Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh

Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh is Professor and Senator William McMaster Chair in Global Human Rights at McMaster University, Canada. He received his PhD in History from Dalhousie University in 2003. He is the Director of the McMaster Centre for Human Rights and Restorative Justice and he chairs the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development. He is a legal and human rights historian who has taught in universities in Africa, Europe and North America. Previously, he was a Human Rights Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs, New York, and Research Fellow at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Copenhagen. His research expertise includes global human rights history, peace/conflict studies and transitional/restorative justice studies. Dr. Ibhawoh has held several university academic and administrative positions including: Director of the Centre for Peace Studies, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, and Acting Associate Vice-President (Research) at McMaster University. He has authored several books on human rights, including Imperial Justice (Oxford University Press) and Human Rights in Africa (Cambridge University Press). Dr. Ibhawoh is a member of the College of Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada and serves on the Board of a number of Canadian charities and international Human Rights Non-Governmental Organizations. He is currently the Project Director of two major research projects – The Confronting Atrocity Project and Participedia.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your PhD and your experiences at Dalhousie University?

A: I came to Dalhousie for a PhD on a Killam scholarship in 1998. I was part of a cohort of PhD students which included several international students. My dissertation explored the tensions in imperial and anti-colonial discourses of human rights in Africa. I have very fond memories of my time at Dalhousie. I remember the annual curling outings organised by Dr. Phillip Zachernuk. It was at one of these curling outings that I first laced up a pair of skating boots and ice skated. Having lived most of my life in Africa, I had never skated before. Although my curling mostly consisted of slipping and falling on the ice, these were memorable experiences for me. While working on my PhD at Dal, I got a job as a “Residence Don” at the University of King's College. I was the Residence Don of Cochran Bay at King’s. The position did not come with a salary, but it came with a nice furnished apartment in the residence and free meals. At King’s we had weekly formal meals where everyone wore academic robes to dinner and the University President said grace in Latin. It was like a scene out of a Harry Potter movie; it was a memorable experience.

Q: Your career and publications seem to combine the study of history and human rights. Can you say something about the relationship between the two?

A: There is a direct connection between history and human rights. For so long, the field of human rights was dominated by social scientists and legal scholars. Few historians engaged in the debates about the theory and practice of human rights. However, there was always recognition among human rights scholars of the deep historical roots of human rights ideas. Attending to these often-ignored historical dimensions of human rights ideas and struggles is what I try to do in my research.

Also, human rights scholarship tends to be underscored by a certain presentism. There is a preoccupation with present-day human rights violations. This is partly because of the widely held assumption that the notion of universal human rights is a uniquely twentieth century phenomenon. Indeed, the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948 marked a defining moment in the development of international human rights. But even if we agree that universal human rights have a uniquely twentieth century dimension, we also need to understand how these twentieth century breakthroughs were shaped by the ideas, events and struggles that came before. A historical approach allows us to go beyond present-day abuses to understand the antecedental conditions that shape abuse. This understanding of historical antecedents is important to remedying rights violations. For example, in the context of Africa, we cannot fully understand contemporary legal constitutional human rights regimes without an understanding of how they were influenced by the histories of colonialism and anti-colonial struggles.

Q: How does your career in historical research help you to interpret current human rights affairs?

A: My training as a historian positions me to bring a unique lens to human rights scholarship. As a historian, I have the training and skills to interpret archival sources in ways that help us understand the complexities of the evolution of rights ideas. The historian’s emphasis on primary archival sources also allows us to speak authoritatively about the transformative human rights ideas and struggles.  Knowledge of oral historical methodology is relevant to understanding and documenting notions of human rights and human dignity among indigenous people. This has enabled better appreciation of the normative contributions of indigenous knowledge and philosophies to the development of modern human rights principles.

A historical approach to human rights also allows us to tell global and inclusive human rights stories. Contemporary human rights are premised on the notion of globality and universality. Yet, until recently, much of the scholarship on human rights was focused on Western history, from the Magna Carta and Enlightenment liberalism to the French Revolution. Recent histories have drawn attention to the contributions of indigenous communities and the Global South to the development of human rights. For example, in my books, I have engaged the debate over the universalism and cultural relativism of human rights. I have been interested in exploring how social and cultural traditions shape local understandings of human rights.

Apart from my academic interest in human rights, I am also interested in the practice of human rights. My consultancy work with international human rights NGOs has given me an opportunity to collaborate with practitioners and engage human rights policymaking. My work with the Canadian Museum of Human Rights provided an opportunity to work with the curators to translate human rights research into exhibitions that educate the public about the history of human rights. As a United Nations human rights expert, I have drawn on my history training to research and write reports that contribute to international human rights policymaking.

Q: In your experience, do you feel that people are willing to engage with the historical context when it comes to studying human rights?

A: I think historical scholarship on human rights is gaining more attention both with academic and public audiences. Scholars, policy makers and activists increasingly see the value of bringing historical perspectives to human rights questions. The historian brings complexity and nuance to human rights issues that tend to be presented from the opposing perspectives of victims and violators. The growing relevance of history in human rights is reflected in the work of national truth and reconciliation commissions that have been established around the world. Many of these truths and reconciliation commissions are mandated to investigate the historical truth about human rights violations with the goal of bringing justice to victims and fostering national reconciliation. The work of historians is central to these truth-seeking processes. Another example is the emergence of human rights memorialization and commemoration practices around the world with the establishment of human right museums and monuments.

Q: Do you have any current or upcoming research which you would like to tell us about?

A: I am currently working on two major projects. The first project is the “Confronting Atrocity Project,” which is a global study of truth and reconciliation commissions in 12 countries around the world. The project investigates how truth commissions go about their task of investigating human rights abuses and fostering national reconciliation. The second project called Participedia is a crowdsourcing platform and global network of scholars, researchers and practitioners policy makers interested in public participation and democratic innovations.

Q: Do you have any advice for future history graduates or prospective students?

A: My advice to future history graduates or prospective students is to broaden their horizons as they go about their studies and explore career options. I urge students to embrace interdisciplinarity and seek experiential learning opportunities that allow them to apply their training and skills as historians in practical ways. Public history provides one such opportunity of bringing history to a wider audience. With easy accessibility to digital technology, it is now possible to share knowledge through various platforms such as social media, podcasts, YouTube videos, and blogs. I encourage my students to blog about the topic that they find interesting and write public commentaries based on their research essays. Take elective courses in other disciplines and collaborate with peers in other disciplines on research projects. Human rights studies is an interdisciplinary field and, for me, it has been essential to take cross-disciplinary approaches in my research, teaching, and practice.