Valerie Oosterveld

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Valerie Oosterveld (@VOosterveld) is a Professor at Western University’s Faculty of Law in Canada. Her research and writing focus on gender issues within international criminal justice. She has published widely on the subject of the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Professor Oosterveld is a member of the Canadian Partnership for International Justice, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is the Director of Western University’s Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. She served as an Associate Dean at the Faculty of Law from 2014-2018.

Before joining the Faculty of Law in 2005, Valerie served in the Legal Affairs Bureau of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In this role, she provided legal advice on international criminal accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, especially with respect to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. She served on the Canadian delegation to various ICC-related negotiations, including the Assembly of States Parties. In 1998, she was a member of the Canadian delegation to UN Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an ICC. In this role, she negotiated various gender provisions, as Canada played a leading role in pressing for a gender-sensitive Rome Statute. In 2010, she served on the Canadian delegation to the Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in Kampala, Uganda. She is also on LinkedIn.