Dr Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati

Profile

Dr. Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati is a lawyer (Barrister and Solicitor) with the Law Society of Upper Canada and Associate Professor of Law at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Her scholarship and advocacy for child rights stem from her professional experience as Child Rights Specialist at the UNICEF Office of Research in Florence (Italy), director of the child trafficking study at the International Bureau for Children’s Rights, and while serving at the International Criminal Court, Prosecution division (The Hague) and Youth Tribunals in Montreal and Paris. She published The Status of the Girl Child under International Law: A Semioethic Analysis (Cambridge University Press 2025) and Feminicides of Girl Children (Brill 2018); and co-founded the Girls’ Studies Research Network. She holds a PhD in Law (University of Oxford), law degrees (JD-LLB and BCL, McGill University), LLM in Human Rights (King’s College London) and diploma in European Law (Paris Panthéon-Assas). She is a Senior Fellow with the UKHEA and was awarded the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-SSHRC Insight Development Grant, SSHRC Explore Grant, and Global Impact Grant for her novel international legal semiotics theory.

Research

Publications

Selected Publications:

Books:

• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2025) The Status of the Girl Child under International Law: A Semioethic Analysis (Cambridge University Press); DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009072120
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2018) Feminicides of Girl Children in the Family Context: An International Human Rights Law Approach (Brill: Leiden) ISBN: 978-90-04-33088-7; https://brill.com/display/title/33906

Podcasts:

Chapdelaine-Feliciati C, The Status of the Girl Child under International Law: A Semioethic Analysis, Rights Up: The Oxford Human Rights Hub Podcast : https://soundcloud.com/oxhrh/the-status-of-the-girl-child
Chapdelaine-Feliciati C, Williams D and Coulter N, What is Girls’ Studies? York University Grad Life Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/user-852236646-948205692/22-what-is-girls-studies

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles:

• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2025). Sexualized Social and Dress Codes of Girl Performers in the West. Semiotica Journal 265: 1-31
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2024). Le silence dans l’espace sémiotique juridique des traités internationaux: « cherchez la femme ». International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 37 : 1185-1208 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-024-10112-8
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2022). Les réserves en droit international ont-elles des limites? Étude sémioéthique du droit à l’éducation de la Convention relative aux droits de l’enfant. Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique 35 : 309-338 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09805-7
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2020). The Semiotic Puzzle: Authentic Languages and International Law. International Journal of Legal Discourse 5: 317-341; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijld-2020-2039
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2018). Deconstructing the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Semiotics, Significs and Semioethics of Gendercide. Cambridge International Law Journal 7: 29-50; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/cilj.2018.01.02
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2013). The sense, meaning, and significance of the Twin International Covenants on Political and Economic Rights. Semiotica 196: 325-352; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2013-0063
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2010). Les droits de l’homme de la femme: polysémie ou androcentrisme? International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 23 : 451-474 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-010-9166-9
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2007). Child Justice in Canada & the Four Ps: Protection, Prosecution, Prevention and Participation. Critical Criminology 15: 267-284; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-007-9036-2
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2006). Restorative Justice for the Girl Child in Post-Conflict Rwanda. Journal of International Women’s Studies 7: 14-35; DOI: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol7/iss4/2/
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2005). The Right to Food for Children in Brazil: “A Modest Proposal”? International Journal of Children’s Rights 13: 413-431; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/157181805774976040

Book Chapters:

• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2025). Peirce’s Final Interpretant of the Best Interests of the Child Principle under International Law, in Amir Biglari (ed), Open Semiotics (L’Harmattan: Paris)
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2023). Sex Trafficking of Girl Children: A Legal Semiotics Study of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Research Handbook on Legal Semiotics (Elgar)
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2023). Students Making Meaning – Teaching Legal Semiotics in the Context of International Law (Springer) 63-78; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26855-7_4
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2022). Semiotics in Law and Jurisprudence, in Jamin Pelkey (ed), Bloomsbury Semiotics Anthology (Bloomsbury: London) 259-276
• Chapdelaine-Feliciati C. (2022). Translating the Meaning-Intention behind the ‘Best Interests of the Child’ Principle in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Intersemiotic Perspectives on Emotions: Translating Across Signs, Bodies and Values (Routledge: New York) 116-129

Co-authored Publications:

• (2009) United Nations Handbook on the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (UNICEF Office Research 74pp)
• (2008) Report of the Expert Consultation Meeting in Preparation for World Congress III Against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents (UNICEF Office Research 75pp)
• (2005) Making Children’s Rights Work: National & International Perspectives (Éditions Yvon Blais, French-English, 160pp)

Expertise