Peacemakers Trust Directors
Peacemakers Trust's board of directors, Ernie Fraser, Catherine Morris, Del Phillips, and Rebekah Smith are actively involved in the leading the work of Peacemakers Trust. In addition, Peacemakers Trust invites consulting directors, associates and advisors for specific initiatives.
Rebekah Smith, Director
Rebekah Smith, JD, JID (Juris Indigenarium Doctor) is a graduate of the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria (UVic). She obtained her dual degree in law and Indigenous legal orders in 2023. Rebekah's father is British Jamaican and her mother is Afro-Nova Scotian and Dutch. She currently lives on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Territory, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, but grew up on the lands of the Six Nations of the Grand River in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. She was called to the British Columbia bar in 2024, and is an associate of the Ratcliff law firm in Vancouver, Canada. Rebekah was elected to the Peacemakers Board of Directors in June 2024.
Prior to law school Rebekah completed her undergraduate degree in History and Philosophy at Queen's University. For more than a decade, Rebekah has been involved with non-profit organizations that promote access to justice, youth leadership development, and community building. Rebekah believes that the law can be a tool to create justice, though she is alive to the reality that what is legal is not necessarily what is just.
In law school, Rebekah was a teaching assistant, research assistant, and a peer tutor. She also served as events coordinator and president of the UVic chapter of the Black Law Students' Association, where she advocated for pathways to increase black student enrollment at UVic. Rebekah is a member of the board of the British Columbia Chapter of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers. She was the 2022 recipient of the Ann Roberts Humanitarian Award, an annual honour awarded jointly by the Faculty of Law and the Victoria Bar Association. Rebekah was also a 2023 recipient of the Royal Society of Canada Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella Prize, presented annually to a graduating law student in each of the law schools in Canada who is most likely to positively influence equity and social justice in Canada or globally upon graduation.
In 2022, Peacemakers Trust appointed Rebekah as a research associate for several ongoing initiatives. In 2023, Rebekah worked with Catherine Morris on two projects, including bibliography research on business and human rights and an article on disappearances of Indigenous women, children and men in Canada (linked below).
In September 2023, Rebekah joined Peacemakers Trust director, Catherine Morris, in preparing research for submissions on enforced disappearances to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. In addition to research for an article on enforced disappearances of Indigenous persons in Canada (cited below), Rebekah participated in in advocacy regarding the Council's November 2023 Universal Periodic Review of Canada's human rights record. She read a statement to the UN Human Rights Council advocating that Canada ratify the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances; the statement was prepared by Peacemakers Trust in collaboration with Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada (LRWC) and joined by several other human rights organizations.
On 25 March 2024, Rebekah delivered an oral video statement to the UN Human Rights Council. which continued to advocate that CAnada accede to and implement the Convention on enforced disappearance. The statement was prepared by Peacemakers Trust and sponsored by LRWC.
Rebekah Smith's Publications
- "The Disappeared: Indigenous Peoples and the international crime of enforced disappearances," with Catherine Morris, Slaw: Canada's Online Legal Magazine, 20 March 2023, available online.
- "Neurodiversity in legal education," with Rachel Lewis, Law 360 Canada, 8 September 2022, available online.
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