Lord Neuberger is the former President of the Supreme Court of the U.K., and the former Master of the Rolls in the Court of Appeal. Lord Neuberger has sat on some of the most significant human rights and constitutional law cases in the U.K., including the ‘Black Spider Memos’ Case, which addressed the legality of the U.K. Government’s decision to refuse to publish letters drafted by the Prince of Wales to government ministers. Lord Neuberger has also written extensively on free speech and privacy issues, and since 2010 has sat as a Non-Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. He is the current President of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

Can Yeginsu is a barrister practising from 3 Verulam Buildings where he has been consistently recognised as one of the U.K.’s leading lawyers practising in civil liberties and human rights, administrative and public law, and international law. Mr. Yeginsu has appeared in numerous cases as counsel representing journalists, as well as free speech and media organisations, before a range of courts and tribunals, including the English Court of Appeal, the U.K. Supreme Court, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the ECOWAS Court of Justice. He is also Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School (New York), where he co-teaches a seminar on freedom of expression and is Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown Law (Washington D.C.) and Koç University Law School (Istanbul), where he teaches international law.

Catherine Amirfar is Co-Chair of Debevoise’s International Dispute Resolution Group and the Public International Law Group, and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Her practice focuses on public international law, international commercial and treaty arbitration, and complex international commercial litigation. With over twenty years of experience, Ms. Amirfar has argued before federal and state courts throughout the United States, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and arbitration tribunals sitting around the world. She has deep expertise representing states, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and multinational companies. In 2020, Ms. Amirfar was appointed as President of the American Society of International Law.

Ms. Clooney is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, where she specialises in international law and human rights. Ms Clooney frequently represents victims of mass atrocities, including genocide and sexual violence. She has acted in many landmark human rights cases in recent years including the world’s first and only trials in which ISIS members have been convicted of genocide against Yazidis and the only trial against a militia leader accused of crimes against humanity in Darfur. Ms Clooney also represents political prisoners around the world and has helped to secure the freedom of journalists arbitrarily detained for their work across the globe.

Ms Clooney is ranked as one of the top lawyers in the U.K. in her field. She is described in the legal directories Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 as ‘a brilliant legal mind’ who is ‘in a league of her own at the Bar’, has a ‘commanding presence before courts’ and a ‘passionate commitment to the law and compassion for the people it serves’. She has received multiple awards for her work including the Gwen Ifill Award for ‘extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom’ from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the ‘Freedom of the Press Award’ from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the ‘Champion of International Rule of Law’ award from the American Society of International Law. In 2024, she was the recipient of a Legal 500 lawyer of the year award in recognition of her outstanding work and contributions in the field of international law.

Ms Clooney is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, a Senior Fellow at the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute and an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She has authored the leading textbooks The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law and Freedom of Speech in International Law, published by Oxford University Press. And she is the co-founder of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which provides free legal support in defence of victims of human rights abuse in over 40 countries.

Lady Kennedy LT KC is one of the country’s most distinguished lawyers. She is a member of the Bar, a King’s Counsel, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and the Director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. 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. She is the Founder of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford in 2018. In 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Lady Kennedy evacuated 103 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.

Hina Jilani is a distinguished lawyer and human rights defender based in Pakistan. She has represented activists and political prisoners in landmark cases before the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Ms. Jilani co-founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the Women’s Action Forum, and Pakistan’s first all-female legal practice in 1980. She is the former UN Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders and is a member of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counterterrorism and Human Rights. In 2013, Ms. Jilani was appointed to The Elders, a leading group of global leaders established by Nelson Mandela, which works on global human rights and peace-building matters.

Professor Milo is a partner at Webber Wentzel attorneys in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has acted as lead attorney in a number of free speech and media freedom cases in courts and tribunals in South Africa, including on issues such as civil and criminal defamation, open justice, access to information, prior restraints, disinformation, hate speech, surveillance, intimidation of journalists, national security and privacy. He acted for the world-famous cartoonist Zapiro in the defamation claim brought by former president Jacob Zuma. Professor Milo is Adjunct Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the author of Defamation and Freedom of Speech published by Oxford University Press. He is an expert at Columbia University's Global Freedom of Expression initiative and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Media Law.

Justice Cepeda is the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, where he gave judgment in landmark freedom of expression and media cases before the Court. He also served as the Presidential Advisor for the Constituent Assembly of Colombia, preparing the articles that addressed freedom of expression and access to information in Colombia’s Draft Constitution. Justice Cepeda is President Emeritus of the International Association of Constitutional Law, and was part of the transitional justice group of experts that negotiated the peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla.

Catherine Anite is a human rights lawyer and the Founding Director of the Freedom of Expression Hub in Uganda. She has previously worked in senior positions both in Uganda and regionally, advancing the right to expression and media through advocacy and challenging government restrictions on press freedom in domestic and regional courts. She is currently representing applicants challenging Uganda’s criminal defamation and Tanzania’s sedition laws in the East African Court of Justice. She is also a Mandela Washington Fellow.

The Honourable Irwin Cotler is a former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Canada, who made the pursuit of international justice a priority. He is a noted expert on international and human rights law, having intervened in landmark Canadian Supreme Court cases on freedom of expression, and serving as counsel to a number of prisoners of conscience, including Nelson Mandela, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Liu Xiaobo, and Raif Badawi. He is the Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University. As a Member of Parliament, Mr. Cotler chaired the Inter-Parliamentary Groups for Human Rights in Iran and Justice for Sergei Magnitsky, and the Canadian section of the Parliamentarians for Global Action. In 2020, Mr.Cotler was appointed Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism.

Karuna Nundy is an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India and an international lawyer. She is a leading civil liberties expert and has argued and won some of India's most significant human rights cases, including constitutional challenges to online free speech restrictions. Ms. Nundy acts for media houses and journalists from various countries, and has advised a number of governments, civil society movements and the UN on legal policy and reform. She has assisted with the drafting of India’s Right to Food Act and new anti-rape laws, which were enacted following a series of high-profile cases in 2012.

Mr. Houry is the Executive Director of the Arab Reform Initiative, a leading think-tank working on democratic reforms in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA). He is an experienced human rights lawyer who worked for 13 years at Human Rights Watch, including as deputy director of the MENA division and later as director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program. He has written on a wide range of issues related to freedom of expression, including following the cases of numerous arrested bloggers and journalists as well as highlighting free speech restrictions imposed in the name of fighting terrorism.

Lady Tulkens is the former Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights. She is a leading expert on criminal and penal law, teaching as a university professor at the UCLouvain (Belgium) and abroad. Lady Tulkens has written on and heard a number of notable cases that have addressed free speech, freedom of religion, and national security. She was formerly an Independent Expert for the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and sat on the Human Rights Advisory Panel of the UN Mission in Kosovo. She is also an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.

Sarah Cleveland is the Louis Henkin Professor of Human and Constitutional Rights, and the faculty Co- Director of the Human Rights Institute, at Columbia Law School. She is a noted expert in the areas of human rights, national security, international law and U.S. foreign relations. She is a commissioner with the International Commission of Jurists and served as the Vice Chair of the UN Human Rights Committee and as the U.S. Independent Expert to the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. From 2009 to 2011, Professor Cleveland was Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department and in August 2021, Professor Cleveland was appointed as Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department.

Galina Arapova is the director and senior media lawyer at Mass Media Defence Centre in Russia. She has advised on many cases addressing defamation and freedom of expression before the Russian courts and the European Court of Human Rights. Ms. Arapova is a trustee of ARTICLE 19 and trustee of European Center for Press and Media Freedom and has advised the Council of Europe’s HELP program. She is also media law expert at the Swedish FOJO Media Institute, and is a member of the UNESCO Chair on Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Rights at the Russian State University "Higher School of Economics". She teaches Internet and media law at the School of Journalism of Voronezh State University.

Professor Park is a faculty member at the Korea University School of Law and a co-founder and director of Open Net Korea, where he specialises in freedom of expression and media monopolisation issues, and the enforcement of privacy, defamation and “fake news” laws. He serves as an academic board member of the Global Network Initiative and is an advisor to the Freedom Online Coalition. Professor Park has also served as legal advisor to the Korea Film Council and the Ministry of Culture, as a member of the National Media Council advising the country’s legislator, and as a commissioner of the Korean Communication Standards Commission regulating the country’s broadcasting and online media.

Robert D. Sack has, since August 6, 1998, been a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit with his chambers at 40 Foley Square. During his 33 years in practice, he specialized in national and international press law. He was a frequent lecturer and writer on press law topics and is the author of Sack On Defamation: Libel, Slander, And Related Problems. On May 1, 2008, Judge Sack was awarded the Federal Bar Council's Learned Hand Medal for excellence in federal jurisprudence. Judge Sack was an officer and director of the William F. Kerby and Robert S. Potter Fund, which assisted in funding the legal defense of journalists abroad, and a member of the advisory boards of the Bureau of National Affairs' Media Law Reporter and the ABA Forum Committee's Communications Lawyer. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia Law School and was a member of the Board of Trustees of Columbia University Seminars on Media and Society. He has, since 2001, been an Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

Professor Seong-Phil Hong, from the Republic of Korea, was a Member of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, from 2014-2021. Since 1995, he has taught International Law and Human Rights at Ewha and Yonsei Law Schools.

Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji is the former President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), serving from 2018-2021. During his term as President, he also served as a Judge in the Appeals Chamber of the Court until April 2021. He now serves as Distinguished International Jurist and a Special Adviser to the President of the Ryerson University Faculty of Law, Ontario, Canada, and as Visiting Professor at Stanford University Law School. Prior to joining the ICC, Judge Eboe-Osuji served as the Legal Advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Marietje Schaake is international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Between 2009 and 2019, Marietje served as a Member of European Parliament for the Dutch liberal democratic party where she focused on trade, foreign affairs, and technology policies. Marietje is and (Advisory) Board Member with a number of non-profits including MERICS, ECFR, ORF and AccessNow. She writes a monthly column for the Financial Times and a bi-weekly column for the Dutch NRC newspaper.

David Kaye is a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, the U.S. Member of the Venice Commission, and the 2023-2024 Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in Public International Law at Lund University, Sweden. From 2014 – 2020 he served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. In that role, he reported to the UN Human Rights Council and General Assembly on major issues facing the international community, including landmark reports on human rights and the internet, academic freedom, surveillance and digital security, access to information in international organizations, and the protection of journalists and whistleblowers. He also undertook official country missions addressing freedom of expression issues in Japan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Ecuador, Mexico, Ethiopia and Liberia.

David is also the author of the book, Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet (2019). His scholarship has appeared widely in international and American law journals and edited volumes, while he regularly writes for mainstream media outlets on international legal issues.

After earning his bachelor’s and law degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, David began his legal career with the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, including service as principal lawyer handling international humanitarian law and a three-year posting at the American Embassy in The Hague. He also co-founded the human rights law program at UCLA School of Law. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Trustee of ARTICLE 19, and a former member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law.

Benjamin Herman is the General Counsel of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He graduated from Brown University in 1991 with a degree in Russian Studies, earned a master’s degree in Czech Language and Literature from UC Berkeley in 1994, and graduated from Stanford Law School in 1998. After receiving his law degree, Herman spent four years as an associate at the New York office of Sullivan & Cromwell before joining RFE/RL in 2002.

Fabio Bertoni is the General Counsel of The New Yorker, where he has served since 2014. In this role, he oversees all legal matters related to the magazine’s acclaimed journalism and audio programming. He’s also served as counsel on Oscar-nominated documentaries and fiction films, and numerous National Magazine award-winning stories and series. In addition, he supervises litigation across U.S. and foreign jurisdictions, including in India, Italy, Turkey, and France, and appears in both state and federal court on behalf of the magazine.

Prior to joining The New Yorker, Bertoni served as Assistant General Counsel at HarperCollins Publishers, where he advised the Children’s Division on contract, copyright, and trademark matters and vetted non-fiction books by Amanda Knox, Dwyane Wade, and others. From 2006 to 2012, he was Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at ALM Media, overseeing legal matters for over 30 publications, including The American Lawyer and The New York Law Journal.

Bertoni also writes on legal and first amendment issues, including for The New Yorker’s website newyorker.com, and is a frequent speaker on legal issues. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, an M.S. from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, and a B.A. in English from Hunter College.

David McCraw serves as the lead newsroom lawyer for The New York Times. He has been at The Times for more than two decades and currently holds the position of Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. His team provides legal counsel to Times journalists on libel, leak investigations, subpoenas for sources, access to information, and the law of newsgathering. In 2023, Mr. McCraw and his newsroom legal team were honored with the Tony Mauro Media Lawyer Award from The American Lawyer for their advocacy on behalf of press freedom. In 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists presented him with the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.

Mr. McCraw oversees international security for Times journalists working in high-risk areas and has served as the crisis response manager when journalists have been kidnapped or detained abroad. He is also a co-founder of the Journalism Refugees Education Fund, a nonprofit that helps exiled media workers and their families pursue higher education in the U.S. and Canada.

In addition to advising the newsroom, Mr. McCraw is one of the nation’s most prolific litigators of Freedom of Information cases. The Times Legal Department has brought more than 130 FOI cases in the state and federal courts over the past 15 years. He is the author of the book “Truth in Our Times: Inside the Fight for Press Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts” - a first-person account of the legal battles that helped shape The Times’s coverage of Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, national security, and the rise of political partisanship in America. His pro bono work on freedom of information and press freedom has included projects in Montenegro, Yemen, Jordan, Cameroon, Kuwait, and various countries in Eastern Europe. Mr. McCraw is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches a course on press law. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Cornell University, and Albany Law School.

Gail Gove is the General Counsel of NBCUniversal’s News Group, leading legal support for NBC News, NBC and Telemundo Local, and Telemundo Network News. From 2020-2025, her News Group clients also included CNBC and MSNBC. Previously, Gail was the General Counsel of Reuters, Associate General Counsel of Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, a litigation and media law associate of the law firm Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells), and law clerk to the Honorable Constance Baker Motley of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Gail is an adjunct professor of media law at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a member of the Steering and Executive Committees of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. A graduate of New York University School of Law and Whitman College, Gail lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Dana Green is Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at The New York Times Company where she advises the newsroom and litigates freedom of information, access, defamation, privacy and copyright matters. She is the past Chair of the International Bar Association's Media Law Committee, a member of the board of the Media Law Resource Center, a member of the board of Cartoonists Rights Network International, and Secretary of the Journalism Refugee Education Fund, an organization that supports members of the media and their families who have been forced to become refugees as a result of their work. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of St Andrews in Scotland and her law degree from Columbia Law School, where she was a Hamilton Fellow.

Jacob P. Goldstein is VP & Associate General Counsel at Dow Jones & Company, Inc., where he has worked since 2013. He focuses on newsroom counseling and litigation for its publications and products, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Financial News, Factiva, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, Dow Jones Newswires, and OPIS. From 2010 to 2013, he was an associate at Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, LLP, primarily handling media-law litigation matters. Prior to that, Mr. Goldstein was the First Amendment Fellow in The New York Times Company’s legal department. He has taught media law as an adjunct at the Columbia Journalism School and Fordham Law School.

Mr. Goldstein currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Media Law Resource Center and was, from 2013 to 2016, on the MLRC Institute Board of Trustees. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, an M.St. from Oxford University, and a J.D. from Columbia University.

Before practicing law, he worked as a fact-checker at The New Yorker magazine. After graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Randy L. Shapiro has been Global Newsroom Counsel to Bloomberg News since August 2013. She is the senior newsroom lawyer to more than 2500 journalists around the globe. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Randy was the Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel of The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company. Prior to joining Newsweek in 1998, Randy was a commercial litigator with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, where she was a member of the team representing The New York Post, as well as the associate liaison to the firm’s Pro Bono Committee.

Randy is on the board (and is chair emeritus) of the Media Law Resource Center, a non-profit membership association for content providers in all media (and their defense lawyers), providing a wide range of resources on media and content law and policy issues. She also serves on the Steering Committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the leading pro bono legal services organization for journalists and newsrooms in the U.S, and is on the Legal Advisory Committee to the International Center for Journalists. She has served as co-chair of the Mentoring Committee of the New York Women’s Bar Association, and the chair of the Defamation and Privacy Subcommittee of the New York City Bar Association's Communications and Media Law Committee.

Jason Conti has served as the executive vice president and general counsel at Dow Jones since 2016. As general counsel, he oversees the company’s legal department, which includes a team of professionals handling labor and employment, commercial agreements, privacy, IP, M&A, litigation, compliance, media law and a variety of other specialties. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.”

Jason joined Dow Jones in 2008 as vice president and associate general counsel. In 2014, he took on the role of deputy general counsel at Dow Jones where he managed domestic and international litigation, and served as the company’s lead press attorney.

Before joining Dow Jones, Jason worked at Hogan & Hartson LLP where he defended media companies in defamation, privacy and copyright actions. Jason graduated from the University of Virginia in 1999 and from Boston College Law School in 2002.

Karen is Director of Access to Justice at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, overseeing the work of the Institute that creates tools to harness AI to expand access to justice for women and journalists globally, making it easier for vulnerable communities to access free legal support.

Karen has been a leading global freedom of expression advocate for 25 years, championing press freedom, journalist safety, and freedom of expression. Prior to her role at CFJ, Karen served as SVP, General Counsel, and Chief Compliance Officer at The Associated Press for 12 years, where she was responsible for overseeing all the legal operations of the news organization globally, as well as the company’s governance, risk, and compliance, with particular emphasis on threats to press freedom, journalist safety, content protection, crisis management, and AI governance.

Karen is Chair of the International Bar Association Media Law Committee, and is on the Steering Committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and also serves as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Media Development Investment Fund, the Media Advisory Council of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, and the Advisory Committee for Lawyers for Reporters. She is a frequent speaker at numerous international conferences on issues of international press freedom rights, and the intersection with AI governance, information integrity, human rights, and democracy, speaking at venues including UNESCO World Press Freedom Day, G20, and the International Journalism Festival. Karen has twice been honored as one of “America’s 50 Outstanding General Counsel” by the National Law Journal for championing press freedom rights. Prior to serving as General Counsel, Karen was chief newsroom lawyer at AP, and previously also held positions at the Tribune Company, and as a litigator at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, where she worked on landmark First Amendment cases. She clerked for the Honorable Kevin Thomas Duffy in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

Terence Keegan is Senior Counsel, Content and IP for Condé Nast, where he advises on newsgathering, pre-publication review, IP rights, and litigation for more than a dozen titles including Vanity Fair, WIRED, GQ, and Vogue. His recent projects include supporting the relaunch of WIRED Middle East and GQ Middle East and the development of newsroom AI policies. Previously, Terence was a partner at Miller Korzenik Sommers Rayman LLP, where he vindicated press and expressive freedoms in First Amendment, copyright, and trademark cases. Before becoming a lawyer Terence was a business journalist who covered Hollywood’s digital transformation.

Brandon Silver is an international human rights lawyer and founding Director of Policy and Projects at the Canada-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. In this capacity, Brandon serves on the legal teams of prisoners of conscience, working to secure freedom for dissidents around the world whose release can transform the movements and societies they lead. He has successfully contributed to the release and resettlement in Canada of several political prisoners and hostages. He helped facilitate the escape of Iranian dissidents, the rescue of a Kabul school being targeted by the Taliban, was a leader in the campaign to free Russian pro-democracy leader Vladimir Kara-Murza and is serving as counsel to families of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinians persecuted by Hamas. In 2016, the World Economic Forum named him a “Global Shaper,” and in 2022 he was named one of Canada’s “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers” by Canadian Lawyer Magazine. Brandon won the Magnitsky Award for ‘Outstanding Human Rights Lawyer’ in recognition of his commitment to human rights and his effectiveness in supporting human rights campaigns all around the world. Brandon, in the words of Sir Bill Browder, “is the most effective human rights lawyer, that you may never have heard of.”