William Bourdon (born 1956), is a French lawyer of the Paris Bar Association who practices criminal law, particularly specializing in white-collar crime, communications law and human rights. He particularly specializes in defending the victims of globalization and crimes against humanity. He has been with Bourdon Simoni Voituriez since 1979. He is widely considered one of the most powerful international lawyers.
William Bourdon is the son of engineer and manufacturer Philippe Bourdon, the grandson of Pierre Bourdon, former Michelin chief engineer, and the great-grandson of manufacturer Édouard Michelin, founder of groupe Michelin.
He studied at Lycée Janson-de-Sailly, then at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. He holds a master's degree in (Private law) and is a graduate of Sciences Po
Bourdon was Under Secretary-General (1994–1995), then Secretary-General of the Fédération internationale des droits de l'homme from 1995 to 2000. In October 2001, he founded Sherpa, whose goal is to "defend the victims of crimes committed by economic operators." He is also currently the organization's president. Sherpa is housed on the premises of France Libertés; William Bourdon is a member of the Conseil d'administration (administrative council) of France Libertés and is the longtime lawyer of Danielle Mitterrand.
Bourdon was also the lawyer for Transparency International, Survie and the Fédération des Congolais de la Diaspora (FCD). He is close to associations who provide help to foreign nationals without proper papers, such as Cimade, for whom he acted as an observer in 1992.
Bourdon distinguished himself in criminal law in the 1980s, for example with the defence of prostitutes in the Jobic affair, a police commissioner accused of procuring before finally being released.
He then specialized in human rights (SOS Racisme, Chinese opponents, genocide in Rwanda, Augusto Pinochet; protesters, partisans of social struggle or far left militants.
In 2006, he defended Sud-PTT trade unionist Cyril Ferez who, he said, "took a real beating from 15 or so CRS officers (riot police) for quite a while" during a demonstration against a controversial law concerning work and education. He also defended Yildune Lévy, a close friend of Julien Coupat in the sabotage of SNCF overhead power lines, two French detainees held at Guantánamo sentenced by French justice, or the People's Mujahedin of Iran.
In 2009, Boudon defended André Barthélemy, president of "Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l'Homme" before the criminal court of Bobigny for "direct incitement of rebellion" and "deliberately impeding the movement of an aircraft", for having opposed the manner in which two Congolese nationals were escorted back to the border.
He defended police commandant Philippe Pichon, accused of leaking the police record files of two stars, D. Debbouze et Johnny Hallyday, to publicize and denounce the system's flaws. Its error rate was said to exceed 40%. ...
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