For Immediate Release
August 4, 2005
OTTAWA – Marcia V.J. Kran of Vancouver has been named the 2005 winner of the Walter S. Tarnopolsky Human Rights Award.
“Marcia Kran has been a guiding force in the promotion of human rights and the rule of law on an international scale,” said Ed Ratushny, president of the International Commission of Jurists (Canadian Section). “She has worked with the United Nations and other organizations aimed at reforming justice systems and ensuring respect for human rights in the countries of Southeast Asia and the former Soviet bloc. Her efforts have served to ensure respect for the rights of those who may not traditionally have had them recognized.”
Marcia Kran has worked with a number of organizations aimed at protecting human rights and the rule of law over a 24-year career, including the United Nations, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the University of British Columbia's (UBC) International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy. She has taught or advised in a number of countries engaged in the process of reforming justice systems and strengthening human rights protections, including the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Mozambique, Nepal, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, East Timor and Georgia, among others.
During that time, she trained judges, lawyers and police on human rights, authored a handbook on criminal justice standards for UN peacekeepers and one on human rights aimed at judges and lawyers, and participated in nearly every aspect of judicial system reform in post-conflict and other countries.
Marcia Kran received her law degree from the University of Manitoba in 1980. She earned a diploma in social sciences from the University of Stockholm in 1988, and a master's degree in political science from the University of Toronto in 1989. She began her career as a Crown prosecutor in Manitoba in 1981 before moving to the federal Justice Department as legal policy counsel in 1989.
In 1991 she moved on to the international stage with the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch. Between 1994-95 she was a senior associate at UBC's International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy. From 1995-96 she was a project manager at the United Nations Centre for Human Rights before acting as a consultant to CIDA on human rights and justice issues until 2001, while also teaching international human rights law at UBC.
Beginning in 2001, she directed the Criminal Justice Program of the Open Society Justice Initiative, advising on legal reform in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In 2003 she returned to the UN, where she is currently democratic governance manager for the UN Development Programme in Europe and the former Soviet Union.
The Walter S. Tarnopolsky Award recognizes a resident of Canada who has made an outstanding contribution to domestic or international human rights. The award is presented at the annual meeting of the International Commission of Jurists (Canadian Section), which this year is held on Monday, Aug. 15 at the Vancouver Convention Centre, Room 13, at the Canadian Legal Conference in Vancouver.
The Hon. Lance Finch, Chief Justice of British Columbia, chaired the 2005 selection committee as the representative for ICJ Canada, and the Hon. Anne Mactavish of the Federal Court administers the Award on behalf of ICJ Canada.
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CONTACT: Patricia Whiting, International Commission of Jurists, 500–865 Carling Ave., Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5S8. Tel (613) 237-2925 ext. 125. E-mail: patw@cba.org
