Taking stock of global challenges to the rule of law: threats to the independence of lawyers and judges

Federica D’Alessandra is the founding Executive Director of the Oxford Programme on International Peace and Security (IPS), Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict (ELAC). She serves as Counsel and Legal Adviser to government agencies and international organisations on the law of armed conflict, international criminal and human rights law, international organisations law, foreign relations law, international arbitration, and other matters of domestic and public international law. She is Co-Chair of the IBA War Crimes Committee, Vice-Chair of the IBA Human Rights Law Committee, and on the Council of the IBA Section on Public and Professional Interest (SPPI), as well as the SPPI Representative to the IBA Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI).

Navi Pillay (South Africa) served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.  She is currently serving as Judge Ad Hoc of the International Court of Justice in the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v Myanmar).  She is also the President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty based in Madrid, the President of the Advisory Council of the International Nuremburg Principles Academy and the Chair of the Quasi-Judicial Inquiry into Detention in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.  In 1995, after the end of apartheid, Pillay was appointed acting judge on the South African High Court, and in the same year was elected by the UN General Assembly to be judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served a total of eight years (1999-2003), the last four as President.  In 2003, she was appointed as a judge on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where she served on the Appeals Chamber until 2008.  Ms Pillay was the first woman to start a law practice in her home province of Natal in 1967 and acted as a defence lawyer for anti-apartheid activists, exposing torture, and helping establish rights for prisoners on Robben Island.

Mr. Diego García-Sayán was appointed Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers in December 2016. Mr. García-Sayán was a judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for two consecutive terms. During his tenure, he was elected Vice-President of the Court (2008-2009) and President of the Court for two consecutive terms (2009-2013).

Mr. García-Sayán has broad experience working for multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States. Previous responsibilities include: representative of the UN Secretary General for the Peace Agreements at El Salvador and for the subsequent verification of the agreements, reporting directly to the Security Council; member and Chairperson of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; member of the Redesign Panel on the United Nations System of Administration of Justice, appointed by the UN Secretary-General in 2006; Head of the Electoral Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Guatemala during the general elections (2007).

Mr. García-Sayán was Minister of Justice during the democratic transition in Peru and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was also President of the High Level Commission to design and implement the Museum of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion in Peru, inaugurated in December 2015.

Mr. García-Sayán is the author of several books on international law and development.

Lady Hale of Richmond took up appointment as President of The Supreme Court in September 2017, succeeding Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury. This following her appointment as Deputy President from June 2013. In October 2009 she became the first woman Justice of The Supreme Court.

In January 2004, Lady Hale became the United Kingdom's first woman Lord of Appeal in Ordinary after a varied career as an academic lawyer, law reformer, and judge. After graduating from Cambridge in 1966, she taught law at Manchester University from 1966 to 1984, also qualifying as a barrister and practising for a while at the Manchester Bar. She specialised in Family and Social Welfare law, was founding editor of the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, and authored a pioneering case book on 'The Family, Law and Society'.

In 1984 she was the first woman to be appointed to the Law Commission, a statutory body which promotes there form of the law. Important legislation resulting from the work of her team at the Commission includes the Children Act 1989, the Family Law Act 1996, and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. She also began sitting as an assistant recorder.

In 1994 she became a High Court judge, the first to have made her career as an academic and public servant rather than a practising barrister. In 1999 she was the second woman to be promoted to the Court of Appeal, before becoming the first woman Law Lord.

She retains her links with the academic world as Visitor of Girton College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor of Kings College London. She previously served as Chancellor of the University of Bristol. A home maker as well as a judge, she thoroughly enjoyed helping the artists and architects create a new home for The Supreme Court.

NERI JAVIER COLMENARES, is a human rights lawyer and has argued before the Philippine Supreme Court several times on constitutional and human rights issues. His latest oral arguments before the High Court was when he challenged the constitutionality of the Philippine Anti-Terrorism Law for violating the people’s constitutional rights.

He was a three-term member of the Philippine Congress and authored several laws including the Philippine Anti-Torture Law, the Anti-Enforced Disappearance Law and the US$ 200 Million compensation for victims of human rights violations during Pres. Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law.

He was a student leader during in the early 80’s and became one of the youngest political prisoners in the Philippines when was arrested at the age of 18 for demanding the returned of student councils and student papers which were banned by the martial law government.  He was heavily tortured and was imprisoned for a total of four years.

He is currently the Chairman of the National Union of Peoples Lawyers (NUPL) a national association of human rights lawyers in the Philippines and the Vice-President of the Confederation of Lawyers in Asia Pacific (COLAP), as well as member of the IBAHRI Council.  He is also a Bureau Member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL). He was a National Officer of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) in 2021.  He lectures in the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) for lawyers on International Humanitarian Law and the ICC (IHL), Discovery Procedures, Oral Advocacy in Court Litigations and Impeachment Jurisprudence.  He was awarded by 2020 Human Rights Award of the International Bar Association.

International Chair of the RWCHR

Irwin Cotler is the International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and longtime Member of Parliament, and an international human rights lawyer.

A constitutional and comparative law scholar, Professor Cotler is the author of numerous publications and seminal legal articles and has written upon and intervened in landmark Charter of Rights cases in the areas of free speech, freedom of religion, minority rights, peace law and war crimes justice.

As Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Irwin Cotler initiated the first-ever comprehensive reform of the Supreme Court appointment process and helped make it the most gender-representative Supreme Court in the world; appointed the first-ever aboriginal and visible minority justices to the Ontario Court of Appeal; initiated the first-ever law on human trafficking; crafted the Civil Marriage Act, the first-ever legislation to grant marriage equality to gays and lesbians; issued Canada’s first National Justice Initiative Against Racism and Hate; quashed more wrongful convictions in a single year than any prior Minister, and made the pursuit of international justice a government priority.

A leading Parliamentarian on the global stage, he has been Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran; Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group of Justice for Sergei Magnitsky; Chair of the All-Party Save Darfur Parliamentary Coalition; Chair, Canadian section, of the Parliamentarians for Global Action and Member of its international council.