Lord Neuberger and Amal Clooney announce Media Freedom Legal Panel members
12 Jul 2019 11:42 AM
The Chair and Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel announced the legal experts who will join them to develop legal frameworks to help protect media freedom.
Lord Neuberger, Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts, and Amal Clooney, Deputy Chair of the Panel, yesterday announced the composition of the independent High Level Panel of Legal Experts. The panel will convene for the first time at the Global Conference to Defend Media Freedom.
The High Level Panel is an independent body convened at the request of the UK and Canadian governments and chaired by Lord Neuberger, former President of the UK Supreme Court.
Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt yesterday said:
Stemming the tide of violence against journalists requires political will, diplomatic pressure and a legal framework to support countries to improve.
The independent High Level Panel of Experts consists of the best legal minds from across the globe. Together they will develop and promote legal mechanisms to help prevent and reverse media abuses.
International human rights lawyer and Special Envoy on Media Freedom, Amal Clooney yesterday said:
The High Level Panel of Legal Experts brings together leading international experts on media freedom, including judges, lawyers and academics, from all over the world. I look forward to working alongside them to develop and advance legal frameworks that can help to protect media freedom around the world.
The independent High Level Panel of Legal Experts will examine legal and policy initiatives that states can adopt to improve media freedom including by:
- proposing legal and other initiatives that can be taken by governments to ensure existing international obligations relating to media freedom are enforced
- advising on any new international commitments by governments that would help to prevent and reverse media abuses
- supporting governments to repeal legislation that is outdated or restricts media freedom
- promoting best practice and model legislation to protect a vibrant free press
The Global Campaign for Media Freedom aims to shine a spotlight on media abuses and reverse the trend of violence against journalists.
The High Level Panel of Legal Experts are:
- Lord David Neuberger, UK (Chair)
- The Honourable Irwin Cotler, Canada
- Hina Jilani, Pakistan
- Dario Milo, South Africa
- Amal Clooney, UK (Deputy Chair)
- Sarah Cleveland, US
- Baroness Helena Kennedy, UK
- Nadim Houry, Lebanon
- Can Yeğinsu, Turkey/UK
- Karuna Nundy, India
- Galina Arapova, Russia
- Justice Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa, Colombia
- Professor Kyung-Sin Park, South Korea
- Baroness Françoise Tulkens, Belgium
- Ms Catherine Anite, Uganda
- Judge Robert D. Sack, US
Background
Global Media Freedom Initiative High-Level Panel of Legal Experts 2019 to 2020: biographies PDF, 4.01MB, 6 pages
Pictures from the Media Freedom conference are available on wires and FCO social media accounts: FCO Twitter and FCO Flickr.
Further information
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