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OTTAWA: Former international war crimes prosecutor and UN human rights chief Louise Arbour was sworn in Monday as Canada’s new governor general, a ceremonial post that serves as the British monarchy’s representative in Canada.
Arbour, also a former judge on Canada’s Supreme Court, replaces Mary Simon, who was the country’s first Indigenous governor general.
Arbour, 79, had a high-profile career in international justice, serving as the chief prosecutor for the tribunals that investigated atrocities committed during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and the Rwanda genocide.
Her most prominent moment as a prosecutor came in May 1999, when Arbour secured indictments against Slobodan Milosevic for crimes in Kosovo. Milosevic was the president of Yugoslavia at the time, and the indictments made him the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes by an international court.
