Biography
Fortier was born in Quebec City. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the Université de Montréal in 1955 and his Bachelor of Civil Law degree from McGill University in 1958. As a Rhodes Scholar, he received his Bachelor of Letters degree from the University of Oxford. In 1961, he was called to the Quebec bar.
From 1984 to 1989, he was a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), also known as the Hague Tribunal. From 1988 to 1992, he was Canada's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations. From 1989 until 1990, he was also Canada's representative to the UN Security Council and in October 1989 was the President of the Security Council. From 1998 to 2001, he served as President of the London Court of International Arbitration.
Until the hostile takeover of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) by Jerry Zucker in February 2006, Fortier held the traditional title of HBC's Governor (that is, Chairman). Fortier subsequently became Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alcan Inc. and the Chairman and Senior Partner of the Ogilvy Renault law firm. Fortier served as Chairman of Ogilvy Renault from 1992 to 2009. On November 15, 2010, Ogilvy Renault LLP joined with London-based law firm Norton Rose. In 2011, citing potential conflicts of interest posed by the expansion of the firm's clientele, Fortier left Norton Rose in order to continue his career as an international arbitrator independently. In 2012, Fortier joined Arbitration Place in Toronto as a Resident Arbitrator. In June 2012, Fortier was appointed chair of the World Bank Group’s Sanctions Board in order to help combat corruption and fraud in projects financed by the World Bank.
Read more about this topic: Yves Fortier (lawyer)
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)