Robert Petit

international prosecutor, Federal Department of Justice, Canada

Robert Petit was called to the Bar in 1988 and started his legal career as a Crown Prosecutor in Montreal for eight years eventually focusing on organised criminality and complex cases. From 1996 to 1999, he embarked on an international career starting as a Legal Officer in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Subsequently between 1999 and 2004, he was a Legal Advisor for the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, a Prosecutor for the Serious Crimes Unit of the United Nations Missions of Support to East Timor, and a Senior Trial Attorney with the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. In 2006, he was named by the United Nations as International Co Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia a position he held until September 2009 when he returned to Canada and his current position as Counsel with the War Crimes Section of Canada’s Federal Department of Justice.