Joanna Harrington is a professor of law at the University of Alberta. Her research and teaching activities focus on matters of constitutional law and international law, including human rights law. Her work has led to visiting fellowships at the University of New South Wales in Australia, the University of Oxford, and the University of Texas at Austin, the latter as a Fulbright Scholar, and in 2018, she received the Canadian Association of Law Teachers Prize for Academic Excellence. She has also served on secondment as the academic-in-residence with Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (now Global Affairs Canada), providing advice to government on matters of international human rights law and international criminal law, and representing Canada in various negotiations at the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Her consultancy experience includes work with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and she has been active in international education initiatives, teaching as an invited professor in Australia, China, Japan, Puerto Rico and Suriname. She also serves as a part-time member of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

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Publications

​Joanna Harrington is the author of the Public International Law title for the Halsbury’s Laws of Canada series (LexisNexis 2010; reissue 2014; reissue 2019); a co-author with John H. Currie, Craig Forcese and Valerie Oosterveld of International Law: Doctrine, Practice, and Theory, 2nd ed (Irwin Law, 2014); and a co-editor with Holly Cullen and Catherine Renshaw of Experts, Networks and International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

She has also authored over 30 law journal articles and book chapters, and delivered over 70 conference and workshop presentations, in addition to short notes, book reviews and blogposts, with her major works appearing in the American Journal of International Law, The Canadian Yearbook of International Law, the International & Comparative Law Quarterly, the McGill Law Journal, Queen’s Law Journal, and the Supreme Court Law Review. Recent book chapters appear in Oliver, Macklem and Des Rosiers, eds, The Oxford Handbook of the Canadian Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2017); Farrall and Charlesworth, eds, Strengthening the Rule of Law through the UN Security Council (Routledge, 2016); Jalloh and Marong, eds, Promoting Accountability under International Law for Gross Human Rights Violations in Africa (Brill, 2015); and Boister and Currie, eds, Routledge Handbook of Transnational Criminal Law (Routledge, 2014).
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Working in collaboration with others, her research activities have attracted funding from Canada’s leading granting agency, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), specifically the International Opportunities Fund (2005-2007), the Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences in Canada Fund (2008-2009), a Standard Research Grant (2010-2013), and a Partnership Grant (2016-2021). She is a member of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice / Partenariat Canadien pour la Justice Internationale  (CPIJ-PCJI), which brings together law professors, NGO lawyers and students from across Canada in support of efforts to secure greater accountability before both national and international courts on behalf of the victims of international crimes.