Ryan Liss

Ryan Liss is a lawyer and scholar of public international law and criminal law. His research focuses on the limits and potential of sovereignty in ordering global society, addressing issues that span international criminal law, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and criminal law.

Ryan is currently an Associate in Law at Columbia Law School and a doctoral candidate at Yale Law School, where he studies as a Trudeau Scholar and a Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellow. He holds degrees from Yale Law School (LLM), and the University of Toronto (Hons BA and JD). Before beginning graduate studies, Ryan clerked for the Court of Appeal for Ontario. He has worked for a range of international justice institutions, including the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, and the Canadian Centre for International Justice. He has been involved in pro bono and clinic advocacy work on international human rights and constitutional rights in cases before the Supreme Court of Canada, the U.N. Human Rights Committee, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. While completing his J.D., Ryan was as an editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Law and International Relations.

Experience as a Trudeau scholar

The support of the Trudeau Foundation deeply enriched my academic work. The Scholarship facilitated research opportunities that simply would have been impossible without it, and it allowed me to engage with a global community of scholars and practitioners that would have been otherwise beyond my reach. I am truly grateful for these opportunities.

Beyond this, the experience of being a member of the Trudeau community introduced me to an amazing cohort of scholars and policymakers from across Canada. The Trudeau community is a truly inspiring group of people, who are engaged and committed to thinking deeply about the most pressing issues facing this country and the world. I will forever be indebted for the lessons I learned about Canada, scholarship, and policy through my engagement with this community. Of this inspiring group, my mentor, Jill Stirk, stood out. I truly benefited from her patience and insight. And I learned a great deal about the delicate balance she has mastered between openness to ideas and strength of conviction.