Professor Audrey Macklin (BSc. (Alberta), LLB (Toronto), LLM (Yale) is Director of the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies and Chair in International Human Rights Law at the University of Toronto. She teaches, researches and writes in the area of migration and citizenship law, business and human rights, and administrative law.  Professor Macklin began her career at Dalhousie (now Schulich) Law School and has held visiting positions at the European University Institute, Hebrew University, and University of Erfurt.  She is the co-author of the Governance Gap: Extractive Industries, Human Rights, and the Home State Advantage (London: Routledge: 2014) and the Canadian text, Immigration and Refugee Law: Cases, Materials and Commentary, 2nd Edition (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2015).

Professor Macklin has published articles in many peer-reviewed journals, including the International Journal of Refugee Law, the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Human Rights Quarterly, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Columbia Journal of Law and Human Rights, European Journal of Law and Migration, Law and Social Politics, and International Migration Review.  She has also contributed to several edited book collections.  Through her scholarship and personal participation, Professor. Macklin’s body of work addresses academic and non-academic legal audiences, interdisciplinary scholarly networks, and civil society inside and outside Canada. Prof. Macklin is a frequent commentator in Canadian and international print, radio and television media, and appears in the documentaries Continuous Journey and The Secret Trial Five.  Her op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the National Post.

From 1994-96, Professor Macklin was a Member of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, where she adjudicated refugee claims.  She was also involved in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen detained by the United States at Guantànamo Bay for almost a decade.  She was an observer for Human Rights Watch at the Military Commission proceedings against Mr. Khadr in Guantànamo Bay and represented Human Rights Watch as intervener before the Supreme Court of Canada in two Khadr appeals.  Professor Macklin has also acted as pro bono intervener counsel or academic legal advisor in several public interest human rights cases, including legal challenges to security certificates, withdrawal of health care for refugees, citizenship revocation, and the ban on niqabs at citizenship ceremonies.

Professor Macklin was named a Trudeau Fellow in 2017.

Research Projects

Private refugee sponsorship

Deportation of long-term residents as a human rights violation