Bill was once the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia until being decalred “a threat to national security” in 2005 for exposing corruption in Russian state-owned companies.

In 2008, Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, uncovered a massive fraud committed by Russian government officials stealing US $230 million of state taxes and was subsequently arrested, imprisoned without trial and systematically tortured.

Sergei Magnitsky died in prison on 16 November 2009. Ever since, Bill Browder has led the global Magnitsky campaign for governments around the world to impose targeted visa bans and asset freezes on human rights abusers and highly corrupt officials, introducing the passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Accountability Act in 2012, & the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act 2016. This has since been adopted by 11 countries, including USA, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

Mary Lawlor has been the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders since 1 May 2020. She was born and educated in Ireland and is an Adjunct Professor of Business and Human Rights at the Centre for Social Innovation, School of Business in Trinity College Dublin. She was the founder and director of Front Line Defenders (2001-2016) and Director of the Irish Section of Amnesty International (1988 to 2000). Among her awards are the French insignia of Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur and the Franco-German Award for Human Rights and the Rule of Law.

Ivana Bacik is the Leader of the Labour Party and TD for Dublin Bay South. She was first elected as a Senator on the Dublin University panel in 2007, and was re-elected at each subsequent Seanad election before being elected to the Dáil in July 2021. A lifelong feminist, Ivana has a long track record of campaigning on feminist and human rights issues. In 2018 she was Chairperson of the Oireachtas Vótáil100 Programme, the series of events run to celebrate the centenary of women’s suffrage in Ireland. She is now the Chairperson of the Special Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality, which is charged with considering the recommendations in the Report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality. For many years, Ivana was the Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College Dublin, and has published extensively on criminal law, criminology, human rights, constitutional law and related matters.

Eoin is a Partner in FP Logue LLP, a niche law firm specialising in environmental and planning law.  The firm has a busy practice representing communities and members of the public in planning and environmental litigation across the State, including before the Court of Justice.  He has represented clients in a number of SLAPP related proceedings in the Irish courts.

Eoin has a Masters in Environmental Law from Queens University Belfast.  Eoin is a tutor in environmental and energy law with the Law Society of Ireland, and is a member of the Planning and Environmental Law Committee of the Law Society of Ireland.

Lesley Caplin is Of Counsel at Dentons Ireland LPP where she leads the media defence practice.  An experienced media advisor, Lesley has been involved in a number of high-profile actions including O’Brien -v- MGN, Hickey -v- Associated Newspapers and Robbins -v- BuzzFeed,  and her team advises a wide range of clients in respect of defamation, contempt of court, privacy, regulatory compliance and online safety.  Lesley is rated as a Rising Star by Legal 500.

Sarah has led Article 19’s Europe and Central Asia team since 2019, which defends the human rights to freedom of expression and information through our projects with partners and advocacy across the region. Sarah sits on the Steering Committees of the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) and the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) and the grant making Legal Affairs Committee of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF). Sarah has consulted for the UN OHCHR, UNHCR, the OSCE and Oxford and Harvard universities on issues relating to freedom of expression, asylum and forced migration. She is an expert at Columbia University’s Free Expression Centre and a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Oxford University and BPP Law School. 

Twitter: @sarah_m_clarke         

Shauna Corr is the environment correspondent for Reach Ireland, reporting on issues including the environment, climate, biodiversity, social justice, health, food security and cost of living. She sees a direct correlation between environmental issues and those of society as a whole. She is passionate about giving a voice to communities that want to build a more healthy, peaceful, inclusive and sustainable society through the environmental lens and has worked for over a decade to give them a voice. Injustice is her biggest driver. Shauna often faces challenges with the lack of openness and transparency from government and decision makers, and the dislike of negative press or perceived media interference on the part of companies and officials operating across the island of Ireland and further afield. She has reported on issues, including but not limited to, UN COP conferences, climate related hunger, extractivism, pollution, environmental degradation, threats to biodiversity and health as well as government failures to deal with these challenges.

Kieran Cummins has obtained solicitor qualifications in Ireland, England and Wales. He has advocated on issues of sustainability and compliance with EU and domestic law for many years. He became the first Irish citizen to refer a case to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee [ACCC] in Geneva in 2013. Kieran has been subjected to aggressive SLAPP litigation due to his work on calling out illegal, unauthorised or non-compliant quarries. 

Kieran has held a seat on the Human Rights committee of the Law Society for many years and also frequently delivers papers on environmental related topics at the annual law conference in UCC. He also serves as president of the Meath Archaeological and Historical Society for a number of years. In 2015, he founded Eco Advocacy, which is an NGO that pursues issues of enforcement together with proper planning and sustainable development.

John founded the Irish chapter of Transparency International (TI) in 2004 and has led TI Ireland’s anti-corruption research and whistleblowing support programmes since then. He is author or researcher on numerous reports on transparency and corruption prevention as well as guidance on the topic of whistleblower protection, ethics and anti-corruption standards. An ethics and communications specialist by training, John is also a PhD candidate researching professional anti-corruption practice at the University of Galway.  

Bill Emmott is a writer and consultant best known for his 13 years as editor in chief of The Economist from 1993 to 2006. He is now variously chair of Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub for Arts & Humanities, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, of the Japan Society of the UK, and of the International Trade Institute. He is the author of 14 books on Japan, Asia, the 20th Century and Italy, the latest of which were “The Fate of the West” (2017) and “Japan’s Far More Female Future” (2020). He was also presenter and co-author of a documentary film about Italy, “Girlfriend in a Coma” (2013), broadcast on BBC4, Sky Italia and La7. Since 2018, he has lived in Killiney, south Dublin.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is a barrister and international human rights lawyer. She has acted in many landmark human rights cases over the past 20 years, including on media freedom, violence against women and children’s rights. 

Caoilfhionn has particular expertise in accountability for crimes against journalists. She leads the international legal teams for Jimmy Lai, imprisoned in Hong Kong; for the bereaved family of Daphne Caruana Galizia, assassinated in Malta in 2017; and (jointly with Amal Clooney) for Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist in the Philippines. Caoilfhionn has given expert evidence on these issues to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Parliamentary inquiries in the UK, Australia and Council of Europe, and UNESCO. 

Caoilfhionn is also Ireland’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection and sits part-time as a Coroner in England. In 2017 she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for her “outstanding commitment to enabling the Human Rights Act’s protections.”

Mark Hanna is assistant professor in media law at Durham Law School, Durham University. His research focuses on defamation law and the privacy tort. He has a particular interest in the legal regulation of political speech under post-conflict conditions, and previous research focused on defamation law reform in Northern Ireland.

Neasa Hourigan is the Green Party TD for Dublin Central. Neasa is the Green Party Finance & Health Spokesperson. She has a professional background as a specialist in creating sustainable communities and was a university lecturer in environmental development and design.

Karlin Lillington is an award-winning journalist and columnist with the Irish Times, focusing on technology, with a special interest in its political, social, business and cultural aspects. She also has written for The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired.com, and Salon.com. She served on the board of Irish national broadcaster RTÉ and is an advisory board member for FuJo, the Institute for Future Media and Journalism at Dublin City University. She holds a PhD in Anglo-Irish Literature from Trinity College Dublin.

Tom Lyons is the chief executive of The Currency. Named Business Journalist of the Year on three occasions, he won plaudits and respect for his unflinching coverage of Ireland’s boom, bust and recovery. In 2019 he successfully defended a defamation action taken by Denis O’Brien. He is an experienced broadcaster and the co-author of two books.

Sam McBride is the Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Independent.  He was worked for the BBC, The Economist and is a regular presence on radio and television, giving analysis of events which impact on Northern Irish politics. His 2019 book Burned: The Inside Story of the Cash-for-Ash Scandal and Northern Ireland’s Secretive New Elite became a Sunday Times and Irish Times bestseller and was nominated for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize.

Eoghan McNeill is co-founder of The Ditch, a publication that “has lit fires under the government”, says the Irish Times. He’s from Donegal, south of the Gap, and his news, feature and culture writing has appeared in the Irish Independent, China Daily and the Cork News. Eoghan’s into stories that show how power operates, the works of Albert Camus and Luka Dončić’s one-legged fadeaway.

Jessica Ní Mhainín is head of policy and campaigns at Index on Censorship. She has led Index’s work on strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) since early 2020 and has been an active contributor to the work of the Coalition against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE). She has co-chaired the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition since it was established in January 2021. She has previous experience in international human rights advocacy through her work at Front Line Defenders and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). 

Dr Eoin O’Dell is an associate professor of law in Trinity College Dublin. He researches and publishes primarily in the fields of freedom of expression, and private and commercial law – and especially where they overlap in IP, IT and cyberlaw.

He has been Chair of the Fellows in Trinity College Dublin, President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers, a Member of the Council and Executive of the Society of Legal Scholars in the UK and Ireland, and Editor of the Dublin University Law Journal. He was a member of the group which advised the Department of Justice on the Defamation Act, 2009; he was a member of the Advisory Group on a European Civil Code which advised the EU Commission on common principles of European private law; and he was a member of the Statute Law Revision Committee advising the Department of Public Service and Reform on the process of revising the Irish Statute Book. He was Chair of the Copyright Review Group which presented its final report to the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in October 2013. He is a member of the Government Data Forum, established by the Minister of State with responsibility for Data Protection to advise Government on the challenges that arise from the growth in the digital economy.

He is legal advisor to the Digital Repository of Ireland. He blogs at http://www.cearta.ie and tweets @cearta

Malachi O’Doherty is a Belfast based writer and journalist. He is author of several books on Northern Irish history and politics, most recently Can Ireland Be One? (Merrion) and the forthcoming How To Fix Northern Ireland (Atlantic).  He writes weekly columns for the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish Post. He has had a long career in print and broadcast journalism through the troubles and the peace process and is a frequent commentator on Northern Irish affairs.

Maria Ordzhonikidze is director of the Justice for Journalists Foundation. Maria has designed and managed a number of public awareness, advocacy, human rights and crisis management campaigns. She is a sociologist and security specialist and authors research and articles, speaks and teaches on subjects including sociological and political trends, freedom of speech, international relations and security. Maria is a frequent speaker at international events and a lecturer in Dzhemal Media Safety Academy and Free University.

Declan Owens is an environmental lawyer and CEO of Ecojustice Ireland, a social enterprise, which has a mission to link communities and workers to secure a Just Transition on the island, and internationally.  He is also a director of Climate Craic CIC, which uses fun and festivals to convey a positive and inclusive approach to ecojustice through the arts.  Declan is an expert adviser to the UN’s Harmony with Nature Agency, advocating for the Rights of Nature. He is on the Climate Justice group of the Law Society of Northern Ireland and is part of the Environmental Justice Network Ireland.  

Eve Patten is the Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute. She is also a Professor in the School of English and a Fellow of Trinity, specialising in nineteenth and twentieth-century British and Irish literature. She is the author of Ireland, Revolution, and the English Modernist Imagination (Oxford, 2022) and editor of Irish Literature in Transition, 1940-1980 (Cambridge, 2020).

Elspeth Payne is the Coordinator of the Schuler Democracy Forum in the Trinity Long Room Hub. The Forum applies research in the Arts and Humanities to questions about democracy, media, and technology. Working with media practitioners and civil society organisations, the Forum is committed to translating research into real-world practice and activity. Along with Mark Little, Ellie is the co-host of the Forum’s History of the Future podcast (available here).

From Donegal, Mark Tighe is a senior news reporter with the Sunday Independent which he joined June 2022. As well as covering legal affairs, he specialises in investigative reporting. He has won six Justice Media awards from the Law Society for his legal reporting. He has won two Smurfit Business School journalism awards for his reporting on business stories.

He was named News Reporter of the Year at the NewsBrands Ireland Journalism Awards in 2018 and 2019. He won the Journalist of the Year award in 2019 for a string of exclusive stories that revealed large-scale financial mismanagement in the Football Association of Ireland. With Paul Rowan he co-authored the book Champagne Football, the 2020 Irish Sports Book of the Year.