The Honourable Louise Arbour, C.C., G.O.Q., is a senior associate with Borden Ladner Gervais. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario in 1987 and to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1990. In 1996, the United Nations Security Council appointed her Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In this function, she secured the first conviction for genocide (Rwanda) since the 1948 Genocide Convention, and the first indictment for war crimes by a sitting European head of state (Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic).
She resigned as Chief Prosecutor to accept an appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1999. In 2004, she was appointed United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and in 2017, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for International Migration.
In 2021, she was commissioned to lead an independent review of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Ms. Arbour has also served as a judge ad hoc at the International Court of Justice, and was a member of the Ministerial Advisory Group on Canada’s Defence Policy Review.
Mrs. Arbour has received numerous awards and honorary doctorates. She has been a Companion of the Order of Canada since 2007, a Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Québec since 2009, a Commander of the Légion d’honneur, and a Commander of the Ordre de Montréal.
