Speaker details

Biography

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC is currently Director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI). Helena is a member of the House of Lords and chair of Justice, the British arm of the International Commission of Jurists. She is a bencher of Gray’s Inn and she was the chair of Charter 88 from 1992 to 1997, the Human Genetics Commission from 1998 to 2007 and the British Council from 1998 to 2004. She also chaired the Power Inquiry, which reported on the state of British democracy and produced the Power Report in 2006. She has received honours for her work on human rights from the governments of France and Italy and has been awarded more than 40 honorary doctorates. She has practiced at the Bar for 40 years in the field of criminal law and has conducted many of the leading cases in those years, including the Balcombe Street Siege, the Brighton bombing trial, the Guildford Four Appeal, the Michael Bettany Espionage case, the bombing of the Israeli embassy, the Jihadist fertiliser bomb plot, and the transatlantic bomb plot. She has championed law reform for women, especially relating to sexual and domestic violence and developed the defence of Battered Women's syndrome in the British courts. She was also the leading voice for equal opportunities in the legal profession for women. She authored a number of books on law reform, wrote the successful television series Blind Justice and became a well-known broadcaster on law and ethics during the eighties, presenting the BBC's Heart of the Matter. She has chaired the British Council and the UK Human Genetics Commission. She has been a member of the House of Lords for over 20 years, where she chairs the European Union Sub-Committee. She is chair of Justice, the British arm of the International Commission of Jurists. She is an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She has also been honoured by the Governments of France and Italy. She is the chair of the Booker Prize Foundation. She has stepped down as Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford and become the new Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam university. She has received honours for her work on human rights from the governments of France and Italy and has been awarded more than 40 honorary doctorates.