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Peter Denis Sutherland (born April 25, 1946) is an Irish businessman and former politician, associated with the Fine Gael party. He is a barrister by profession, and is also Senior Counsel.

A graduate of University College Dublin, Sutherland was appointed Attorney General of Ireland in the governments of Garret FitzGerald, and as a European Commissioner when he was a member of the first Delors Commission. Subsequently he was Director General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now the World Trade Organisation). During his second term as Attorney General, he advised the FitzGerald government on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland which introduced a constitutional ban on abortion.

He has also served as Chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs International (a registered UK broker-dealer, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs), as well as on the board of ABB. Sutherland is currently a non-executive director of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

He is on the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group, a chairman of the Trilateral Commission and a member of the European Round Table of Industrialists.

He is an Honorary President of the European Movement Ireland.

In 2005, he was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

As a European Commissioner Sutherland performed the remarkable feat of earning the respect of both Margaret Thatcher and the then Commission President, Jacques Delors, who loathed each other and disagreed fundamentally and very publicly about the future development of the European Community (now European Union).

Despite the wide respect he commanded, he was not reappointed to the Commission by the Irish government, which had by then changed to Fianna Fáil. When Delors stepped down as Commission President he was widely reported to favour Sutherland as his successor; however he did not have a vote, and only the member states did. The British government, after briefly sponsoring its own candidate Leon Brittan, suggested Sutherland, but his candidacy would have needed the sponsorship of the Irish government to prosper, and Fianna Fáil was still in power.

In Spring 2006 he was appointed Chair of London School of Economics Council commencing in 2008. His appointment has been received poorly by some student environmental and political groups at LSE who have organised a petition to oppose the decision. The petition has been signed by a small minority of students. On 22nd November 2006, a group of 25 students held a sit-in protest against his appointment, claiming that the School had made the appointment without addressing their concerns. The protest forced him to give the intended public lecture at another venue.

Peter Sutherland also serves on the International Advisory Board of IESE, the eminent graduate business school of the prestigious Spanish university, the University of Navarra.

In January 2006, Sutherland was appointed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan as his Special Representative for Migration. In this position, he was responsible for promoting the establishment of a Global Forum on Migration and Development, a state-led effort open to all UN members that is meant to help governments better understand how migration can benefit their development goals. The Global Forum was acclaimed by UN Member States at the UN High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, in September 2006, and will be launched in Brussels in July 2007.

On December 5th, 2006, he was appointed 'Consultor of the Extraordinary Section of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See' (a financial adviser to the Vatican).