Most of the publications listed are also available on Google Scholar, ResearchGate and Academia.edu
BOOKS
The Age of Truth and Reconciliation (forthcoming).
2024: Proscovia Svard and Bonny Ibhawoh eds. Documentation from Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (Routledge Studies in Archives), 2024.
(New York: Routledge, 2024).
2024: Paul Ugor and Bonny Ibhawoh eds. Narrating Transitional Justice: Memory in the Age of Truth and Reconciliation (Forthcoming).
2023: Bonny Ibhawoh, Sylvia Bawa and Jasper Ayelazuno, eds. Truth Commissions and State Building (McGill-Queens University Press, 2023).
2019: M. Raymond Izarali, Oliver Masakure, Bonny Ibhawoh eds., Expanding Perspectives on Human Rights in Africa (New York: Routledge, 2019)
2018: Behnaz A. Mirzai and Bonny Ibhawoh eds. Peoples of African Descent: Rethinking Struggles for Recognition and Empowerment (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2018).
2018: Human Rights in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2018). [Runner-up, International Studies Association, Human Rights Section, Best Book Award 2019]
2017: Uyilawa Usuanlele and Bonny Ibhawoh eds., Minority Rights and the National Question in Nigeria, (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2017)
2013: Imperial Justice: Africans in Empire’s Court (Oxford University Press). – Reviewed in the Journal of African History and American Historical Review
2007: Imperialism and Human Rights: Colonial Discourses of Rights and Liberties in African History, (Albany, State University of New York Press, 2007)
– [Named American Library Association, Choice Outstanding Academic Title] – Reviewed in the American Historical Review; African Studies Review, Left Review and 11 other academic journals. On the syllabi of Human Courses in several Universities).
1999: Between Culture and Constitution (Copenhagen, The Danish Institute for Human Rights, 1999).
BOOK CHAPTERS
2024: Bonny Ibhawoh and Adebisi Alade, “The Crisis of Memory: The Ethics of Managing Traumatic Adverse Events in Truth Commissions Research,” in Proscovia Svard and Bonny Ibhawoh, Documentation from Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (Routledge Studies in Archives), 2024.
2024: “Commemoration, Memorialization and Rights,” in Cambridge History of Rights, Volume V: The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, Samuel Moyn and Meredith Terretta, eds. Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).
2022: “Framing Disability Rights within African Human Rights Movements,” in Jeff Grishow and Magnus Mfoafo-M’Carthy eds. Disability Rights & Inclusiveness in Africa: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, Challenges and Change (James Currey).
2021: “Socialist Regimes and Economic Planning,” in Toyin Falola ed. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History (Oxford University Press)
2021: “Imperialism and Human Rights,” in Michael Goodhart ed., Human Rights: Theory and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2021)
2020: “Seeking the Political Kingdom: Universal Human Rights and the Anti-Colonial Movement in Africa,” Human Rights, Empires, and their Ends: The New History of Human Rights and Decolonization, eds. Roland Burke, Marco Duranti, and A. Dirk Moses (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
2020: “Human Rights, African Contemporary Thought,” Encyclopaedia of African Religions and Philosophy, eds. V. Y. Mudimbe, Kasereka Kavwahirehi, (Springer, 2020)
2020: “Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,” Max Planck Encyclopaedia of International Procedural Law (MPEPIL, Oxford Public International Law Series, 2020).
2019: “Beyond Culture and Constitution: Economic Marginalization, Social Exclusion and Legitimizing Human Rights in Africa,” in Creative Incursions: Cultural Representations of Human Rights in Africa and the Black Diaspora, eds. Toyin Falola, Bisola Falola, and Abikal Borah (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2019)
2019: “Human Rights and the Politics of Regime Legitimation in Africa: From Rights Commissions to Truth Commissions,” in Expanding Perspectives on Human Rights in Africa, eds. Raymond Izarali, Oliver Masakure and Bonny Ibhawoh (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2019).
2019: Raymond Izarali, Oliver Masakure and Bonny Ibhawoh, “Introduction: Conceptualizing Human Rights Issues in Africa,” in Expanding Perspectives on Human Rights in Africa, eds. Raymond Izarali, Oliver Masakure and Bonny Ibhawoh (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2019).
2018: Behnaz A. Mirzai and Bonny Ibhawoh, “Introduction,” in Africa and its Diasporas: Rethinking Struggles for Recognition and Empowerment, eds. Behnaz A. Mirzai and Bonny Ibhawoh (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2018), p. 1-14.
2018: Bonny Ibhawoh, “Nationalists and Dissidents: African Anti-colonialism and the making of Universal Human Rights,” in Africa and its Diasporas: Rethinking Struggles for Recognition and Empowerment, eds. Behnaz A. Mirzai and Bonny Ibhawoh (Trenton: Africa World Press, 2018), p. 141-155.
2018: Bonny Ibhawoh and Lekan Akinosho “Autocrats and Activists: Human Rights, Democracy and the Neoliberal Paradox in Nigeria,” in Africa under Neoliberalism, eds. Nana Poku and Jim Whitman (London: Ashgate Press, 2018)
2017: “Confronting Colonial Otherness: The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the Limits of Imperial Legal Universalism,” in Colonial Exchanges: Political Theory and the Agency of the Colonized, eds. Burke A Hendrix and Deborah Baumgold (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017).
2017: Uyilawa Usuanlele and Bonny Ibhawoh, “Introduction: Minority Rights and the National Question in Nigeria,” in Minority Rights and the National Question in Nigeria, eds. Uyilawa Usuanlele and Bonny Ibhawoh (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2017).
2016: “From Ubuntu to Grootboom: Vernacularising Human Rights through Restorative and Distributive Justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa” in Domains of Freedom: Justice, Citizenship and Social Change in South Africa, eds. T. Kepe, M. Levin and B. von Lieres (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2016).
2014: “Three Lessons From Mandela’s Life” in Mandela. Tributes to a Global Icon, ed. Toyin Falola (Durham, Carolina Academic Press, 2014).
2014: “Human Rights and National Liberation: The Anticolonial Politics of Nnamdi Azikiwe” in Leadership in Colonial Africa, ed. Baba G. Jallo (Palgrave, 2014).
2014: “Asserting Judicial Sovereignty: The Debate over the Inclusion of Indigenous Judges in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,” in Legal Histories of the British Empire: Laws, Engagements and Legacies, eds. John McLaren and Shaunnagh Dorsett, (London: Routledge, 2014).
2014: “Human Rights Inclusion Versus Exclusion” in The SAGE Handbook of Human Rights, eds. Mark Gibney and Anja Mihrand (New York: Sage, 2014).
2013: “Where do we Begin? Human Rights and Public History,” in Taking Liberties: Human Rights History in Canada, eds. David Goutor and Stephen Heathorn (Oxford University Press: 2013), pp. 59-87.
2013: “Imperial Cosmopolitanism and the Making of an Indigenous Intelligentsia: African Lawyers in Colonial Urban Lagos,” in Urban Identity and the Atlantic World, eds. Elizabeth Fay and Leonard von Morze (New York: Palgrave, McMillan), pp. 123-139.
2011: “Human Rights in the African State,” in International Handbook of Human Rights, ed. Thomas Cushman (New York: Routledge), pp. 719-732.
2009: “Beyond Naming and Shaming: Methodological Imperatives of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Advocacy,” African Yearbook of International Law, (Dordrecht: M. Nijhoff), pp. 48-67.
2008: “Nigerian Nationalism in the Post-Colonial Period” in Nations and Nationalisms in Global Perspective: Origins, Development and Contemporary Transitions, eds. David Kaplan and Gruntram Herb (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO), pp. 1177-1189.
2007: “Rethinking Corporate Apologies: Business and Apartheid Victimization in South Africa” in The Age of Apology: Facing the Past, eds. Mark Gibney, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Jean-Marc Coicaud (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press), pp. 271-284.
2007: “Human Rights INGOs and the North/South Gap: The Challenge of Normative and Empirical Learning” in Ethics in Action: The Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations, eds. Daniel Bell and Jean-Marc Coicaud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 79-98. (Book nominated for the 2007 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order).
2006: “Transformations and Constrictions: Globalisation and Human Rights in the Third World” in Globalization, Development and Human Security, eds.Nana Poku, Anthony G. McGrew, Gareth Schott (Cambridge: Polity Press), pp. 171-189
2004: “Restraining Universalism: Africanist Perspectives on Cultural Relativism in the Human Rights Discourse” in Human Rights and Economic Development in Africa: Establishing the Rule of Law, eds. Tiyambe Zeleza and Philip McConnaughay eds. (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). pp. 20-39. [Reprinted in Rhonda L. Callaway and Julie Harrelson-Stephens, Exploring International Human Rights: Essential Readings (Boulder, Co.: Lynne Rienner, 2007).
2003: “Defining Persecution and Protection: The Cultural Relativism Debate and the Rights of Refugees” in Problems of Protection: The UNHCR, Refugees, and Human Rights in the 21st Century, eds. Niklaus Steiner (New York: Routledge), pp. 61-78.
2001: “Cultural Tradition and National Human Rights Standards in Conflict” in Legal Cultures and Human Rights: The Challenge of Diversity, ed. Kristin Hastrup (London: Kluwer Law International) pp. 85-102.
1999: “Literature as History: Oral Historical Traditions in Sam Ukala’s ‘The Slave Wife,’” in Eagle in Flight: The Writings of Sam Ukala, eds. Benji Egede and Amen Uhumwangho (Ibadan: Samfos Publishers), pp. 64-78.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
2024: “Decolonizing deliberative democracy: Four Possible Approaches,” in Hans Asenbaum and Friedel Marquardt eds. Can Deliberative Democracy be Decolonized: A Debate, The Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance Working Paper Series, University of Canberra, Jan. 2024.
2024: Sheryl Reimer‑Kirkham1, Barbara Astle, Ikponwosa Ero, Lori Beaman, Bonny Ibhawoh, Elvis Imafidon, Richard Sawatzky, Wisdom Tettey, Meghann Buyco and Emma Strobell, “Mapping a research-advocacy-policy agenda on human rights and albinism: A mixed methods project,” International Journal of Equity Health 23, 1 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-02064-5
2023: “Inalienable Dignity: Writing Counter-Hegemonic Universal Human Rights Histories.” Ethnohistory 70 (2), 2023: 187–199.
2023: Ogba, Patricia; Badru, Oluwaseun; Ibhawoh, Bonny; Archer, Norm; Baumann, Andrea, “Perceptions of sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine use among pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review,” Malariaworld Journal, 14:1, 2023.
2022: Bonny Ibhawoh, Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham, Ikponwosa Ero, Innocentia Mgijima-Konopi, Lori Beaman, Perpetua Senkoro, Barbara Astle, Emma Strobell, Elvis Imafidon, “Shifting Wrongs to Rights: Lessons in Human Rights from the Situation of Mothers Impacted by Albinism in Africa,” Journal of Human Rights Practice (2022, 1-22).
2021: Oluwayemisi Adepoju, Daniel Gberevbie, Bonny Ibhawoh, Women Participation in Peacebuilding in Africa: Perspective of National Culture and Social Role Theories, Academy of Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 20, Issue 3, (2021): 1-8.
2021: Paul Emiljanowicz and Bonny Ibhawoh, “Manufacturing Legitimacy in Postcolonial Ghana: Democratic Tropes, State Power, and the Defence Committees,” Third World Quarterly. 42, 6, pp. 1213-1232. DOI/full/10.1080/01436597.2021.1878020
2020: Adepoju Oluwayemisi Ajoke, Ibhawoh Bonny and Fayomi Oluyemi Oyenike, “Educational Disparity in Nigeria: A Gendered Analysis,” Journal of South African Business Research, Vol. 2020 (2020), Article ID 276721, DOI: 10.5171/2020.276721
2020: “Refugees, Evacuees and Repatriates: Biafran Children, UNHCR and the Politics of International Humanitarianism in the Nigerian Civil War,” African Studies Review, Volume 63, Number 3 (2020), pp. 568–592. DOI: 10.1017/asr.2020.43
2020: “Human Rights, Nation-States and the Persistence of Oppressive Privilege,” Journal of Genocide Research. DOI: 10.1080/14623528.2020.1762332
2019: “Non-Domination, Epistemic Hierarchies and the Post-Imperial World Order.” H-Diplo (Review Essay). H-Diplo Roundtable XXI-13 on Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination
2015: O. O. Fayomi, O. O and B. Ibhawoh, “Is West Africa Borderless? Non-State Actors in Intra-Regional Migration in the Sub-Region,” Journal of International Politics and Development (JIPAD), 13, 1, 2015.
2014: “Beyond Retribution: Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa as Universal Paradigm for Restorative Transitional Justice,” Covenant University Journal of Politics and International Affairs (CUJPIA), 2, 2, 2014, 1-18.
2014: “Testing the Atlantic Charter: Linking Anticolonialism, Self-Determination and Universal Human Rights,” International Journal of Human Rights, 18, 7-8, 2014, pp. 1-19.
2014: “Human Rights for Some: Universal Human Rights, Sexual Minorities and the Exclusionary Impulse,” International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis, 69, 4, 2014.
2014: Julia Janes, Nathan Gilbert, Bonny Ibhawoh, Narda Razack, “The Trouble with Triumph: Discourses of Governmentality in Mainstream Media Representations of Urban Youth,” Journal of Progressive Human Service (25, 1).
2013: “Commemorating Human Rights: Exploring Origins, Episodes, and Historicity in Constructing a Human Rights Timeline,” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology (Journal of the American Psychological Association), 19, 4, pp. 1078-1919. [Revised and updated version of previously published paper for scientific academic and clinical audience of Psychologists and medical practitioners].
2013: “Cultural Negotiations and Colonial Treaty-Making in Upper Canada and British West Africa 1840-1900,” Ife Journal of History (IJH) 6, 1, pp. 1-17.
2011: “The Right to Development: The Politics and Polemics of Power and Resistance” Human Rights Quarterly, 33, pp. 76-104.
2010: “Beyond Instrumentalism and Constructivism: Towards a Reconceptualization of Ethnicity in Africa” Humanities Today 1, 1, pp. 221-230.
2009: “Historical Globalisation and Colonial Legal Culture: African Assessors, Customary Law and Criminal Justice in British Africa,” Journal of Global History, 3, 4, pp. 429-451.
2009: “Colonialism: Legacy for Human Rights” in Encyclopaedia of Human Rights, David P. Forsythe ed. (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 360-372.
2007: “Selling the War Abroad: West African Initiatives and the making of British War Propaganda 1939-1945”, Lagos Historical Review, 7, (2007), pp. 35-56 [Revised version of previously published article]
2007: “Second World War Propaganda, Imperial Idealism and Anti-Colonial Nationalism in British West Africa.” Nordic Journal of African Studies 16, 2 (2007), pp. 221 -243.
2007: “A Voice for Africa: Stephen Lewis and the Race against Time,” Journal of Canadian Studies, Winter, pp. 212-217. (Review Essay).
2005: Amani Whitfield and Bonny Ibhawoh, “Problems, Perspectives and Paradigms: Colonial Africanist Historiography and the Question of Audience,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 39, 3, pp. 582-600.
2003: Bonny Ibhawoh and Jeremiah Dibua and, “Deconstructing Ujamaa: The Legacy of Julius Nyerere in the Quest for Social and Economic Development in Africa,” African Journal of Political Science, 8, 3, pp. 59-84.
2003: “The Promise of Constitutionalism and the Challenge of Militarism: Constraints and possibilities of the Human Rights Movement in Nigeria,” Democracy and Development, 3, 2, pp. 16-36.
2002: “Stronger than the Maxim Gun: Law, Human Rights and British Colonial Hegemony in Nigeria,” Africa – Journal of the International African Institute, 72, 1, pp. 55-83.
2001: “Human Rights and Cultural Relativism: Reconsidering the Africanist Discourse,” Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 19, 1, pp. 43-62.
2000: “Between Culture and Constitution: Evaluating the Cultural Legitimacy of Human Rights in the African State,” Human Rights Quarterly, 22, 2, pp. 838-860.
2000: “Carrots for Friends and Sticks for Foes: Confronting Structural Adjustment and the Neoliberal Paradigm in Africa,” Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives and Area Studies, 19, 2/3, pp. 123-148.
1999: “Structural Adjustment, Authoritarianism and Human Rights in Africa,” Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, XIX, 1 (1999) pp. 158-167.
1999: Bonny Ibhawoh and Mark Gibney, “Reconsidering Corruption, Transnational State Responsibility and the African Debt Crisis,” African World Review, February-April, pp. 24-30.
1995: “Nationalisation and Socialist Economic Planning in Tanzania 1967–1983,” Iroro: Journal of Humanities 6, 1/2 (1995) pp. 66-75.
Reports for the United Nations
2023: Bonny Ibhawoh, Lanre Ikuteyijo, Melike Yilmaz, Adebisi Alade, Christian Achaleke, Ballo Ngomna, Oubadjimdehba Desire, Abdoulaye Harouna, Mala Mustapha, Maia Lepingwell-Tardieu, Emily Current, Transitional Justice in the Lake Chad Basin Region, Study Report for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 2023.
2023: Bonny Ibhawoh, Lanre Ikuteyijo, Melike Yilmaz, Adebisi Alade, Christian Achaleke, Ballo Ngomna, Oubadjimdehba Desire, Abdoulaye Harouna, Mala Mustapha, Maia Lepingwell-Tardieu, Emily Current, Transitional Justice in the Lake Chad Basin Region: Policy Framework Guidelines, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 2023.
2023: Inequality and Social Protection Systems in the Context of the Right to Development – Thematic study by the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development. A/HRC/54/83. UN Website
2022: Racism, racial discrimination, and the right to development – Thematic study by the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development, A/HRC/51/37. UN Website
2022: “Lake Chad Basin: Developing Comprehensive Regional Solutions,” – Report on the Wilton Park Dialogue 2022 – WP2035 (Wilton Park / Lake Chad Basin Commission / United Nations Development Program-UNDP)
Research and Project Reports
2001: Human Rights Organisations in Nigeria: An Assessment of the Nigerian Human Rights NGO Community, Copenhagen: Danish Center for Human Rights).
1997: C.O. Okonkwo, Clement Nwankwo and Bonny Ibhawoh, The Administration of Juvenile Justice in Nigeria, (Lagos: Constitutional Rights Project).
1996: Clement Nwankwo, Bonny Ibhawoh and Dulue Nbachu, Justice Delayed: The Failure of Prosecution: A Report on the Criminal Justice System (Lagos: Constitutional Rights Project).
Technical Reports
2010: “Human Rights Timeline: A timeline of major events, Documents and Personalities in the Development of Human Rights Ideas.” Consultancy Report Prepared for the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, Winnipeg.
2010: “Human Rights Training Manual,” Consultancy Document prepared for the Shell Petroleum Development Company.
Blogs
I write and maintain a blog focused on Human Rights and Peace Studies (Giazilo) published online since 2007.
Film Reviews
2008: Moolaadé by Ousmane Sembène, Human Rights Quarterly, 30, 4, pp. 1058-1060.
Sample Media Contributions and Book Reviews
2023: “Africa and the Shaping of International Human Rights by Derrick Nault” (Book Review), Journal of Contemporary History, 58 (2), 2023.
2021: “Justice and Peace” on Moral Maze, British Broadcasting Service (BBC Radio 4).
2019: “What Canada and South Africa can teach the U.S. about slavery reparations” (Jan. 2019) (Reprinted in several news media including Salon and the World Economic Forum Newsletter)
2019: “Do truth and reconciliation commissions heal divided nations?”
2019: “A different take on Human Rights in Africa” Democracy in Africa Blog
2012: “What Comes to Mind when you think about Africa?” Doing African History in the Canadian Academe,” Bulletin of the Canadian Historical Association, 38, 1.
2003: “Afghanistan: Winning Peace after the War,” Human Rights Dialogue,
Winter/Spring.
2002: “Taking the Reconciliatory Route,” Human Rights Dialogue, Winter/Spring.
2002: “Human Rights and Peace Work: A Response to Vaco and Wilson,” Human Rights Dialogue, Winter/Spring, pp. 14-17
Documentaries
Consultant and discussant: Congo Mission. [Explores the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the activities of humanitarians and missionaries trying to make a difference]. Magdeline John (Producer). Watch excerpts
Consultant and discussant: Back to Life: Uganda Mission [Explores armed conflict in Uganda]. Denise Lodde (Producer) for Crossroads TV. 2009. Watch excerpts
Consultant and discussant: From Dust to Gold. [Examines the activities of multinational Mining Corporations in Africa]. Andrew Younger (Producer) for Vision TV Canada. 2001. Watch excerpts
Consultant and discussant: A Brother from Niger. Andrew Younger (Producer). 2003. Watch excerpt