Judge Kimberly Prost Joins HiiL’s Programmatic Steering Board (PSB)
New Member of the Programmatic Steering Board Appointed
HiiL is very proud to announce the appointment of Judge Kimberly Prost of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as a new Member of the Programmatic Steering Board. Judge Prost fills the seat that became vacant after the departure of Professor Marc Groenhuijsen of Tilburg University. Her appointment entered into force on 1st January 2009.
The role of the Programmatic Steering Board in the active development, deepening and maintenance of the coherency of the Institute’s Research Programme, is of fundamental importance to the success of the Institute’s work. Furthermore, the Programmatic Steering Board has a crucial role in the development of particular research themes and in making recommendations to the Supervisory Board on the allocation of research funds.
Judge Prost graduated as a gold medalist from the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba, Canada. She joined the Canadian federal Department of Justice in 1982, and worked for five years in the Winnipeg Regional office as a federal prosecutor. In 1987, she joined the Department of Justice’s Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Unit in Ottawa, and worked as head of the Baltic team on possible prosecutions for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 1990, she took a position within the International Assistance Group, which acts as Canada's central authority for international criminal cooperation matters; she was named Director in 1994. In this capacity she participated in the negotiation of over 40 bilateral extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties for Canada.
Judge Prost was a member of the Canadian delegation for the negotiation of the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court, and she participated in the negotiation of the related Rules of Procedure and Evidence. She was on the Canadian delegation to the Ad Hoc Committee for the negotiation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
In July 2000, Judge Prost joined the Commonwealth Secretariat as Head of the Criminal Law Section, Deputy Director, Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division, where she delivered a broad range of assistance to member countries. She has run an intensive pan-Commonwealth program on counter-terrorism legislation and implementation of the relevant international instruments, as well as police and prosecutor training in the investigation and prosecution of terrorism and terrorist financing. She has also managed a project which brought together experts to develop model legislation for implementation of the Rome Statute.
In March, 2005, Judge Prost joined the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna as Head of the Legal Advisory Section within the Division of Treaty Affairs. In June 2005, she was elected by the General Assembly as an ad litem judge for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. On July 3, 2006, she was sworn in as a Judge of the Tribunal and she is currently serving on a trial in The Hague.
In addition to these activities, Judge Prost was a guest lecturer at the University of Nottingham, Queen’s University (Canada) and the London School of Economics and a part-time lecturer on international criminal law at McGill Faculty of Law (Canada). She delivered on various occasions numerous speeches and lectures pertaining to a range of issues of international criminal law.
Judge Prost thus brings to the Institute substantial expertise and practical experience in both national and international (criminal) law, and their interactions, concerning topics directly relevant to several of the existing research projects funded by the Institute as well as to HiiL’s future research agenda.
“Judge Prost, with her impressive track record in criminal law on both the national and international levels, will strengthen the practitioners’ perspective within the Programmatic Steering Board. For an international research Institute emphasising the need to bridge practice and academy, practical expertise such as Judge Prost’s is invaluable”, says Dr. David Raic, HiiL's Deputy Director, “because of this and because of her academic background, we are extremely happy to have her on board”.