Rights in Russia Interview

Mary Page talks with Lisa Sundstrom, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia where she teaches courses in international relations and comparative politics. Lisa Sundstrom’s regional area of expertise is Russia and the former Soviet Union and her major research interests include democratization, human rights, gender politics, the politics of international democracy assistance, and NGO activism in both domestic and transnational politics. Her current research examines Russian human rights NGOs’ interactions with the Council of Europe and European Court of Human Rights, and the impact of those interactions on NGOs themselves and human rights practices in Russia. Her books include Bringing Global Governance Home: NGO Mediation in the BRICS States, co-authored with Laura Henry of Bowdoin College, Courting Gender Justice: Russia, Turkey, and The European Court of Human Rights, a collaboration with Valerie Sperling and Melike Sayoglu of Clark University, and Funding Civil Society which focuses on foreign assistance programs on the development of women’s and human rights NGOs in Russia. Lisa Sundstrom is also a member of a network of scholars called Activists in International Courts, linking scholars and human rights practitioners interested in questions of legal mobilization by NGOs and activist lawyers in international human rights courts.