Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati
Assistant Professor, Department of International Studies
York University, Glendon College
International Studies
cchapdel@yorku.ca
Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati is Assistant Professor in International Law at Glendon College, York University. She is also a Faculty Member of the Osgoode Hall Law School Graduate Program in Law, the York and Ryerson Universities joint Communication and Culture Graduate Program, the School of Public and International Affairs, and the Gender, Feminist and Women's Studies Graduate Program. She holds a Ph.D. in International Law (University of Oxford) in which she examined the status of girl children under international law, a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from King’s College London, as well as a Juris Doctor and a Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L./J.D., McGill University). She is a Lawyer (Barrister and Solicitor) with the Law Society of Ontario and a member of the Canadian Bar Association.
She was previously Assistant Professor in the Law and Business Department at Ryerson University, and Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto, where she taught international law. She worked as Child Rights Project Officer at the UNICEF Office of Research in Florence (Italy), within the Implementation of International Standards unit, where she conducted research with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the OHCHR, governments and the private sector. Prior to this, she directed the Canadian Child Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation Research Study at the International Bureau for Children's Rights. She articled at the International Criminal Court in the Hague (The Netherlands), Office of the Prosecutor, Prosecution division, and clerked at the Court of Quebec, Youth division in Montreal as well as the Tribunal de Bobigny in Paris (France).
Professor Chapdelaine-Feliciati has presented her research at international conferences, including as Keynote Speaker at the International Conference on Media Literacy at the Communication University of China (Beijing), in a Master lecture at the International Association for Semiotic Studies at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (Bucharest), the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (Toronto), the Canadian Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, the International Roundtables at the Coimbra University Faculty of Law (Portugal) and KU Leuven Faculty of Law (Belgium), and seminars in French, English and Italian at the universities of Bari, Naples, Turin, the Oxford University Faculty of Law, among others, and the UN, including at the Palais
Wilson in Geneva.
She is presently conducting a bilingual (English-French) research study as Principal Investigator on Girl Children in the Entertainment Industry in Ontario and Quebec from a legal semiotics
perspective, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant.
International Law, the Girl Child and the Law, Children and the Law, Semiotics of Law, Feminist Legal Theory, Criminal Law, Family Law, Entertainment Law, Employment and Labour Law
Ph.D. in Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Lawyer (Barrister and Solicitor), Law Society of Ontario
LL.M. (Master of Laws), King’s College, University of London, United Kingdom
Certificat supérieur de droit français, Faculty of Law, Paris II Panthéon-Assas, Paris, France
J.D. & B.C.L. (Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Civil Law), Faculty of Law, Transsystemic program, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Books
Journal Articles
Les réserves en droit international ont-elles des limites? Étude sémioéthique du droit à l’éducation de la Convention relative aux droits de l’enfant (2021) REVUE INTERNATIONALE DE SÉMIOTIQUE JURIDIQUE, Special Issue: The Limits of Law
The Semiotic Puzzle: Authentic Languages and International Law (2020) 5 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEGAL DISCOURSE, Special Issue: Instrumentalization of Law as a Socially Constituted Sign-System 317-341
Deconstructing the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Semiotics, Significs and Semioethics of Gendercide (2018) 7 CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL 29-50
The sense, meaning, and significance of the Twin International Covenants on Political and Economic Rights (2013) 196 SEMIOTICA 325-352
Les droits de l’homme de la femme: polysémie ou androcentrisme? (2010) 23 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE SEMIOTICS OF LAW, Special Issue: Cognition, Meaning Making, and Legal Communication 451-474
Child Justice in Canada and the Four Ps: Protection, Prosecution, Prevention and Participation (2007) 15 CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 267-284
Restorative Justice for the Girl Child in Post-Conflict Rwanda (2006) 7 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S STUDIES 14-35
The Right to Food for Children in Brazil: “A Modest Proposal”? (2005) 13 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS 413-431
Book Chapters
Semioethics and Equity in the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women), in PACE, PACIFICAZIONE, PACIFISMO E I LORO LINGUAGGI 285-296 (Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio eds., Athanor: Semiotica, Filosofia, Arte, Letteratura, Mimesis Publishers 2017, 588pp)
Other Publications
Co-authored Publications – Monographs and Reports - Public Policy Contributions
UNITED NATIONS HANDBOOK ON THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL ON THE SALE OF CHILDREN, CHILD PROSTITUTION AND CHILD PORNOGRAPHY (UNICEF Office of Research 2009, English-French-German-Italian-Portuguese, 74pp)
REPORT OF THE EXPERT CONSULTATION MEETING IN PREPARATION FOR WORLD CONGRESS III AGAINST SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS (UNICEF Office of Research 2008, 75pp)
MAKING CHILDREN’S RIGHTS WORK: NATIONAL & INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES, French-English (Yvon Blais Publishers 2005, 160pp)
Refereed Conference Presentations
"Students Making Meaning – Teaching Legal Semiotics in the Context of International Law", International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law, Leuven University, Faculty of Law, Belgium (June 2021)
"Le statut précaire des filles artistes en
Ontario", 7th Annual Conference of the Canadian
Association for Work and Labour Studies CAWLS: Labour Activism, Mobility, and
Marginalization in a time of Precarity, University of
Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (June 2021)
"Girls’ Studies: The State
of the Art", Feminist Interdisciplinary Sessions, Canadian
Women’s and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes (WGSRF) Association
Conference, Pan-Canadian Panel (May 2021)
"Media Literacy as an Instrument to Empower Women Against Discrimination: A Case Study of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in Canada’, The Fifth International Conference on Media Literacy and Education", Transboundary/Convergence/Innovation: Media Literacy in the Digital Age, Keynote Speaker, Communication University of China, Beijing (June 2019)
"Do Reservations to Treaties have Limits in International Law?" (in French), International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law Conference, The Limits of Law, University of Coimbra, Faculty of Law, Portugal (May 2019)
“Multimodalities and the Meaning of Language in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)”, Third Conference of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics Multimodalities, Toronto, Canada (July 2018)
“International Law, Semioethics and Social Responsibility: A Comparative Law Approach”, Master Lecture, International Conference Semiosis in Communication. Differences and Similarities, International Association for Semiotics Studies (IASS), National University of Political Sciences and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania (June 2018)
“Semioethics and International Treaties as a Connective Form”, Special Session ‘Difference and Similarity in the I-Other Relation. Between two identities or two singularities?’, International Conference Semiosis in Communication. Differences and Similarities, International Association for Semiotics Studies (IASS), National University of Political Sciences and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania (June 2018)
“The legal status of child actors in Canada and the USA” (in French), Congress of the Humanities & Social Sciences 2017, Canadian Industrial Relations Association CIRA, Toronto, Canada (June 2017)
Editorial Boards
Editorial Board (North America), International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
Editorial Board, Southern Semiotic Review
Associate Editor, Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal
Moot Competitions - Judge
Judge, Price Media Law Moot Competition, International Rounds, University of Oxford
Case Competitions - Coach
Canadian Association
of Programs in Public Administration (CAPPA) National Public Administration
Case Competition
Membership
International Association for Semiotic Studies IASS
Semiotic Society of America
International Association for Cognitive Semiotics
Canadian Bar Association
"Sexual Exploitation of Girl Children in the Entertainment Industry in Ontario and Quebec", Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Insight Development Grant, Principal Investigator, 2020-2022
English
French
Portuguese (Brazil)
Italian