Louise Arbour

Louise Arbour (born February 10, 1947, Montreal, Canada) is a Canadian attorney and judge who served as the chief prosecutor of war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the former Yugoslavia (1996–99) and as the United Nations (UN) high commissioner for human rights (2004–08). On June 8, 2026, she became governor-general of Canada.

Education and early legal career

Arbour earned a degree in civil law at the University of Montreal in 1970 and was admitted to the Quebec bar in 1971. She served for two years as a law clerk for Justice Louis-Philippe Pigeon of the Supreme Court of Canada. During this time, while also completing graduate studies at the University of Ottawa, she met her longtime partner, Larry Taman. He helped her to perfect her English, and she aided him in learning French.

In 1977 Arbour was admitted to the Ontario bar, and throughout the 1970s and ’80s she held a variety of positions. She taught at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, where she eventually became an associate dean. Arbour conducted research for the Law Reform Commission of Canada and served as vice president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She was also involved in a number of controversial legal issues, including campaigning for prisoners’ voting rights and challenging portions of Canada’s rape shield law. Arbour argued that the latter law, which limited the use of an accuser’s sexual history as legal evidence, might lead to the conviction of innocent men.

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War crimes trials and work for the UN

In 1990 Arbour became the first Francophone to be appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. She was named head of the commission of an inquiry into events at the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario, in 1995 and delivered a scathing report on the condition and treatment of its prisoners. In the late 1990s, during her time as the chief prosecutor of war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, she indicted former Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević and others for crimes against humanity. From 1999 to 2004 she served as a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Arbour became UN high commissioner for human rights in June 2004, replacing Sérgio Vieira de Mello, who had been killed in August 2003 when the UN headquarters in Baghdad was bombed. When her term ended in 2008, Arbour did not seek a second one. She then served (2009–14) as president and chief executive officer of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization devoted to the resolution of conflicts around the world. In 2017 UN Secretary-General António Guterres named Arbour special representative for international migration.

The Arbour Report and appointment as governor-general

Arbour returned to private practice in 2018, and in 2021, she was selected to chair an investigation into harassment and sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). The Arbour Report, published in May 2022, was a scathing indictment of the Canadian defense establishment. The report described previous attempts to address the issue of sexual violence in the military as largely aspirational rather than realistic, with recommendations often forgotten or ignored. Arbour offered a blunt summary of her findings:

One of the dangers of the model under which the CAF continues to operate is the high likelihood that some of its members are more at risk of harm, on a day to day basis, from their comrades than from the enemy.

This must change.

The report concluded with 48 specific recommendations; the Department of National Defence pledged to address all of them by the end of 2025.

On May 5, 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Arbour had been selected as Canada’s next governor-general. She assumed the role on June 8, 2026, upon the conclusion of the term of the previous governor-general, Mary May Simon.

Awards and recognition

Arbour received many awards and medals, including the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Four Freedoms Medal from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (2000), the Lord Reading Law Society’s Human Rights Award (2000), and the EID-UL-ADHA Award from the Association of Progressive Muslims of Ontario (2001). She also received the Médaille de la Faculté de droit de l’Université de Montréal and was inducted into the International Hall of Fame at the International Women’s Forum, both in 2003. In 2005 she received the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights, and in 2007 she was appointed to the Order of Canada. Throughout her career Arbour was awarded more than 40 honorary degrees.