Benjamin Peterson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section needs to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (November 2007)

Ben Peterson is the co-founder and executive director of Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), Canada’s largest international media development non-governmental organization.

He is a graduate of Queen’s University (Kingston), and of the London School of Economics (LSE), where he studied Political Theory under David Held.

Before co-founding JHR, Peterson worked in the Ministry of Justice of Ghana, for Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lloyd Axworthy and for David Bonior, the Democratic Whip in the United States House of Representatives.

He has received a number of awards for his work with JHR, including an Action Canada Fellowship, Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award, and the Queen’s University Alumni Humanitarian Award.

Peterson is the son of former Liberal Premier of Ontario, David Peterson and Canadian actress Shelley Peterson. He is the nephew of Jim Peterson, former Canadian Minister of International Trade, and Tim Peterson, former Member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament, and Deb Matthews, a current Member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament and Minister of Children and Youth Services.