James Kirkpatrick Stewart

Nationality: Canada
Term: 8 March 2013 - 8 March 2022
Assumed full-time duty: 8 March 2013
Elected on: 16 November 2012

Biography

On 16 November 2012, Mr. James Kirkpatrick Stewart of Canada was elected Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the Assembly of States Parties.

Prior to joining the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC, Mr. Stewart worked as General Counsel in the Crown Law Office within the Ministry of the Attorney General, in Toronto. Before this, he served as Senior Trial Attorney in the OTP at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR); as Chief of Prosecutions in the OTP at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); and as Senior Appeals Counsel and then Chief of the Appeals and Legal Advisory Division in the OTP at the ICTR.

Mr. Stewart also served with the Office of the Ombudsman as a legal officer for two years. He joined the Downtown Toronto Crown Attorney’s Office as an Assistant Crown Attorney in 1979, handling criminal trials at all levels of court. Since 1985, Stewart has served in the Crown Law Office – Criminal, where his practice expanded to include appeals before the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada. On leaves of absence from his office, he worked at the UN international criminal tribunals.

Mr. Stewart is bilingual in English and French. Educated at Bishop’s College School in Lennoxville, Québec, he attended Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario (B.A., 1967), and Université Laval, in Sainte-Foy, Québec (M. ès A., 1971). In 1975, he graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, articled for prominent criminal defence lawyer, Robert J. Carter, Q.C., in 1975-6, and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1977.