Prof. Trudo Lemmens and Dean Mayo Moran pay tribute to Prof. Rebecca Cook
By Linda Hutjens
On May 3, 2012, the National Health Law Conference 2012 held a special dinner, hosted by Professor Trudo Lemmens of the Faculty of Law, to celebrate the remarkable career and intellectual contributions of Professor Rebecca Cook. The dinner was well attended by her health law colleagues, former students and current students in the CIHR Graduate Program in Health Law Ethics and Policy.
Prof. Mayo Moran, Dean of the Faculty of Law at University of Toronto, thanked Rebecca for many contributions to the Faculty of Law, including the pioneering International Human Rights Internships Program, the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program and fundraising for endowed scholarships in Reproductive and Sexual Health Law and Women's Rights.
Prof. Trudo Lemmens read many tributes that had been submitted by Rebecca's colleagues around the world, including those in South African and Mexican law schools whom she had mentored to found similar programs, specializing respectively in Reproductive Rights and Right to Health.
Prof. Larry Gostin, Director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, described the international dominance of Rebecca's scholarly work in the challenging fields of reproductive health, human rights, and women's rights.
Prof. Jocelyn Downie, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at Dalhousie University's Schulich School of Law, thanked Rebecca for her many successes that have improved policies and regulations affecting women's health in Canada, and for inspiring and training her own generation of Canadian lawyers.
Ms. Sandra Dughman, a Chilean LL.M. graduate of the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, thanked Rebecca on behalf of the 31 lawyers from developing and transitional countries who have benefited from Rebecca's scholarships and carried her lessons and example to strategic positions around the world.
After the dinner, Rebecca Cook sincerely thanked the conference organizers and the many collaborators in her work. She appreciated the academic freedom she has enjoyed at this law school, in contrast with the sacrifices of international colleagues who have been fired or persecuted for their statements or publications on controversial issues. She remains immensely proud of the work that her graduates are doing to protect the health and human rights of men and women around the world, and feels inspired and impressed by the challenging questions being asked and addressed by the new health law trainees at the Student Colloquium held ahead of the conference.
So many colleagues and former students had submitted written tributes to the celebration that there was hardly time to read a small fraction of them. A few days after the dinner, therefore, Rebecca Cook received a booklet containing the full text of all submissions.
