Pascale Fournier

Pascale Fournier, Ad.E. holds a Bachelor’s in Law from Université Laval (1997), a Master’s in Law from the University of Toronto, where she was a Fellow of Massey College (2000), and a Ph.D. in Law from Harvard University (2007). A Fulbright Fellow (2001) and a Scholar of the first cohort of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation in 2003, she also served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Claire L’Heureux-Dubé of the Supreme Court of Canada (2000-2001). She was the head of the Foundation between 2018 to 2023. Dr. Fournier leads a distinguished career as Full Professor and Research Chair in Legal Pluralism and Comparative Law at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (Civil Law Section). 

Passionate about access to justice, Pascale Fournier’s contributions, and published and award-winning research comprehensively study issues relating to fundamental rights and freedoms, including equality, religion and women’s rights, and family law in pluralist and cross-cultural systems. She also taught law at the Université d’État d’Haïti, the University for Peace in Costa Rica and at a Research Institute on Women’s Rights in Iran. She has been an expert-consultant with the United Nations Development Programme on the question of the right to equality, and, in 2015, the National Assembly of Quebec appointed her Commissioner to the province’s Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission, where she occupied a quasi-judicial role in relation to complaints of discrimination. She also served as Vice-Dean Research of the Civil Law Section, University of Ottawa from 2010 to 2012.

Dr. Fournier has been awarded several prizes and distinctions, including Université Laval’s Raymond-Blais medal (2008), the Barreau du Québec’s Advocatus Emeritus Distinction (Ad.E., 2009), a best legal article award from the Foundation of the Barreau du Québec (2009), the University of Ottawa President’s Award for Excellence in Media Relations (2011), the International Women’s Forum Fellowship (2014), the Canada Arab Chamber of Commerce Excellence Award (2014), the Top 25 Most Influential lawyers in Canada (Canadian Lawyer Magazine; 2015), the “Mur des grands diplômés” of Cégep Garneau (2016), the Université Laval’s Gloire de l’Escolle Medal (2016), and the Ottawa Network for Education’s Capital Educator’s Award for teaching excellence (2016). In 2015, she was selected as a participant to the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference. In 2016, Dr. Fournier was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.