Roojin Habibi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law (Common Law Section) and serves as Investigator and Research Director of Global Health Law at the Global Strategy Lab, jointly based at York University and the University of Ottawa. Her research bridges international law, public health law, and human rights, with a focus on normative interpretation and change in global health law and governance. She adopts a mixed-methods and collaborative approach to research and has led international conferences and published across a range of venues, including in journals of public health and medicine, law and social science reviews, commissioned reports, foundational law textbooks, and public news and media outlets.
Dr. Habibi’s research has a track record of global impact. In 2019, she served as lead author and rapporteur of the "Stellenbosch Consensus Statement on Legal National Responses to Public Health Risks," delivering the first expert consensus statement on the legal parameters governing cross-border health measures under the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) 2005 International Health Regulations. Developed with leading global health law scholars from around the world, this consensus statement catalyzed the formation of the "Global Health Law Consortium," a permanent research collaborative that Dr. Habibi is a member of and has helped shape since 2020.
From 2021 to 2025, she contributed her expertise to negotiations to draft a WHO pandemic instrument and amend the International Health Regulations. In 2022, she was appointed by the WHO Director-General to the expert Review Committee regarding amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005), where she provided technical recommendations to WHO Member States on more than 300 proposed amendments to the Regulations. She has also led on consensus-building initiatives at the intersection of global health law and human rights law, founding a partnership between the Global Health Law Consortium and the International Commission of Jurists that culminated in the 2023 Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (www.pheprinciples.org).
Dr. Habibi continues to serve on expert panels focused on global health governance, law, and pandemic preparedness. She is a member of the PAHO Strategic Advisory Group on Epidemic and Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness and of the Pax Sapiens Expert Panel on the Pandemic Compensation Initiative. She is the founding co-chair of the American Society of International Law’s Interest Group on Global Health Law and serves as a consultant to international organizations, national governments, and nongovernmental organizations. She is also an Academic Member of the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, the Human Rights Research and Education Centre. She is or has been a Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on health research and advocacy projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Open Society Foundations, the United Kingdom Research Institute, and the Brocher Foundation.
Dr. Habibi teaches courses in public and constitutional law, as well as public health and global health law. She holds a law degree (J.D.) from the University of Ottawa’s French Common Law program, a specialization in transnational law from the University of Geneva Faculty of Law, a Master’s of Science in Global Health from McMaster University, and a PhD in Law from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, where she was also a 2022 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar and a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholar. She is a Barrister and Solicitor in good standing with the Law Society of Ontario and is fluent in English, French, and Farsi.
For updates on Dr. Habibi’s research, teaching, media, and public engagements, visit www.roojinhabibi.org or follow her on Bluesky via @RoojinHabibi.Org.