Benjamin Perrin

Assistant Professor

LL.M. (McGill); J.D. (Toronto); B.Comm. (Calgary); Clerkship, Supreme Court of Canada; Member, B.C. Law Society

Tel: 604.822.1208
Fax: 604.822.8108
E-mail: perrin@law.ubc.ca
Office Location: Allard Hall, 363

Personal Site: http://www.law.ubc.ca/faculty/Perrin/web/index.html

Profile

Benjamin Perrin is an Assistant Professor at the UBC Faculty of Law and is a Faculty Associate at the Liu Institute for Global Issues and Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy and is a member of the Law Society of British Columbia. Professor Perrin holds law degrees from the University of Toronto and McGill University, where he was a Wainwright Scholar and Max Stern Fellow, and a management degree from the University of Calgary. His teaching and research interests include Canadian and international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law.

Professor Perrin's first book Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking (Viking Canada, 2010) became a bestseller and was named one of the top books of the year by the Globe and Mail. He is co-editor of Human Trafficking: Exploring the International Nature, Concerns, and Complexities (CRC Press, forthcoming 2012), and editor of Modern Warfare: Armed Groups, Private Militaries, Humanitarian Organizations and the Law (UBC Press, forthcoming April 2012). Professor Perrin's latest project is a book with Thomson Carswell for police, prosecutors, and judges on the investigation, prosecution and trial of human trafficking cases. His academic articles deal with human trafficking, migrant smuggling, child sexual exploitation, war criminals, and private military and security companies.

Prior to joining UBC in 2007, Professor Perrin served as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada, and was senior policy advisor to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. He was the assistant director of the Special Court for Sierra Leone legal clinic which assists the Trial and Appeals Chambers, and completed an internship in Chambers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Professor Perrin is the founder and former executive director of The Future Group, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) that combats human trafficking. He has testified before several Parliamentary committees studying this issue and is consulted on matters related to human trafficking and child sexual exploitation by the RCMP, municipal police forces, Crown prosecutors, Aboriginal leaders, the B.C. Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons, NGOs, and the media.

In 2010, amendments proposed by Professor Perrin to the Criminal Code were adopted by Parliament to enact stiffer penalties for child trafficking (Bill C-268) - the only private member's bill to become law between 2008 and 2010 and only the fifteenth time since Confederation that the Criminal Code had been amended by a private member's bill.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recognized Professor Perrin as a "hero in the fight against modern-day slavery". He has also been honoured by the Governor General of Canada and victims' groups for his efforts.

COURSES

• Criminal Law & Procedure
• International Criminal Law
• Evidence

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Criminal Law
• International Criminal Law
• International Humanitarian Law
• International Human Rights Law
• Human Trafficking

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLISHED WORKS

Benjamin Perrin, ed., Modern Warfare: Armed Groups, Private Militaries, Humanitarian Organizations and the Law (UBC Press, forthcoming April 2012).

John Winterdyk, Philip Reichel, and Benjamin Perrin, eds., Human Trafficking: Exploring the International Nature, Concerns, and Complexities (CRC Press, December 2011)

Benjamin Perrin, "Trafficking in Persons & Transit Countries: A Canada-U.S. Case Study in Global Perspective", (2011) 14:2-3 Trends in Organized Crime 235-264

Benjamin Perrin, Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2010).

Benjamin Perrin, "Just Passing Through? International Legal Obligations and Policies of Transit Countries in Combating Trafficking in Persons" (2010) 7:1 European Journal of Criminology 11-27.

Benjamin Perrin, "Taking a Vacation from the Law? Extraterritorial Criminal Jurisdiction and Section 7(4.1) of the Criminal Code" (2009) 31 Canadian Criminal Law Review 171-206.

Benjamin Perrin, "Searching for Accountability: The Draft U.N. International Convention on the Regulation, Oversight and Monitoring of Private Military and Security Companies" (2009) 47 Canadian Yearbook of International Law 299-317.

Benjamin Perrin, "Apprehension of Indicted War Criminals: Lessons from the former Yugoslavia" in Roberta Arnold, ed., Law Enforcement within the Framework of Peace Support Operations (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2008), 139-155.

Benjamin Perrin, "Searching for Law While Seeking Justice: The Difficulties of Enforcing International Humanitarian Law in International Criminal Trials" (2008) 39 Ottawa Law Review 367-403.

Benjamin Perrin, "Promoting Compliance of Private Security & Military Companies with International Humanitarian Law" (2006) 863 International Review of the Red Cross613-636.

Benjamin Perrin, "Challenges Facing the EU Network of Competition Authorities: Insights from a Comparative Criminal Law Perspective" (2006) 31 European Law Review540-564.

Benjamin Perrin, "Making Sense of Complementarity: The Relationship Between the International Criminal Court and National Jurisdictions" (2006) 18 Sri Lanka Journal of International Law301-325.

Benjamin Perrin, "Child Soldiers: Legal and Military Challenges in Confronting a Global Phenomenon" (2005) 50 McGill Law Journal 687-694 (book note re: Peter W. Singer, Children at War. (New York: Pantheon, 2005)).

Benjamin Perrin, "Terrorism, Secession & Multinational Constitutions: The Challenge of Sri Lanka" (2004) 16 Sri Lanka Journal of International Law175-234.

Benjamin Perrin et al., The Future of Southeast Asia: Challenges of Human Trafficking and Child Sex Slavery in Cambodia (Phnom Penh: Motorola Printers, 2001).

Publications listed on the UBC Law Library Faculty Research Publications Database