Sheryl Lightfoot (Anishinaabe, Lake Superior Band of Ojibwe, Keweenaw Bay) is a globally recognized scholar of Indigenous rights, global politics, and public policy. She is Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Lightfoot currently serves as Vice Chair, North American Member, and past Chair of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She is the first Indigenous woman from Canada to hold this position.
Her research focuses on Indigenous-state relations, the implementation of Indigenous rights frameworks, and the ways Indigenous self-determination is reshaping global politics. She is the author of Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution (2016), and in 2024 she co-edited Indigenous Peoples and Borders (Duke University Press) and The Handbook of Indigenous Public Polic (Edward Elgar). Her scholarship has appeared widely in leading journals and edited volumes and is noted for bridging theoretical insights with policy relevance.
Previously, Dr. Lightfoot held a Canada Research Chair in Global Indigenous Rights and Politics at the University of British Columbia, where she also served as Senior Advisor to the President on Indigenous Affairs and led the creation of UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars and has received numerous awards and major research grants.
Indigenous Rights Advocacy in a Post-Multilateral World: Strategic Adaptation and Canadian Leadership
Dr. Sheryl Lightfoot’s Fellowship research, Indigenous Rights Advocacy in a Post‑Multilateral World: Strategic Adaptation and Canadian Leadership, examines how Indigenous movements are recalibrating advocacy as the rules‑based international order fragments. Building on Lightfoot’s seminal work on Indigenous rights as transformative international norms, the project asks how these norms survive, evolve, or erode amid geopolitical conflict, UN fiscal strain, and rising populism and how Canada can exercise principled leadership while implementing UNDRIP.
The research advances a new conceptual lens, post‑multilateral rights advocacy, to analyze shifts away from state‑centric diplomacy toward decentralized, transnational, and Indigenous‑to‑Indigenous strategies, including digital diplomacy, plurilateral alliances, and issue‑based coalitions (e.g., climate and biodiversity). A comparative case design spans Canada, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, the Nordic states (Sápmi), and selected authoritarian contexts, capturing diverse governance environments and constraints.
Methods integrate qualitative, legal, and policy analysis with field‑based inquiry: elite interviews with Indigenous leaders, UN officials, diplomats, and policymakers; archival and documentary analysis of UN and state records; jurisprudential review of domestic UNDRIP implementation; and participant observation in multilateral and regional forums and Indigenous caucuses. This mixed‑methods approach ensures empirical depth, theoretical innovation, and practical relevance.
Aims and objectives are to: (1) document strategic adaptations under institutional stress; (2) theorize post‑multilateral advocacy as a resilient mode of rights engagement; (3) assess implications for Canada’s foreign policy and domestic coherence on UNDRIP; and (4) deliver practical outputs, policy briefs, advocacy toolkits, and a comparative framework for Indigenous organizations and policymakers.
Anticipated impact includes the first cross‑regional mapping of Indigenous strategic adaptation; refined models for accountability beyond traditional UN venues; and actionable guidance to strengthen Indigenous participation, safeguard rights amid democratic retreat, and position Canada as a constructive, rights‑affirming actor in renewing global governance.
