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Elise Groulx Diggs International Member Perren Buildings, 15 Old Bailey Attorney Elise Groulx, Barrister and Solicitor Montreal, Canada
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PROFILE
President, International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association (ICDAA) Honorary President, International Criminal Bar (ICB) A practising attorney in Canada, member of the Québec Bar for over twenty five years, Elise Groulx Diggs is an expert in international criminal law. She was the first elected President of the International Criminal Bar (ICB) in March 2003 in Berlin (Germany), and has been honorary president of the ICB since December 2005. She is also the founder and president of the International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association (ICDAA) since 1997, and has been active in the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and in judicial capacity building, developing legal aid projects in Afghanistan, in Haiti and hopefully soon in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She has been a practising criminal defence attorney in Montréal for her entire career while advising organizations in Europe and Canada on international criminal law issues. In recent years, she has consulted with NGOs and private clients on the issue of the criminal liability of business executives for alleged participation by corporations in international crimes and human rights abuse committed by repressive regimes in conflict zones. She just completed a two-year research project on the issue of “business complicity” in war crimes and formulated a due-diligence framework for use by a major multinational corporation in assessing investments in conflict-prone countries. She began speaking on the issue at an IBA conference in 2003 and led the preparation of a policy paper on corporate complicity under Canadian criminal law submitted by the ICDAA to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva. She was elected to the Board of Directors of the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations (CORIM) in 2005 and appointed by the Québec Bar’s Executive Committee, on May 21st, 2009, to sit on a working group regarding the Bar’s international relations policy. She completed the Fletcher Summer Institute (Tuft University, Boston) for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict in June 2009. A well-known international consultant and lecturer, Elise Groulx Diggs is very involved in the development of a strong and fair international justice system while promoting access to justice and the full exercise of fundamental rights for all, in post-conflict societies. She was awarded several professional distinctions notably the Medals of the Paris Bar, the Quebec Bar and the University of Montreal Law School. She also received the Champion of Justice Award from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), in the USA. She was also awarded the title of Advocatus Emeritus (Ad.E.) from her Bar in 2006. She is a respected expert in international law, recognized as such by the ‘Human Rights Certification’ (HRC), a panel based in Paris; the panel serves as a pool of human rights experts for the European Commission. In addition, she is an honorary member of the Bar of Draguignan (France), honorary professor at the University Inca Garcilazo de la Vega, in Lima, Peru. and a board member of the Council on Foreign Relations of Montreal. Elise Groulx Diggs was educated in Montréal, where she earned two degrees, a BA in Political Science from UQAM and a law degree, awarded with distinction, from the Université de Montréal. She then pursued graduate studies in criminology and comparative criminal law at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) and earned an advanced degree (LL.M) in these subjects at the London School of Economics (LSE), in the United Kingdom. DOCUMENTS TO DOWNLOADElise Groulx Diggs: 2010 Profile CONTACTTelephone direct: 00- 1-514- 285-2700 Email: elisegroulx@citenet.net Clerks Room: (+44) (0)203 008 8400
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INTERNATIONAL SECTION |
