Kim Shayo Buchanan specializes in constitutional law, international and comparative human rights law, prisoners’ rights, reproductive rights, race, gender and sexuality. Her current research addresses race, gender and prisoners’ rights against sexual abuse, and the sexual dimensions of gender equality. She teaches constitutional law, reproductive rights, and international human rights law.

Prof Buchanan earned her bachelor’s degree at Queen’s University and her law degree at the University of Toronto. She clerked for Chief Justice Isaac of the Federal Court of Canada (Appeal Division). She holds an LL.M. and J.S.D. from Columbia University.

Before her return to academia, Prof. Buchanan worked as a civil litigator at Sack Goldblatt Mitchell in Toronto, where she litigated constitutional claims for welfare and public health benefits, as well as litigating plaintiffs’ civil and constitutional tort claims against public authorities for malicious prosecution, wrongful conviction, and failure to protect. Most recently, she worked as a senior fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York City, where she authored Women’s Reproductive Rights in the United States, a shadow report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (the implementation body of the ICCPR) on US noncompliance with its international law obligations to protect reproductive rights. Her publications include "Impunity: Sexual Abuse in Women’s Prisons" (Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 2007) and "Lawrence v. Geduldig: Regulating Women’s Sexuality" (Emory Law Journal, 2007).

Works in Progress

• "The Racial Dynamics of Prison Rape" (forthcoming).
• "Race, Gender and Sexuality in HIV Prosecutions" (forthcoming 2013).

Articles and Book Chapters

• "Engendering Rape," 59 UCLA L. Rev. 1630 (2012). - (PDF)
• "E-Race-ing Gender," in Multidimensional Masculinities and Law: Feminist and Critical Race Approaches (Frank R. Cooper & Ann C. McGinley, eds.) (N.Y.U Press, 2012). - (SSRN)
• "Our Prisons, Ourselves: Race, Gender and the Rule of Law," 29 Yale L. & Policy Rev. 1 (2010). - (Hein)
• "The Sex Discount."  57 UCLA L. Rev. 1149 (2010). - (Hein)
• "It Could Happen to "You": Pay-to stay Jail Upgrades."  106 Michigan L. Rev. First Impressions 60 (2007). - (www)
• "Impunity: Sexual Abuse in Women's Prisons." 42 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 85 (2007). - (Hein)
• "Lawrence v. Geduldig: Regulating Women's Sexuality."  56 Emory L. J. 1235 (2007). - (Hein)
• "Women's Reproductive Rights in the United States: A Shadow Report." Center for Reproductive Rights (2006). - (www)
• "Beyond Modesty: Privacy in Prison and the Risk of Sexual Abuse."  88 Marquette L. Rev. 751 (2005). - (Hein)

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