Arendt Chambers

Elsa is a criminal defence and international criminal law practitioner based in Vancouver, with an active domestic trial practice and current casework before the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

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At Arendt Chambers, Elsa is counsel with Kate Gibson for Prosper Mugiraneza at the IRMCT, and is instructed to draft submissions to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court under Article 15 of the Rome Statute. She is engaged in advocacy before UN Security Council missions and UN Special Procedures on behalf of IRMCT acquitted and released persons stranded in Niger. She co-chairs the IBA War Crimes Committee's annual conference at The Hague (Masters of War 2026, Law Under Fire 2025), serves as Events Officer for the Committee, and is a member of the Bar Issues Committee Working Group on the Crimes Against Humanity Convention. She supports the IBA/USAID Ukraine Defence Counsel Training Project and consults on the IHL/ICL training manual for Ukrainian defence counsel.

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In British Columbia, Elsa appears regularly in the BC Supreme Court and Provincial Court in serious criminal matters including murder, sexual offences, and complainant counsel work. She has appeared at the Supreme Court of Canada as intervenor counsel for the Trial Lawyers Association of BC (R v Nahanee, 2022 SCC 37). She also acts in human rights matters before the BC Human Rights Tribunal. She is an Associate Member of Church Court Chambers in London.

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Elsa holds an LLM from Columbia University (Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar), an LLB (First Class Honours) from the University of Otago, and an MA (Distinction) in International Law and Security from the University of Birmingham.

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Contact: elsa.wyllie@protonmail.com.