Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC

International human rights lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC has acted in many leading human rights cases in the UK, Europe and internationally over the past 25 years. She has expertise in arbitrary detention, and has secured the freedom of over 75 imprisoned journalists, bloggers, cartoonists and activists wrongly imprisoned in countries including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Russia, and Equatorial Guinea. She is an expert on journalists’ safety and accountability for crimes against journalists, and she has given testimony on these issues to Parliamentary committees in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and the Council of Europe.

Her caseload includes leading the international legal teams for Jimmy Lai; for the bereaved family of Daphne Caruana Galizia; for hundreds of BBC News Persian and Iran International journalists targeted extra-territorially by Iran; and (jointly with Amal Clooney) for Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist from the Philippines.

She is a commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission; Ireland’s special rapporteur on child protection; a board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists; and an adjunct full professor at University College Dublin. In 2023 she was awarded the President of Ireland’s Distinguished Service Award.