germany and the United States, he is a Dutch scholar specializing in international human rights, North-South relations, global security, and U.S. foreign policy. His acclaimed works include Aid Imperium (University of Michigan Press, 2021) and Children’s Rights in Crisis (Manchester University Press, 2024). A recipient of prestigious fellowships and multiple book and research awards, his scholarship bridges academic inquiry with global policy challenges, emphasizing the impact of power and militarism on human rights.
Robert C. Richards, Jr. is a co-investigator on Participedia Phase II, an associate professor at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, an interdisciplinary affiliate at the University of Arkansas Center for Communication Research, and a co-organizer of interracial dialogues with the Arkansas chapter of Coming to the Table. His most recent publication, with John Rountree and Chul Hyun Park, is “The Washington Climate Assembly: Note-taking Modalities as Deliberative Guidance in an Online Citizens’ Assembly,” published in Journal of Applied Communication Research in 2024.
Julia E. Rodriguez is Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire. She is the author of Civilizing Argentina: Science, Medicine, and the Modern State (University of North Carolina Press, 2006) and Editor of the open-source teaching website HOSLAC: History of Science in Latin America and the Caribbean (www.hoslac.org). With Adam Warren and Stephen T. Casper, she co-edited the volume Ethics, Colonialism, and the Human Sciences: Troubling Encounters in the Americas and Pacific (Cambridge UP, 2004). She is currently working on two research projects: the first on nineteenth-century Americanist anthropology in transnational perspective; and the other on children’s rights across Europe and the Americas in the twentieth century.
Ross Ryan is a PhD candidate at McMaster University, where he is researching the history of Costa Rica's armed forces, and is associated with the Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice. He is a sessional instructor in the fields of history, international relations, and peace and conflict studies for McMaster University and the United Nations University for Peace
Julia Selman Ayetey is the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cape Coast. She has held academic positions at several universities, including King’s College London and the University of Oxford. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge, is a Solicitor & Barrister of the Supreme Court of Ghana and is called to the Bar in England and Wales (Middle Temple). Julia is also a Partner at the law firm Ashong Benjamin & Associates, where she often undertakes pro-bono and “low-bono” criminal justice cases and cases in defence of the Constitution.
Lin Sun is Assistant Professor in the Center for American Studies, School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, China. She was a visiting scholar at McMaster University, Canada from February 2023 to February 2024. Her research focus on the translation and study of Chinese music, African American literature, motherhood studies, intersectionality. Her recent work has appeared in The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities (2023).
Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm is a Professor of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention and member of the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (I-GMAP) at Binghampton University. He has authored three books and over 40 articles and book chapters on Transitional Justice (TJ), human rights, and peacebuilding. His newest co-authored book is Exploring Truth Commission Recommendations in a Comparative Perspective: Beyond Words (Intersentia Uitgevers NV, 2022). Prior to joining I-GMAP, he held positions at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Florida State University, DePaul University’s International Human Rights Law Institute, and the University of Nevada - Las Vegas. He received his doctorate in Political Science at the University of Colorado.
Workshop Co-Sponsors
Workshop Organizing Committee
Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh, Co-convenor, Professor, McMaster University
Dr. Melissa Levin, Co-convenor, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto
Dr. Melike Yilmaz, Research Coordinator, McMaster University
Nnamdi Nnake, Graduate Research Assistant, McMaster University
Maia Lepingwell-Tardieu, Graduate Research Assistant, McMaster University
Adham Assaad, Graduate Research Assistant, University of Toronto