³ÉÈË´óƬ

This IDP seminar will examine the role of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA, 1943-47) in providing emergency humanitarian aid to displaced persons and refugees in the aftermath of the Second World War. It will trace the evolution of humanitarian policy and explore how early international relief efforts paved the way for modern human rights, culminating in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The talk will also consider the contemporary relevance of these developments, focusing on how past humanitarian efforts continue to shape current policies and practices toward refugees and asylum seekers in Canada and the United States.

Bio:

Dr. Katherine Rossy is Assistant Professor of International History at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, and Deputy Director of Research at the CIDP. She completed her PhD in History from Queen Mary University of London in 2018, where she held a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Doctoral Scholarship before becoming a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Carleton University from 2019-2022. Dr. Rossy’s expertise lies in the Second World War and early Cold War eras, particularly the history of humanitarianism, human rights, and the laws of armed conflict. She is currently working on a monograph about the evolution of United Nations emergency humanitarianism in all theatres of conflict during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath (1943-48). She is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Alice Wilson Award from the Royal Society of Canada (2019) and the Young Alumna of the Year Award from Concordia University (2020).