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Doris E. Buss

Professor

• B.A. (�Ӱ�ԭ��), LL.B. (Dalhousie), LL.M. (British Columbia)
• Email Doris E. Buss
• 613-520-2600 x. 8011

Area of Interests

Doris Buss is a Professor of Law and Legal Studies, whose teaching and research focuses on women’s rights, international law and policy, armed conflict, and resource extraction. She is cross-appointed to �Ӱ�ԭ��’s Institute of Political Economy, and Institute of African Studies.

Her research areas include:

• Global policy and resource extraction
• Gender and feminism in international law and global governance;
• Gender, sexuality, and violence in the constitution of international legal orders;
• Rural mining livelihoods and gender in sub-Saharan Africa;
• Feminist political economy

She was awarded a �Ӱ�ԭ�� University Research Excellence Award (2020), and a �Ӱ�ԭ�� University Building Connections Award (2014).

Current Research Projects

My current research explores gender and mining in sub-Saharan Africa, and international efforts to regulate the human rights impacts of resource extraction. This builds on research earlier in my career on how international legal institutions and policy settings respond to gendered forms of harm, and demands for gender inclusion.

With research colleagues at �Ӱ�ԭ�� and universities in Kenya, Mozambique and Sierra Leone, I have been studying gender and women’s mining livelihoods in artisanal and small-scale gold mining.  This includes research in gold mining areas in those three countries, alongside ethnographic research in transnational law and policy sites where human rights, gender and social justice issues linked to extraction are the focus of regulatory interventions.

Other research interests include: Armed conflict, sexual violence and women’s rights; Child labour; business and human rights; law, feminist political economy; international environmental law; law and migration.

Selected Recent Publications

2025. “The case of the impossible mining license: Legal Rituals and ‘Responsible Mining”,  Law, Text, Culture 28(1), 139–164. doi:
Open access at:

2024. (lead author, with Aluoka Otieno). “‘Hungry children don’t ask fathers for food’: Gender, Security and the COVID pandemic in a Kenya Gold Mining Area”, Extractive Industries and Society 18: 101453 (10,000 words, online publication April 4, 2024 [].

2020. (lead author), with Blair Rutherford, Cynthia Kumah, Mary Spear. “Beyond the Rituals of Inclusion: The Environment for Women and Resource Governance in Africa’s Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Sector”, Environmental Science and Policy, 116: 30-37. []

2020. (lead author; with Blair Rutherford) “Gendering Women’s Livelihoods in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining: An Introduction”, 54(1) Canadian Journal of African Studies 1-16 []

2019. (with Blair Rutherford, Jennifer Stewart, Gisèle Eva Côté, Abby Sebina-Zziwa, Richard Kibombo, Jennifer Hinton, Joanne Lebert). “Gender and Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining; Implications for Formalization”, 6(4) Extractive Industries and Society, 1101-1112 []

Book Chapters

2026. ”Gender and Resource Extraction”, Gender and World Politics, second ed., Daniela Tepe-Belfrage, ed., Palgrave.

2026. (with Blair Rutherford). “Women Miners and the Blueprints for Sustainable, Mining Futures,” in Future Transitions in the Mining Industry: Challenges for Sustainable Development, Tuija Mononen (ed.), Routledge. []

2023. “Women and the Family”, Law and Development Handbook. Buchanan, Eslava and Pahuja, eds. Oxford University Press, pp. 479-492 [].

Teaching

• International Human Rights
• Transnational Law and Human Rights
• Transitional Justice  
• International Criminal Law
• Research Methods    
• Legal Geography
• Theories of Law and Social Transformation

Graduate Supervisions

I am currently accepting graduate students working in the areas of: gender, critical and queer approaches to international law and politics; transnational law and global governance;  law and development; law and Africa; armed conflict and gendered insecurity; global resource governance; feminist politics and sexual and gender-based violence

Current graduate students (MA and Doctoral) by topic:

• Cobalt mining, gender and Sierra Leone;
• Gold artisanal and small-scale mining, Mozambique;
• Customary laws in Chad;
• Violence against Women, India;
• Reparations and Justice in the Caribbean;
• Feminism and Climate Change adaptations;
• Migrant domestic labour, Nigeria and The Philippines;
• Harm, civilians and US military action, Middle East;
• Sexual violence against boys, Afghanistan;
• Women and artisanal and small-scale mining, Ghana

Past supervisions (MA and Doctoral) by topic:

• Sexuality and International Diplomacy;
• Child Soldiers;
• Feminist activism and State Politics (Status of Women Canada);
• UN Security Council, Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Nigeria;
• UN Security Council Sanctions and Iran;
• Transitional Justice, Truth Commissions and Canada;
• Feminist analysis of 2022 Convoy Protest in Ottawa;
• European Union Migration Crisis and COVID-19;
• Gender and resistance to militarization, India;
• Peacebuilding and Mineral Supply Chain Certification;
• Feminist Political Economy and WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation;
• Mineral Supply Chains and US Wall Street Reform Act;
• Rape and reporting in Canada and legal consciousness;
• Uganda and criminalization of homosexuality;
• Violence against Women, Colonialism in Grenada;
• Refugee determination, gender and race.