The rule of law and media freedom: a symbiotic relationship

Baroness Kennedy is one of the country’s most distinguished lawyers. Born and brought up in Glasgow, she is a member of the Bar, a King’s Counsel, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn, an Honorary Writer to the Signet and the recipient of 42 Honorary Degrees from many universities including those of Glasgow and Edinburgh in recognition of work on women and the law and on widening participation in higher education. She has also been honoured by the Governments of France and Italy for her considerable work on women’s rights. She was created a life peer in 1997 and has been a strong advocate for social justice and the rule of law in the House of Lords. She has recently been awarded the Order of the Thistle, the highest honour in Scotland. Over the last thirty years she has been at different times Chancellor of Oxford Brooke’s University, Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, President of the School of Oriental and African Studies and Principal of Mansfield College Oxford. She was also Founder of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford in 2018. Helena Kennedy’s public service has covered many fields. She was a Commissioner on the Education Commission from 1992-4 and led a government inquiry in Further Education from 1994 – 1997, producing the seminal report, Learning Works.  She was Chair of the British Council from 1998 – 2004, Chair of the Human Genetics Commission from 1998- 2008. She has chaired many public inquiries including in 2004 the Inquiry into Sudden Infant Death for the Royal Colleges of Pathology and of Paediatrics and in 20012 an Equality and Human Rights Commission Inquiry in Scotland addressing Human Trafficking. She also led the recent Scottish Parliamentary Inquiry into Misogyny. She is President of Justice; the law reform think tank and currently is director of the International Bar Association’s Institute of Human Rights. Helena Kennedy has authored a number of groundbreaking books on women and the law. She is President of the Helena Kennedy Foundation which gives bursaries to disadvantaged students. In 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Baroness Kennedy evacuated 102 women judges and prosecutors who were on death lists (with their families so the total number was 508) by raising the funds, securing safe houses,  chartering planes, and resettling the women around the world. She is currently working for the President of Ukraine on war crimes and trying to recover the thousands of children who have been abducted from Ukraine by Russian forces. 

Michael Polak is a barrister specialising in public international law, international crime, human rights, private prosecutions, strategic litigation, and serious criminal offences. He is known for his work before international courts, United Nations bodies, human rights-related arbitrations, and proceedings worldwide. Michael was awarded the prestigious International Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer in 2021. This award is given to one young lawyer every year in recognition of their ‘excellence in their work and achievements in their career to date, but also a commitment to professional and ethical standards as well as a commitment to the larger community.’ Michael was recognised as the most outstanding young lawyer in the world for his ‘commitment to defending human rights across the globe through his professional practice and personal endeavours.’ Michael Polak also serves as the Director of Justice Abroad, where he has represented families and individuals in various cases, including those detained arbitrarily or involved in suspicious death circumstances. In this role, he represented the family of George Lowe who was murdered in Ayia Napa in their pursuit of justice, a number of Uyghur clients who have been arbitrarily detained in the Uyghur Region, Chau Van Kham, a Vietnamese-Australian democracy activist who has been found by the United Nations to be arbitrarily detained in Vietnam, and the family of Dean Wright who was found dead on a luggage trolley inside a Cancun resort in suspicious circumstances. He was also part of the team pushing for the release of Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem who was subject to enforced disappearance in 2016 and release in early August 2024. Mr Polak's contributions to the legal field also include authoring articles on legal topics, such as INTERPOL Notices, and participating in legal research and advocacy at the international level.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is a human rights lawyer, practising from Doughty Street Chambers, London. Over the past 20 years she has acted in many landmark human rights cases in the UK and internationally, before the European Court of Human Rights, international courts and UN bodies. Caoilfhionn has acted for, and secured the freedom of, many arbitrarily detained journalists, cartoonists, peaceful protestors and human rights defenders around the world, including in Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. She has also acted in a wide range of leading human rights cases, including on children's rights, reproductive rights, prisoners' rights, violence against women and girls, austerity policies and discrimination against marginalised groups, the rights of victims and survivors of terrorism, and inquests concerning failures by State bodies. Caoilfhionn has particular expertise in accountability for crimes against journalists. Her current cases in this field include leading the international legal teams for media owner Jimmy Lai, imprisoned in Hong Kong; for over 150 BBC News Persian journalists, targeted extraterritorially by Iran; for the bereaved family of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, assassinated in Malta in 2017; and leading (jointly with colleague Amal Clooney) the international legal team for Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist in the Philippines. Caoilfhionn has given expert evidence on accountability for crimes against journalists and gender-based violence against women journalists to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, UNESCO and Parliamentary inquiries in the UK, Australia and the Council of Europe. In 2023 Caoilfhionn was appointed Special Rapporteur on Child Protection by the Irish Government. She also sits part-time as a Coroner in England and Wales, is an Adjunct Full Professor at University College Dublin and is a Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equalities Commission. She was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2017 for her “outstanding commitment to enabling the Human Rights Act’s protections” for devising Act for the Act, a mass advertising campaign to tell positive human rights stories.

Hina Jilani is a lawyer practicing in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. She served as the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Human Rights Defenders and is a member of the Elders, a group of global independent leaders established by Nelson Mandela to work for peace and human rights.