Osgoode Hall Law School Professors Obiora Okafor and Robert Wai have each been awarded prestigious fellowships in recognition of their outstanding academic achievement and extraordinary contribution to legal scholarship.
Okafor has been awarded a Canada-US Fulbright Fellowship for one semester, from this September through December. He will pursue research on “Socio-Legal Responses to Refugee Rights Post-9/11” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Program on Human Rights and Justice in Cambridge, Mass. Okafor specializes in public international law, refugee law, and international human rights, and is the author of Redefining Legitimate Statehood (Kluwer, 2000) about the crisis of legitimacy currently facing post-colonial and other states the world over
Widely regarded as the world’s premier academic exchange program, the Fulbright Program allows international exchange among scholars of distinction around the world. Among the fastest growing of the bilateral exchanges is the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program.
Wai has been awarded a Jean Monnet Fellowship for the academic year 2004-2005. He will hold his fellowship at the Department of Law of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, where the focus of his research will be on the theme of “Transactional Rules and Transnational Governance.”
The Jean Monnet Fellowships enable scholars to pursue research at the European University Institute in fields related to the institute’s research program or other European topics in the fields of history, economics, law, and political and social sciences.
In congratulating Okafor and Wai on their remarkable accomplishments, Osgoode Dean Patrick Monahan noted that “both the Fulbright and the Monnet are highly competitive and prestigious awards. It is a great honour for Osgoode, York University, and Canada, to be represented in these programs.”