Vincent Del Buono, alumnus of York’s Glendon College (BA ‘72), was recently given an award for distinguished public service for defending human rights, as part of Massey College’s 40th anniversary celebrations.
Left: Vincent Del Buono
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, a senior Fellow of the University of Toronto’s Massey College and a former member of its governing corporation, conferred the award on Del Buono and three others at a ceremony on March 3.
Del Buono has maintained ties with York over the years. For example, in the 2001-2002 academic year, he was York's Nathanson Centre's Visiting Scholar; in 2002 he delivered the John Wendell Holmes Memorial Lecture at the Glendon campus; and delivered a talk at the Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies 2002 Public Lecture Series.
A member of Massey College's alumni association, Del Buono is a former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International, currently working in Nigeria to improve that country's judicial system.
More about Vincent Del Buono
Del Buono is currently the program coordinator of a $70-million, seven-year Access to Justice program in Nigeria. The program, funded by the UK Department for International Development and implemented by an international consortium lead by the British Council, seeks to support change to make the administration of justice in Nigeria both more rights-based and pro-poor.
Previously, Del Buono was deputy secretary-general (political) of Amnesty International (1999-2001) and the United Nations international advisor for crime prevention and criminal justice in the UN Office for Drugs and Crime in Vienna (1994-1998). He also briefly served in Bosnia in 1998 with the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations.
In addition, Del Buono is the founding president of the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform & Criminal Justice Policy in Vancouver (1991-1994) and founding president of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law (1988-1994). From 1982 to 1991, he served with the Department of Justice of Canada, first as counsel and then senior counsel. From 1980 to 1982, he was with the Law Reform Commission of Canada working on the reform of the Criminal Code.