Click here for a list of Canadian history journals.

For the most recent work on this topic, refer to current publications

Articles

Adams, Eric M. "Building a Law of Human Rights: Roncarelli V Duplessis in Canadian Constitutional Culture." McGill Law Journal 55 (2010): 437-60.

Bangarth, Stephanie D. ""'We are not asking you to open wide the gates for Chinese immigration': The Committee for the Repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act and Early Human Rights Activism in Canada," Canadian Historical Review  3 (2003).

Brouwer, Ruth Compton. "When Missions Became Development: Ironies of “Ngoization” in Mainstream Canadian Churches in the 1960s." Canadian Historical Review 91, no. 4 (2010): 661-93.

Burke, Sara. "Women of Newfangle: Co-Education, Racial Discourse and Women's Rights in Victorian Ontario." Historical Studies in Education 19, no. 1 (2007): 111-33.

Cardinal, Linda, and Stéphane Lang. "Roy Mcmurtry, Les Droits Des Franco-Ontariens Et La National Canadienne." MENS 7, no. 2 (2007): 279-311.

Clarke, Frank K. "Debilitating Divisions: The Civil Liberties Movement in Early Cold War Canada, 1946-8." In Whose National Security? Surveillance and the Creation of Enemies in Canada, edited by Gary Kinsman. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2000.

Clément, Dominique. [Visit the webmaster page for a complete list of the author's scholarship].

Cook, Ramsay. "Canadian Freedom in Wartime," in His Own Man: Essays in Honour of A.R.M. Lower, ed. W.H. Heick and Roger Graham (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1974).

Dawson, Michael. "Leisure, Consumption, and the Public Sphere: Postwar Debates over Shopping Regulations in Vancouver and Victoria During the Cold War." In Creating Postwar Canada: Community, Diversity, and Dissent, 1945-75, edited by Magda Fahrni, 193-216. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.

Dobrowsky, Alexandra. "Identity and Rights Reclaimed: Appreciating and Assessing Aboriginal Women's Interventions in Canada." In Rights, Movements, Recognition - Papers in Social Theory 6, edited by Neil Stammers. Sussex: Warwick Social Theory Centre, 2001.

Egerton, George. "Writing the Canadian Bill of Rights: Religion, Politics and the Challenge of Pluralism 1957-1960." Canadian Journal of Law and Society 19, no. 2 (2002): 1-22.

Frager, Ruth, and Carmela Patrias. "‘This Is Our Country, These Are Our Rights': Minorities and the Origins of Ontario's Human Rights Campaigns." The Canadian Historical Review 82, no. 1 (2001): 1-35.

Hobbins, A. J., Ed.  On the Edge of Greatness: The Diaries of John Humphrey, First Director of the United Nations Division of Human Rights.  Montreal:  McGill University Libraries, 1994-2000.  (Fontanus Monograph Series, nos. 4, 9. 12, 13).
———. Ann Walter. “Humphrey and the quest for compensation: Individual claims against States and the creation of new international law.” Canadian Yearbook of International Law, 2003. XLI (2004). pp. 187-223.
———. and Jeff King.  “Hammarskjöld and Human Rights: the Deflation of the UN Human Rights Programme, 1953-1961.” Journal of the History of International Law. V (2003), pp. 337-386.
———. and Daniel Boyer. “Seeking Historical Truth: the International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine." Dalhousie Law Journal. XXIV (2002), pp. 139-191.

Korinek, Valerie. "'The Most Openly Gay Person for at Least a Thousand Miles': Doug Wilson and the Politicization of a Province." Canadian Historical Review 84, no. 4 (2003): 516-51.

Lambertson, Ross. "The Dresden Story: Racism, Human Rights, and the Jewish Labour Committee  of Canada." Labour/Le Travail Spring, no. 47 (2001): 43-82.
———. "The Black, Brown, White and Red Blues: The Beating of Clarence Clemons." Canadian Historical Review 85, no. 4 (2004): 755-76.
———. "The BC Court of Appeal and Civil Liberties." BC Studies 163 (2009): 81-110.

Patrias, Carmela. "Socialists, Jews, and the 1947 Saskatchewan Bill of Rights." Canadian Historical Review 87, no. 2 (2006): 265-92.
———. "Race, Employment Discrimination, and State Complicity in Wartime Canada, 1939-1945." Labour/Le Travail 59, no. Spring (2007): 9-42.

Schabas, William A. "Canada and the Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," McGill Law Journal  (1998).

Smith, Miriam. "Social Movements and Judicial Empowerment: Courts, Public Policy, and Lesbian and Gay Organizing in Canada." Politics & Society 33, no. 2 (2005): 327-53.

Tillotson, Shirley. "Time, Swimming Pools, and Citizenship: The Emergence of Leisure Rights in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada." In Contesting Canadian Citizenship: Historical Readings, edited by Robert Adamoski, Dorothy E. Chunn and Robert Menzies, 199-224. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2002.

Vipond, Robert. "The Civil Rights Movements Comes to Winnipeg: American Influence On "Rights Talk" In Canada, 1968-1971." In Constitutional Politics in Canada and the United States, edited by Stephen L. Newman, 89-107. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.

Walker, James. "The ‘Jewish Phase' in the Movement for Racial Equality in Canada." Canadian Ethnic Studies 34, no. 1 (2002): 1-29.

Whitaker, Reg. "Keeping up with the Neighbours? Canadian Responses to 9/11 in Historical and Comparative Context." Osgoode Hall Law Journal 41, no. 2&3 (2003): 241-65.

Books

Janet Ajzenstat, The Canadian Founding John Locke and Parliament, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007.

Backhouse, Contance, Colour Coded: A Legal History of Racism in Canada, 1900-1950, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

Backhouse, Constance, Petticoats and prejudice: women and law in nineteenth-century Canada, Toronto: Women’s Press,1991.

Bangarth, Stephanie, Voices Raised in Protest: Defending North American Citizens of Japanese Ancestry, 1942–49, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007.

Berger, Thomas R, Fragile Freedoms: Human Rights and Dissent in Canada, 2nd ed. Toronto: Irwin Publishing, 1982.

Blake, Raymond. From Rights to Needs: A History of Family Allowances in Canada, 1929-92. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008.

Borovoy, Alan, When Freedoms Collide: The Case For our Civil Liberties, Toronto: T.H. Best Printing Company Limited, 1988.

Borovoy, Alan, The New Anti-Liberals, Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press Ltd., 1999.

Borovoy, Alan, Uncivil Disobedience: The Tactics and Tales of a Democratic Agitator, Toronto: Lester Publishing Ltd., 1991.

Clément, Dominique, "Equality Deferred: Sex Discrimination and the Newfoundland Human Rights State." Acadiensis  (2012).

Clément, Dominique, Canada's Rights Revolution: Social Movements and Social Change, 1937-1982 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008).

Girard, Philip, Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005).

Hannant, Larry,The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada's Citizens, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.

Horn, Michiel, Academic Freedom in Canada: A History, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

Howe, Brian, and David Johnson. Restraining Equality: Human Rights Commissions in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

Humphrey, John P, On the Edge of Greatness: The Diaries of John Humphrey, First Director of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, ed. by Hobbins, A.J. Montreal: McGill University Libraries, 1994.

Humphrey, John P. and Macdonald, R.St.J., eds., The Practice of Freedom: Canadian Essays on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Toronto: Butterworth & Co., 1979.

Ignatieff, Michael, The Rights Revolution, Toronto: House of Anansi Press Ltd, 2000.

James, Matt. Misrecognized Materialists: Social Movements in Canadian Constitutional Politics. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006.

Kallen, Evelyn. Ethnicity and Human Rights in Canada: A Human Rights Perspective on Ethnicity, Racism and Systemic Inequality. 3rd ed. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Kelly, James B., Governing with the Charter: Legislative and Judicial Activism and Framers' Intent (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005).

Lambertson, Ross.  Repression and Resistance: Canadian Human Rights Activists, 1930-1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.

MacLennan, Christopher. Toward the Charter: Canadians and the Demand for a National Bill of Rights, 1929-1960. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003.

Miron, Janet, ed. A History of Human Rights in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2009.

Marcuse, Gary and Whitaker, Reg, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State: 1945-1957, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.

Patrias, Carmela. Jobs and Justice: Fighting Discrimination in Wartime Canada, 1939-1945. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.

Russell, John, ed., Liberties, Vancouver: New Star Books, 1989.

Salkany, Hon. Roger E, The Origin of Rights, Vancouver: The Carswell Company Limited, 1986.

Schmeiser, D.A, Civil Liberties in Canada, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Scott, Frank R., Civil Liberties and Canadian Federalism, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959.

Scott, Frank R, Essays on the Constitution: Aspects of Canadian Law and Politics, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.

Smith, Miriam. Lesbian and Gay Rights in Canada: Social Movements and Equality-Seeking, 1971-1995. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.

Swaigner, Jonathan, ed. The Alberta Supreme Court at 100: History & Authority. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2010.

Tarnopolsky, Walter, The Canadian Bill of Rights, 2nd ed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1978.

Tarnopolsky, Walter, Discrimination and the Law, Toronto: Richard DeBoo Limited, 1982.

Thompson, Andrew S. In Defence of Principles: Ngos and Human Rights in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.

Walker, Barrington. Race on Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario's Criminal Courts, 1858-1958. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.

Walker, James, "Race," Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada: Historical Case Studies, Toronto: The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History & Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1997.

Theses and Dissertations

Erik Adams. "The Idea of Constitutional Rights and the Transformation of Canadian Constitutional Law, 1930-1960." University of Toronto, 2009.

Donald Anderson, "The Development of Human Rights Protections in British Columbia," (MA, University of Victoria, 1986).

Dominique Clément, "The Royal Commission on Espionage, 1946-9: A Case Study in the mobilization of the Canadian Civil Liberties Movement," University of British Columbia, 2000).

Dominique Clément, "Rights in the Age of Protest: A History of the Human Rights and Civil Liberties Movement in Canada, 1962-1982," (PhD, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005).

Ramsay Cook, "Canadian Civil Liberties in Wartime," (MA, Queen's University, 1955).

Ross Lambertson, "Activists in the Age of Rights: The Struggle for Human Rights in Canada, 1945-60," (PhD, University of Victoria, 1998).

Christopher MacLennan, "Toward the Charter: Canadians and the demand for a national bill of rights, 1929-1960," University of Toronto.

J. Petryshyn, "A.E. Smith and the Canadian Labour Defence League," (PhD, University of Western Ontario, 1977)

Suzanne Skebo, "Liberty & Authority: Civil Liberties in Toronto," (MA Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1968).