The Rideau Hall Foundation (RHF) announced today the Canadien Partnership for International Justice (CPIJ) is one of the recipients of the height annual Governor General’s Innovation Awards (GGIA). These awards recognize and celebrate exceptional and transformational Canadian innovations, which create a positive impact in Canada and inspire the next generation of innovators.
Led by Professor Fannie Lafontaine, the CPIJ is a pan-Canadian partnership of 25 researchers from 8 universities, 4 university-based legal clinics and 4 non-governmental organizations. A key player in international justice at home and abroad, CPIJ’s activities emphasized the urgency of addressing violent crisis to prevent atrocities, punish perpetrators, reconcile victims and perpetrators, and identify the root causes of these crisis in order to achieve a stable peace.
The CPIJ innovates by building multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral bridges between research and practice through legal clinics, recognized as social innovations, where was trained a multinational cohort of more than 600 students now equipped with knowledge, practical training and diversified network, who embodied the future of international justice.
The production of more than 200 scholarly texts that have been disseminated in several languages, including to civil society, through media articles and blogs, interviews and events, allowed CPIJ to increase knowledge on international justice and to raise awareness about the fight against impunity.
Everywhere, in specialized forums or close to the fieldworkers, CPIJ has brought together, trained, informed, connected and sensitized thousands of people. The team’s numerous interventions on the situation in Ukraine are striking and recent examples, as is its work on colonial genocide and the recognition of a crime of ecocide.
In addition to contributing to the defence of human rights and the construction of a just and inclusive society, CPIJ changed the way research is done.
The award will enable CPIJ to continue and promote its research and training activities to support the fight against impunity for international crimes.
