Bio
Kathleen E. Mahoney is a Calgary-based lawyer and has been a professor of law at the University of Calgary for over 35 years. She was Chair of the Board of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development for 6 years (Privy Council appointment), and has served on the Board of the Canadian Red Cross (2012-2016). She was a founder of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund and is an expert advisor to the Interaction Council, an organization of former heads of state. Kathleen has appeared as counsel in leading Supreme Court of Canada cases and was counsel for Bosnia Herzegovina in their genocide action in the International Court of Justice. She led a five year project on judicial development in Vietnam and was a member of a law reform mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Kathleen was the Chief Negotiator for the Assembly of First Nations for the Residential School Settlement Agreement, and was a major architect of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She led the negotiations for the historic apology from the Canadian Parliament and from Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican for injustices to Aboriginal peoples. Kathleen is a Queen’s Counsel, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Trudeau Fellow, a Fulbright Fellow, a Sir Alan Sewell Fellow (Australia), a Human Rights Fellow (Harvard), and a recipient of the Governor General’s Medal, the Alberta Centennial Medal, and the Bertha Wilson Touchstone Award among many other distinctions and honours.