Marcia V. J. Kran

Marcia V. J. Kran is a Canadian lawyer and expert member of the UN Human Rights Committee. Her career has spanned international human rights law and criminal law with positions at the United Nations and in academia and civil society. Kran lives Vancouver with her husband, Luis F. Molina.

Biography

Early Life

Born in Morris, Manitoba, Kran attended high school at Morris Collegiate and then began studying at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg in 1975. Kran received a B.A. in History and an LL.B. from the University of Manitoba in 1980.

Professional Career

Kran began her legal career as a Crown Attorney for the Province of Manitoba from 1981 to 1987. She prosecuted cases under the Criminal Code of Canada, including fraud, theft, robbery, sexual assault, and murder in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and also handled proceedings in circuit courts in the north of the province.

In 1988 Kran received a Diploma in Social Sciences from the University of Stockholm and in 1989 she received an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Toronto, where she was a research assistant with the International Human Rights Programme. In 1989 she became Legal Policy Counsel at the Canadian Department of Justice in Ottawa, advising on amendments to the Criminal Code and related laws, such as extradition and counter-terrorism legislation.

In 1991 she took leave from the Department of Justice and joined the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch of the United Nations Office at Vienna, Austria as a professional officer. She helped implement technical cooperation activities on criminal justice issues in various countries, notably in Yugoslavia and Cambodia, and contributed to UN model laws. She was the principal author of the first handbook on Criminal Justice Standards for UN Peacekeeping Police which has been updated and is still used today. She also taught at UN workshops on human rights for judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and prison officials in Romania, and for law enforcement officials in Albania.

In the summer of 1993 she received a Certificate in Human Rights and Peace from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

In 1994 she joined the University of British Columbia’s International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy, a UN affiliate institute. As a senior associate, she designed criminal justice reform projects and participated in the first training on human rights for UN peacekeeping police, which took place in Mozambique.

In 1995 and 1996 Kran took up a post as Human Rights Officer at the UN Centre for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. She designed and oversaw implementation of UN technical cooperation projects to advance human rights internationally, notably in Vietnam and the Philippines. She also provided human rights training for UN peacekeeping police in Yugoslavia.

From 1997 to 2000 under the auspices of her firm International Justice Consultants she consulted mainly for the UN but also for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) on human rights and rule of law issues. During this period, she carried out consultancy assignments in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Macedonia, Mongolia, Nepal, and Timor Leste. She also contributed to research projects undertaken by the International Council on Human Rights Policy in Versoix, Switzerland.

In 2000 she advised the Cambodian Ministry of Women’s and Veterans’ Affairs on strategies and reforms to advance women’s equality as senior legal and gender advisor, sponsored by CIDA.

From 2001 to 2003 she served as the head of the National Criminal Justice Reform Programme at the Open Society Justice Initiative in Budapest, where she developed, managed, and advised on the implementation of programming to advance human rights and the rule of law in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

In 2003 Kran became the democratic governance team leader at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Centre for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States in Bratislava. For three years, she led a team of advisors specializing in public administration reform, anti-corruption, e-governance, and human rights. She and members of her team carried out advisory missions to strengthen democratic governance in the 25 countries of the region.

From 2006 to 2009 she was based in Bangkok, Thailand where she served as head of policy and programmes at the UNDP Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific, managing the provision of expert advice and the implementation of support programmes to over 25 countries and UN Country Teams in various areas of governance, including human rights, access to justice, gender equality and anti-corruption, environmental protection, South-South cooperation, and crisis prevention. In 2009 she was acting Regional Manager at the Centre.

In 2009 Kran was named director of the Research and Right to Development Division, one of three directors, at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva. This division shaped the High Commissioner’s policy positions on a wide range of human rights issues, organized panels at the Human Rights Council on priority human rights issues, and delivered advice from division specialists with interested states and civil society organizations in cooperation with OHCHR field officers. Kran was responsible for collaborative work with other UN offices and programs to integrate human rights issues into the organization’s overall agenda, as an example, the Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted by UN Member States. Kran advocated for human rights to be considered mainstream issues in country level advocacy and programming and represented the OHCHR at human rights meetings and events in many countries. In her work at OHCHR and UNDP, she advocated for the protection of all human rights: civil, cultural, economic, social and political rights, and the integration of human rights into sustainable development efforts.

In 2016 Kran was nominated by the Government of Canada and elected to the UN Human Rights Committee for a four-year term: 2017-2020. On the UN Human Rights Committee, Kran serves as Rapporteur on Follow-Up to Concluding Observations and the focal point for the Committee Against Torture and the Sub-committee for the Prevention of Torture. In March 2020 the Government of Canada re-nominated her for a seat on the Committee.

Kran also worked for the UN as an independent consultant on human rights and justice reform, and continues to do so. Her recent consulting assignments have taken her to Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Ukraine, the Slovak Republic, and Turkey.

She has also taught international human rights law at the University of British Columbia and currently gives guest lectures.

Awards

In 2005 Kran was awarded the Walter S. Tarnopolsky Prize by the Canadian section of the International Commission of Jurists in recognition of her contributions to international human rights. In 2006 she received a Celebrated Alumnus Award from the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Arts.