Click here for a list of Canadian history journals.

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

Articles

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).

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, 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.

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.

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.

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).