Robert Petit
HEAD OF THE IIIM
Mr. Petit is a national of Canada and was appointed by the UN Secretary General to head the IIIM on 22 March, taking his position on 2 May 2024.
Mr. Petit brings to the position 35 years of criminal justice experience in both national and international settings. Since 2017, he was the senior United Nations official to lead the United Nations Follow-On Mechanism on the Democratic Republic of the Congo in relation to the murders of two members of the Group of Experts in March 2017. Mr. Petit also served as Senior Counsel and Team Leader in the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Section of Justice Canada.
Previously a Crown Attorney in Canada, Mr. Petit has held various international senior prosecutorial positions, including as International Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Senior Trial Attorney at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and Prosecutor of the Serious Crimes Unit, United Nations Mission in East Timor. He was also legal advisor to the international administrator of one of the five regions of Kosovo, and as legal officer for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, supervised the investigations, indictments, and prosecutions of numerous perpetrators of crimes committed during the Rwandan Genocide.
Mr. Petit holds an Advanced University Law Degree from the University of Montreal, Canada, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in History from the same university. He is fluent in English and French.