Research interests
- Criminal Law
- Human Rights
- Constitutional Law
- Inter-American Law
Pierre Gilles Bélanger is a Canadian lawyer who has shown leadership in crucial areas related to democracy and law in the Americas over the past 25 years. From 2000 to 2007, still linked to the Government of Canada, he was the coordinator of an expert working group on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters in the whole of the Americas with the Organization of American States (OAS). In 2008, the Department of Justice of Canada commissioned him to join the Center for Justice Studies of the Americas (JSCA) in Santiago, Chile, a center specializing in criminal justice reform in the Americas. In 2010 and 2014, he was visiting professor at the “Tecnologico de Monterrey” University (Mexico) to teach courses on international relations in the Americas, international human rights, and conflict resolution. In 2011, he received Mexican certification in the New Mexico Criminal Process.
Since 2010, Pierre Gilles has been a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa. It has set up a program with universities in Latin America, a program entitled "The political-legal order in Latin America and its relations with Canada" which allows students and teachers from Canada and Latin America to discuss issues of rights that the hemisphere has in common. From 2016 to 2019 he was the coordinator and one of the trainers for the University of Ottawa on a major training project on the implementation of human rights for Mexican judges in the framework of the new criminal process in Mexico. Most recently, he joined the University of Ottawa's Research Experience Center as a researcher in residence where he is developing a research and training program on the legitimacy of judicial reforms in Latin America for vulnerable groups. Presently and in collaboration with a group of multidisciplinary researchers from Latin America and Canada, he is developing as an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Civil Law a research and training program on the legitimacy of judicial reforms and legal approaches in Latin America for vulnerable groups.
Pierre Gilles has just completed a doctorate in law at the University of Ottawa. It focused on criminal law reforms to provide a more legitimate approach to the penal process, particularly for groups or individuals traditionally vulnerable to the rule of law. More particularly, he made a Bourdieusian critique of the judicial actors in the context of the abbreviated procedure in Chile. Pierre Gilles Bélanger has been a member of the Barreau du Québec since 1988 and was recently appointed adjunct professor at the Faculty of Civil Law at the University of Ottawa in 2021.