Date of birth: February 10, 1947 Place of birth: Montreal Province: Quebec Calling: Lawyer and judge	Photo : Fred Chartrand, La Presse canadienne
Louise Arbour was the daughter of a comfortable middle-class family. She completed high school at the Congrégation Notre-Dame du Collège Régina Assumpta, north of Montreal. In 1969, she began her studies in law at the Université de Montréal; two years later she graduated and was called to the Quebec Bar. Intrigued by the national capital, she made her home in Ottawa and clerked for Mr Justice Louis-Philippe Pigeon of the Supreme Court of Canada. She was called to the Ontario Bar in 1977. Ms Arbour's rise was dazzling: she became first a professor of law and then Vice Dean of the Osgoode Hall Law Faculty at York University in Toronto. In 1987 she was appointed to the Ontario Supreme Court. In 1990 she moved to the Ontario Court of Appeal, the first francophone ever appointed. She was recognized by her peers as a first-class, indeed a ground-breaking, judge, who was leaving her mark on the profession. She wrote widely on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Some of her decisions attracted public attention, most notably her 1992 ruling that prison inmates have the right to vote. In 1995 she tabled a devastating report on Canada's prison system following her investigation of violent incidents at the Kingston Penitentiary for Women. Judge Arbour enjoyed wide respect and became an international figure. In 1996, Un Secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali announced that he had chosen her to act as prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal. She was faced with a colossal task. She had to supervise the work of two tribunals set up by the UN in 1993-94. The first was investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and more recently in Kosovo, the second was investigating the genocide in Rwanda in the spring of 1994. Here too Louise Arbour ruffled feathers: in 1997 she accused France of "dragging its feet" in Bosnia by not arresting war criminals. In May 1999, while the war in Kosovo was at its height, she did not hesitate to accuse the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, of war crimes. Many international observers criticized her willingness to speak out, claiming that she was undermining the chances for a peace treaty with Belgrade. By June 1999, Louise Arbour had become the best-known judicial figure on the planet. She decided at that point to withdraw from the hunt for war criminals, and accepted a seat on the Supreme Court of Canada, replacing Mr Justice Peter Cory, who had retired. Madam Justice Arbour brings to the Supreme Court an incredible range of experience and a vast knowledge of the law.