Dr. Ivan Head

Faculty, Staff, and students of the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law are deeply saddened by the loss of Dr. Ivan Head, who succumbed to cancer on Monday, November 1, 2004, at 74 years of age. Dr. Head was a distinguished UBC legal scholar, a tremendous colleague, teacher, and mentor for professional degree students and graduate students alike.

He was an outstanding academic whose publications include The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada’s Foreign Policy 1968-1984 (co-authored with Pierre Elliot Trudeau) and On a Hinge of History: The Mutual Vulnerability of South and North. He initiated the UBC Faculty of Law’s seminar on South-North Relations, which enabled several generations of our students to benefit from his wisdom directly. He contributed to the collective work of the Faculty of Law with energy, dedication, and passion and was especially supportive of scholars and students working on international projects.

Dr. Head was honored with a collection of essays edited by two of his former graduate students Obiora Chinedu Okafor and Obijiofor Aginam, and published as Humanizing our global order: essays in honour of Ivan Head (University of Toronto Press, 2002). He founded the University of British Columbia’s Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues.

Dr. Head was more than simply a scholar of global significance, however, for he also played a major role in Canadian and global public life. He served as senior policy advisor to Prime Minister Trudeau for nearly a decade, as President of the Canadian International Development Research Centre and as head of the Canadian International Development Agency. Much admired and loved around the world for his human decency, deep intellect, gracious manner, and humanitarian commitment, he was also one of the truly great Canadians and outstanding global citizens of the twentieth and twenty-first century.

Ivan Head was an inspiration to several generations of Canadians, a major player in global affairs, and a much loved, highly admired colleague and friend. He will be sadly missed by all who knew him.