Human Rights in Action
At the Observatory on Human Rights at the United Nations, learning extends beyond the classroom.
Each year, students collaborate in thematic working groups dedicated to contemporary and emerging human rights issues. These groups provide students with the opportunity to examine complex challenges through legal research, interdisciplinary perspectives, dialogue with experts and communities, and experiential learning.
But the work does not stop at research.
Each working group is encouraged to transform knowledge into concrete initiatives that can contribute to awareness, dialogue, education, advocacy, and meaningful change. Depending on the subject, these initiatives may take the form of charters, documentaries, research projects, public events, educational resources, community partnerships, policy-oriented work, or other creative forms of engagement.
Through this model, students are not simply studying human rights : they are exploring how knowledge can be translated into action.
Thematic Working Groups
Different Issues. Shared Commitment.
The Observatory's thematic working groups reflect the diverse and interconnected nature of contemporary human rights challenges.
Throughout the academic year, students work collaboratively within their respective groups to develop expertise on a particular issue. Their work may involve examining domestic and international legal frameworks, engaging with current developments, meeting practitioners and community leaders, conducting field-based research, and exploring perspectives that are not always represented in traditional legal education.
While each group follows a different path, they share a common objective: to connect rigorous research with meaningful engagement and tangible outcomes.
NEURODIVERSITY
The Neurodiversity Group explores how legal and educational frameworks respond to the diverse realities of neurodivergent individuals in Canada. Combining legal research with field observations and conversations with educators, organizations, experts, and neurodivergent individuals, the group examines the gap between formal accommodations and meaningful inclusion, with the goal of identifying more inclusive and responsive approaches to education.
As part of its work, the group developed a Neurodiversity Charter, translating its research into a concrete framework centred on inclusion, dignity, accessibility, and respect for neurodivergent individuals. The Charter seeks to bridge the gap between human rights principles and everyday practices by considering how institutions and communities can create environments in which neurological differences are understood, respected, and valued.
Students also transformed their research into direct action by creating the Neuromentor Program, a peer mentorship initiative designed by students, for students, to support neurodivergent students throughout their civil law studies at the University of Ottawa. Neuromentors draw on their own experience navigating university with neurodivergence to help students adjust to law school, explore study and organizational strategies, understand available resources, and navigate academic accommodations and exams.
Together, these initiatives reflect one of the Observatory’s central objectives: empowering students to use research not as an endpoint, but as the foundation for meaningful action.
INDIGENOUS WOMEN'S RIGHTS
The Indigenous Women’s Rights Group examined the ongoing impacts of the second-generation cut-off under the Indian Act, exploring how rules governing entitlement to registration continue to affect Indigenous women, their descendants, and questions of identity, belonging, and cultural continuity.
Central to the group’s work was a commitment to learning directly from those affected. Students travelled to Indigenous communities on Manitoulin Island and in Wendake, Québec, where they engaged with community members and listened to lived experiences that brought a human dimension to their legal research. These encounters allowed students to explore the distance that can exist between the law as it is written and its consequences across families, communities, and generations.
Their research and field experiences ultimately led to the creation of Who Gets to Belong?, a documentary produced by KWE! Meet With Indigenous Peoples, that brings together legal research, lived experience, and community voices to explore the human consequences of the second-generation cut-off and the broader questions of identity and belonging it raises.
Photos : Haylee Jasmine Reid
Who Gets to Belong ?
A documentary exploring identity, law and belonging
What began as a legal research project on the second-generation cut-off under the Indian Act evolved into a documentary grounded in lived experience, community engagement, and learning beyond the classroom.
Through Who Gets to Belong?, students explored how the Indian Act’s registration provisions and second-generation cut-off continue to shape identity, belonging, equality, and cultural continuity for Indigenous women and future generations. Rather than examining these issues solely through legislation and jurisprudence, students engaged directly with Indigenous communities to learn from the perspectives and lived experiences of those affected.
A central part of the project was the Observatory’s collaboration with KWE! Meet with Indigenous Peoples and its Executive Director, Mélanie Vincent. This partnership created meaningful opportunities for dialogue, cultural exchange, and community-based learning.
Through documentary storytelling, Who Gets to Belong? brings law into conversation with lived experience, inviting audiences to reflect on who gets to define belonging and the human consequences when the law becomes part of that answer.