Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry

Professor Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry has taught in the areas of health and disability law, jurisprudence and applied ethics as well as international and domestic human rights. His recent research has focused on health policies, bioethics and theories of autonomy and equality rights. He is the founder and lead convenor of McGill’s Disability Working Group.

He has advised disability organizations on strategic litigations since 2015, and been consulted by the Quebec Bar, the federal Department of Justice and the Senate on health policies and equality issues. He has presented at academic series and conferences across North America and Europe, and his research has been funded by FQRSC and SSHRC grants and the Quebec Bar Foundation.

He received his D.Phil. from Oxford University, where he taught two courses: “Human Rights in Latin America” and “Human Rights and Global Justice.” He continued his work on disability ethics as a Visiting Adjunct Professor in the Philosophy Department at San Francisco State University before going to McGill.

Jonas graduated from the transsystemic program of common law and civil law at McGill and obtained a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School, under the supervision of critical legal studies scholar Roberto M. Unger.

He is a member of the Quebec Bar. He served as a law clerk for the Honorable Marie Deschamps at the Supreme Court of Canada and as a law trainee with Judges Kenneth Keith and Peter Tomka at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague. Within the Harvard Human Rights Program, he held the Henigson Human Rights Fellowship, at the Centre for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), the NGO representing the largest number of victims under the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights, in Buenos Aires. As a law student, he had previously worked for the Canadian Human Rights Commission and interned at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in Costa Rica.

As a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation scholar, he completed his doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Law of the University of Oxford, on the moral status of persons with severe cognitive disabilities. His dissertation examines the justifications of the rights of people with severe mental disability.

Experience as a Trudeau Scholar

The Trudeau Foundation helped me pursue my doctoral studies at the University of Oxford law faculty, which has special expertise in the philosophy of law. Studying there allowed me to thoroughly analyze theoretical questions about the foundations of the rights of disabled people.

The generous amount of the Trudeau scholarship and the annual travel allowance significantly transformed my doctoral experience. In my case, the Trudeau scholarship enabled me to take part in a bioethics course at NYU and to participate in many conferences, including the Amnesty Lectures at Oxford. I also visited world-renowned researchers working in the field of disability, including Anita Silvers, professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at San Francisco State University, and Eva Feder Kittay, professor at Stony Brook University (New York). I volunteered at L’Arche, a community that cares for mentally disabled people in Trosly (France), which gave me the opportunity to live with mentally disabled people and add a practical aspect to my theoretical research. While there, I had the privilege of speaking with the founder, Jean Vanier. And, finally, I was able to work with Carolyn Ells, associate professor in the biomedical ethics unit at McGill, and to develop deeper ties with the academic community where I hope to work. The various Trudeau events also helped me network by introducing me to exceptional academics and professionals, some of whom have become my friends.

Publications: Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry | Faculty of Law - McGill University