Emilia Péch is legal counsel in the Assistant Deputy Minister’s Office of the Indigenous Rights and Relations Portfolio, Department of Justice. Her work has recently been focussed on implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. She has worked in several areas of government: as a foreign-service officer for Canada, a human rights investigator, a litigator in immigration law, and as a legal advisor in employment, labour relations, whistle-blowing, and alternative dispute resolution. Emilia provided legal technical assistance to the Jamaican Courts, prosecution service, and civil legal service providers for 3.5 years. Emilia has been a mediator since 2000, first, at the Provincial Court of British Columbia and then for the Department of National Defence and Justice Canada. Emilia is a Fellow of the National Centre for Technology and Dispute Resolution located at the U. of Massachusetts Amherst.
Emilia is an experienced trainer and facilitator. As a part-time professor, she has taught several courses at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Common Law, Mediation at McGill University Faculty of Law, and Mediation and Organizational Conflict in the Conflict Studies program at Saint Paul university. Emilia has developed training throughout her professional career on many subjects, including mediation, negotiation, tribunal legal ethics, administrative law, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples.
Emilia completed a Masters in Conflict Studies at Saint Paul University (University of Ottawa), a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Victoria, a certificate in Japanese studies at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, and a Bachelor of Arts in Honours Business Administration at Western University.