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• Peacemakers Trust News:
  
  
  • Peacemakers Trust 2024-2025 highlights
  • See previous newsletters

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• Case Studies, Papers, Presentations, Workshops, and Statements
  
  INDEX: Publications | Reports and papers | Presentations | Statements and Submissions | Educational Manuals
  
  

Publications

• Articles by Catherine Morris, a regular columnist for Slaw.ca: Canada's online legal magazine
  • "Band of Brigands: The Role of Religious Nationalism in North American Threats to the Rule of Law." Slaw: Canada's online legal magazine, 27 May 2025. Available online.
  • "The Erasure of Rights of Afghanistan’s Women and Girls: Taking the Taliban to Court." Slaw: Canada's Online Legal Magazine, 22 November 2024. Available online.
  • "Captive Humans for Trade: Where’s the Law in 'Hostage Diplomacy'?" Slaw: Canada's Online Legal Magazine, 24 September 2024. Available online.
  • "Russia’s Rule of Law(lessness) threatens advocates worldwide: A Canadian case study." Slaw: Canada's online legal magazine, by Julia Tchezganova and Catherine Morris, 14 March 2024. Available online.
  • "Buried under the rubble: Haunted reflections at the turn of the year." Slaw: Canada's online legal magazine, 2 January 2024. Available online.
  • "Protecting Human Rights Defenders Globally: Does Canada Mean Business?" Slaw: Canada's Online Legal Magazine, 2 November 2023. Available online.
  • "Unforgotten on the Day of the Disappeared: Missing Human Rights Advocates." Slaw: Canada's Online Legal Magazine, 30 August 2023. Available online.
  • "Canada Stakes Out Its Bid for Election to the UN Human Rights Council." Slaw.: Canada's Online Legal Magazine, 20 July 2023. Available online.
  • "Giving Peace a Chance: Pushing Back on a Chilling Russian Censorship Law," by Catherine Morris and Lauren A. McCarthy, in Slaw: Canada's Online Legal Magazine, 23 May 2023, available online.
  • "The Disappeared: Indigenous Peoples and the international crime of enforced disappearances," with Rebekah Smith, in Slaw: Canada's Online Legal Magazine, 20 March 2023, available online. Also see the submission to the UN Human Rights Council.
  • "Going Grey and Facing Age Discrimination: Moving Towards an International Treaty on the Rights of Older Persons" Slaw.ca, 23 September 2022. Available online. Republished 31 December 2022 by LLRX.com
  • "The Toughest Job in the UN: The High Commissioner for Human Rights" Slaw.ca, 23 September 2022. Available online
  • "The Guns of Summer in the US and Canada: Whose Rights Count?" Slaw.ca, 22 July 2022. Available online
  • "The UN’s Achilles Heel Mires International Action to Halt Aggression and Atrocities in Ukraine." Slaw.ca, 19 May 2022. Available online
  • "The “Two Michaels” and Celil: Windows Into China’s Legal Gulag," Slaw.ca, 16 November 2021." Available online
  • "Protect Afghanistan’s truth-tellers: Human rights defenders in a world of diplomatic doublespeak,” Slaw.ca, 15 September 2021." Available online
  • "USA vs. the International Criminal Court: A Fraught History in the Quest for International Accountability for Atrocity Crimes” Slaw.ca, 19 May 2021. Available online
  • "Myanmar Coup: 'A Crisis Born of Impunity'," Slaw.ca, 25 February 2021. Available online
  • "'You… Are Your Brothers’ and Sisters’ Keepers”: Now Is the Time to Move From Words to Deeds," Slaw.ca, 23 June 2020. Available online
• Morris, Catherine. "Noble Lies, Augustinian Lies and the Post-Modernist Black Hole: Truth, Reconciliation and the Church," in Reconciliation: Christian Perspectives - Interdisciplinary Approaches, edited by Tobias Faix, Johannes Reimer, and G. J. van Wyngaard, 128-68. Zurich: LIT Verlag, 2020. Available at: https://www.peacemakers.ca/publications/Morris.Truth.Lies.Reconciliation.2020.pdf. See more information at about this project.
• Morris, Catherine. "Justice Inverted: Law and Human Rights in Cambodia," in Handbook of Contemporary Cambodia, edited by Simon Springer and Katherine Brickell. New York: Routledge, 2016. Available online.
• Morris, Catherine. "The Impact of Mediation on the Culture of Disputing in Canada: Law Schools, Lawyers and Laws." In Mediation in Asia-Pacific: A Practical Guide to Mediation and Its Impact on Legal Systems, edited by Fan YANG and Guiguo WANG. New York: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, and Hong Kong: CCH Hong Kong, 2013. Available online (pdf)
• Morris, Catherine. "Case Studies in Religion and Peacebuilding: Cambodia." In Religion and Peacebuilding, edited by Harold Coward and Gordon Smith. Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 2004. Available online (pdf).
• Morris, Catherine. Getting Past "Culture Clash": Sources, Escalation and Interventions for Deep-Rooted Conflict, Lecture Series on Responses to Terrorism: An Analysis, University of Victoria, February 19, 2002
• Morris, Catherine. Definitions in the Field of Conflict Transformation, revised 2002..
• Morris, Catherine, ed. Resolving Community Disputes: An Annotated Bibliography about Community Justice Centres. Victoria, BC: UVic Institute for Dispute Resolution 1994. (online with permission of UVic IDR).

Statements and Submissions

• The global problem of enforced disappearances: “Outside all protection of the law”: Statement to the UN Human Rights Council, with Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada and others, published 23 January 2024.
• Global impunity for enforced disappearances: Call for universal ratification of the Convention for the Protection of all Persons against Enforced Disappearances. Oral statement to the UN Human Rights Council seeking univeral ratification of othe UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances, with Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada, the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute, the Law Society of England and Wales and others, 19 September 2023.
  
• Short-term enforced disappearances: “Every Minute Counts" : Contribution to project of joint statement on the notion of short-term enforced disappearance by the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances and the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, with Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada and others, 15 August 2023.
• Indigenous Peoples and enforced disappearances in Canada: Submission to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Canada (.pdf), 4 April 2023. See summary.
• Canada's obligation to hold Myanmar accountable for genocide. Catherine Morris, Briefing note, Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada and Peacemakers Trust, 13 June 2019. See the open letter to Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs urging Canada to initiate ICJ proceedings against Myanmar. Note: On 25 June 2019, Peacemakers Trust was among the signatories of an open letter (English .pdf and français .pdf) to Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs urging Canada to initiate proceedings against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
• Letter to all Senators of Canada: Requesting Canada’s Senate to pass Bill C-262 immediately: "An Act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples." . 23 April 2019. Follow-up letters 21 May 2019, 6 June 2019, and 11 June 2019.
• Canada urged to support negotiation of treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons | Letter. 15 September 2016 (.pdf)
• Open letter to President-elect Trump and government officials at all levels: Take an urgent stand to build respect and prevent violence based on gender, religion, race, ethnicity or political views, Open letter signed by 60 experts in the field of conflict resolution, 30 November 2016. See press release

Reports and papers

• Justice for the Rohingya: The Role of Canada. An international virtual roundtable of experts, 21 May 2020. Summary Report. Victoria and Ottawa: Hon. Marilou McPhedran, Senator; Faculty of Law at University of Victoria; Centre for Asia Pacific Initiatives (CAPI) at University of Victoria; Human Rights Research and Education Centre (HRREC) at University of Ottawa. 29 June 2020.
• Canada's obligation to hold Myanmar accountable for genocide. Catherine Morris, Briefing note, Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada and Peacemakers Trust, 13 June 2019. See the open letter to Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs urging Canada to initiate ICJ proceedings against Myanmar. Note: On 25 June 2019, Peacemakers Trust was among the signatories of an open letter (English .pdf and français .pdf) to Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs urging Canada to initiate proceedings against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
• Rohingya refugees from Myanmar at the “gates of hell”: International law duties of neighbouring States to refugees and asylum seekers, Catherine Morris, published by Peacemakers Trust and Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada, 9 November 2017
• Canada: Bill C-51: Selected Commentaries and Analyses: A Bibliography. May 2015
• Morris, Catherine. Legal Consequences of Apologies in Canada. Working paper, October 3, 2003

Selected Presentations

• "The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights: What does it mean in our chaotic world today?" Lenten presentation at St Philips Episcopal Church, Wrangell, Alaska, 15 March 2023.
• "The Meaning of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Canada Today." Lenten presentation by Catherine Morris, Church of St. Mary of the Incarnation, Metchosin, BC, Canada, 22 March 2018. Speaking notes available online (pdf).

Educational Manuals

• Catherine, Morris. The Good Negotiator: Negotiation Theory, Process and Skills for Lawyers, Peacemakers Trust, 2016.
  
• Morris, Catherine. "Transforming Conflict in the Church." Workshop Manual prepared for Seminario Teológico Bautista, Union Bautista Baptist Boliviana, Cochabamba, Bolivia, November 13-17, 2006 (Transformando Los Conflictos En La Iglesia. Manual para talleres preparado para: El Seminario Teológico Bautista, Traducido Y Adaptado Por Mario Morales ABC-USA, Unión Bautista Boliviana, Cochabamba - Bolivia, Noviembre 13 – 17, 2006).
  

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• Newsletters
  • Peacemakers Trust 2022-23 Highlights: Justice and Reconciliation: Indigenous Peoples in Canada; Enforced Disappearances; Religion, rights and conflict
  • Peacemakers Trust 2020 Highlights: Chapter on Truth-telling and reconciliation published; roundtable on justice for the Rohingya; bibliography on business, human rights and conflict (.pdf)
  • Peacemakers Trust 2019 Highlights: Accountability of Myanmar for atrocity crimes; speaking tour in Southeast Asia; implementing Canada's TRC Calls to Action (.pdf).
  • Peacemakers Trust 2018 Highlights: Non-state actors & peacebuilding: Religion, business, rights & conflict (.pdf).
  • Peacemakers Trust 2016 Highlights: Peace work in a “post-truth” world (.pdf).
  • Peacemakers Trust 2015 Highlights: Canada, Asia and Europe (.pdf).

Peacemakers Trust
Victoria, B.C.
Canada