Biography:Mónica Feria Tinta

International Lawyer Monica Feria Tinta, awarded the Gruber Justice Prize 2007

Mónica Feria Tinta is a leading public international lawyer at the Bar of England & Wales. She practises as a barrister from 20 Essex Street Chambers. "The Lawyer" magazine featured her in its "Hot 100" 2020 list, as amongst “the most daring, innovative and creative lawyers” in the United Kingdom. In 2000 she became the first and only Peruvian-born lawyer to receive the Diploma of The Hague Academy of International Law in history , the year Professor Pierre-Marie Dupuy delivered the General Course. Her litigation work led to the first international human rights court decision ordering the prosecution of a former Head of State for crimes under international law. In 2006 she was awarded the Inge Genefke International Award for her work as an international lawyer and in 2007 she became the youngest lawyer to be awarded the Gruber Justice Prize, for her contributions advancing the cause of justice as delivered through the legal system; an honour she received at a ceremony chaired by US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Washington DC.

Among the members of the selection panel awarding the Justice Prize that year was Justice Sandra Day O'Connor from the US Supreme Court. Past awardees of the Gruber Justice Prize include Thomas Buergenthal (former ICJ judge), Arthur Chaskalson (former President of the Constitutional Court of South Africa), Michael Kirby (former Justice of the High Court of Australia), and Justice Rosalie Abella (from the Supreme Court of Canada).

Feria-Tinta has the distinction of being the first Latin American lawyer to be Called to and practising at the Bar of England and Wales. She is also a member of the American Society of International Law. In 2019 she was amongst the 64 distinguished women barristers selected to feature in the celebratory exhibition of a Century of Women in Law at the Middle Temple. The exhibition marked 100 years since women were permitted to enter the legal profession in England & Wales, led by Helena Normanton, the first woman to practise as a barrister in England.

More recently she made news as acting Counsel in the first-world climate change litigation brought by peoples in low-lying islands against a State, before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Torres Strait Islanders case.

Education and career

Feria-Tinta studied international law at the London School of Economics receiving her LL.M with merit in 1996. She received further training at the Institut International des Droits de l'Homme in Strasbourg (1997) and at the Institute of Human Rights of the Abo Academy in Turko (Finland) under the sponsorship of the European Commission and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2001. In 2000 she was among the 24 lawyers selected worldwide to be trained by members of the International Law Commission in all areas of General International Law, taking part in the thirty-sixth session of the International Law Seminar in Geneva, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 54/111, under a United Nations Fellowship. Her areas of expertise include international dispute settlement, immunities, treaty law, recognition of state and governments under international law, self-determination under international law, boundary delimitation, law of the sea, territory, investment law, human rights, use of force, laws of war, State Responsibility (inter alia State Responsibility for crimes against humanity, genocide, extrajudicial executions and torture); command responsibility for gross human rights violations; victim rights under international law.

After teaching Public International Law at the London School of Economics as a Teaching Assistant to Sir Christopher Greenwood (then Professor at LSE), Feria-Tinta spent a year as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge, at the time under the Directorship of former Whewell Professor of International Law, James Crawford.

As a practising lawyer Monica Feria-Tinta has advised States, state-owned entities, non self-governing peoples, governments in exile, international organisations, non-governmental organisations, indigenous peoples, companies, and individuals, in the area of public international law. She started her practising career working for international tribunals; first at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and a year later, at the International Court of Justice, gaining experience in the adjudication of complex international litigation both entailing individual international criminal responsibility and State responsibility. She acted as legal advisor for a State Delegation taking part in the negotiations of the Rome Statute, at the Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court in Rome. In litigation, she has appeared as counsel before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and has advised parties before the International Court of Justice, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, UN CEDAW Committee, Court of Appeal (England) and Court of Appeal (Hong Kong). Expert opinions provided in different international fora have included an Amicus Curiae to the Constitutional Court of Colombia (on the Special Jurisdiction for Peace), a joint Amicus Curiae with Professor John Dugard (former Special Rapporteur on Diplomatic Protection at the ILC) for the Appeals Court of Amsterdam, in the Bouterse case, and expert comments on behalf of the Redress Trust to the Final Report of the UN Independent Expert on the Right of Reparation for Victims of Serious Violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Cherif Bassiouni.

Her advocacy work before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights contributed to pivotal changes in the Inter-American regional system. Monica Feria-Tinta pioneered the rights of victims in the Inter-American system challenging for the first time the use of State appointed Ad hoc Judges in individual petitions before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which led to the end of a practice that had existed for nearly two decades. She also advocated for the need of a Victims' Fund for legal aid before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to ensure access to justice and equality of arms for victims. A Victims Legal Assistance Fund before the ICHR was finally created in 2010.

She litigated the first international human rights case in the world on the protection of the rights of the child in times of war and obtained the first international binding decision on gender justice in the history of adjudication of the Inter-American region, initiating the feminisation of human rights law in the Americas. Feria's litigation work marked a before, and an after, in the manner in which the American Convention on Human Rights is interpreted and applied. In particular, she introduced a gender perspective in the interpretation of human rights in the Americas, which the Inter-American Court on Human Rights upheld, and has followed since. She secured the first finding of rape by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as a violation of the American Convention on Human Rights, and brought the definition of rape in the Americas in line with international law. In addition, Feria Tinta's pleadings prompted the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to hold a State accountable for violations of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women ("Convention of Belém do Pará") for the first time in eleven years, since its entry into force. Most notably, her litigation work on behalf of hundreds of prisoners led to a landmark case on prisoners' rights where the Inter-American Court ruled on a massacre taking place in a prison and on torture practices that had never been tested before an international human rights tribunal, ordering as a consequence, the prosecution of a former Head of State for crimes against humanity.

Her forensic experience investigating and documenting torture in international contentious cases, was used as model to train advocates worldwide, representing victims of torture, by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims. In 2009 she was commissioned to take part on a project by UNESCO entitled "Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Law's Duty to the Poor" (The Philosopher's Library Series) contributing with a thorough study on litigation in Regional Human Rights Systems (European, Inter-American and African) on the justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Feria Tinta has been a speaker in International law in different fora worldwide including Lancaster House (UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office), the Human Rights Caucus of the US Congress, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, the University of Oxford (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies), the United Nations (Geneva), Trinity College, Dublin (Distinguished Speakers Series), the British Institute of Comparative and International Law, Universidad de los Andes Law Faculty (Colombia), and Georgetown University Law Center. She has been a guest lecturer at Guangxi Normal University, Faculty of Law, China, University of Cambridge (LCIL Executive Course on Investment Law and Arbitration) and at the Master Program of the Institute Universitaire Kurt Bosch-University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

She has taken part in expert missions to Guatemala (2015) Myanmar (2016) and has trained advocates on international law in South Africa (2017), Colombian lawyers on judicial processes in the context of transitional justice (2017) and members of the Honduran Bar on international arbitration (2016).

In 2018, Feria-Tinta was appointed to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's World Commission on Environmental Law, the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it (Oceans, Coasts and Coral Reefs Specialist Group and Climate Change Specialist Group).

Cases

Arbitral appointments include:-

• Presiding Arbitrator, Investment Arbitration under the Energy Charter Treaty - (Chair, appointed by Arbitral Institution)

Selected Cases include:-

• Amicus Curiae, Gençay Bastimar v Turkey, CCPR Case No. 3592/2019, before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (for the BHRC of England & Wales) – (with leave by the UN HRC)

• Torres Strait Islanders v Australia, UN Human Rights Committee (for the Torres Strait Islanders)
• Montara Oil Spill case (concerning transboundary harm/Australia), UN Special Proceedings (for 13 West Timor regencies)
• Advised non-self-governing peoples on the UN Charter, decolonisation, and statehood.
• Adrian Favela case (concerning enforced disappearance/Mexico), UN Special Proceedings (for the claimants)
• Advised a government on exile on its position under international law, treaty interpretation, statehood and self-determination.
• Case regarding the Constitutionality of Legislative Act No 1, 2017 which establishes the Special Jurisdiction for Peace to prosecute crimes during the internal armed conflict in Colombia, Constitutional Court of Colombia - Amicus Curiae brief on Command Responsibility and Corporate Responsibility (Article 24 and Article 16 respectively)
• Legal Consequences of the separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 (Request for Advisory Opinion), International Court of Justice (Application on behalf of seeking intervener under Article 66 (2) of the ICJ Statute)
• Gareth Henry v Jamaica, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Advising the claimant)
• Eloise Mukami Kimathi and others and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ('The Kenyan Emergency Group Litigation'), High Court of Justice (for the defendant)
• The Enrica Lexie Incident (Italy v India), International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (advising Italy)
• Case of J v Peru, Inter-American Court of Human rights (for the claimant)
• Communication No 2034/2011 v Canada, UN Human Rights Committee (for the claimants)
• Case of Miguel Castro Castro Prison Massacre vs Peru, Inter-American Court of Human Rights (for the claimant)
• Caso of the Gomez Paquiyauri Brothers vs Peru, Inter-American Court of Human Rights (for the claimants)
• LaGrand case (Federal Republic of Germany v United States of America), International Court of Justice (advising Germany)
• Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro), International Court of Justice (Advising the ICJ)
• Prosecutor v Timohir Blaskic, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (Advising Chamber Trial I)
• Bouterse case, Amsterdam Court of Appeals - Joint Amicus Curiae brief with Professor John Dugard, former Special Rapporteur on Diplomatic Protection at the United Nations International Law Commission

Selected publications

• Foreign State Immunity and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards in English Courts (Book, Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
• 'Banking and Human Rights: World Bank Group immunities after Jam et al v International Finance Corp’ in the Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation (JIBLR) (2019) issue 34 (10).
• 'International Environmental Law for the 21st Century', Anuario Colombiano de Derecho Internacional Vol 21, 2019.
• 'The Rise of Environmental Law in International Dispute Resolution: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Issues a Landmark Advisory Opinion on the Environment and Human Rights’ Yearbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford University Press 11 October 2018).
• 'Bolivia and Chile in The Hague: Can They Quiet the Ghosts of the Pacific War, and Thrive together in the 21st Century?’ Opinio Juris (27 March 2018)
• ‘Sovereign Debt Enforcement in English Courts: Ukraine and Russia meet in the Court of Appeal in US $3 Billion Eurobonds Dispute’ (2018) 33(2) Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation (with A. Wooder).
• ‘Like Oil and Water? Human Rights in Investment Arbitration in the Wake of Philip Morris v. Uruguay’ (2017) 34(4) Journal of International Arbitration 601
• 'Extra-Territorial Claims in the “Spider’s Web” of the Law? UK Supreme Court Judgment in Ministry of Defence v Iraqi Civilians’ EJIL Talk! (25 May 2016)
• 'The South China Sea: Chess Arbitration?’ EJIL: Talk! (10 August 2016).
• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Litigation Tool before the Inter-American System of Protection of Human Rights" in Litigating the Rights of the Child, T Liefaard and J. E. Doek (ed), Springer, 2014 ISBN:978-94-017-9444-2
• 'Litigation in Regional Human Rights Systems on Economics, Social and Cultural Rights against Poverty" in "Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right" Volume 4, 2009 UNESCO Publishing; Van Bueren (ed), Series Editor: Pierre Sane.
• The Landmark Rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the Rights of the Child, (Book) Brill Nijhoff, Series International Studies in Human Rights, 2008 ISBN:9789004165137.
• "Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Inter-American System of Protection of Human Rights: Beyond Traditional Paradigms and Notions"; Human Rights Quarterly, Volume 29, Number 2, May 2007, pp.431–459.
• "Primer caso internacional sobre violencia de género en la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: El caso del penal Miguel Castro Castro; un hito histórico para Latinoamérica." CEJIL journal year II, No. 3 (2006)
• "La Responsabilidad Internacional del Estado en el Sistema Interamericano de Protección de Derechos Humanos a 25 años del funcionamiento de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: Las Lecciones del Caso Hermanos Gómez Paquiyauri. UNAM Ihttp://biblio.juridicas.unam.mx/libros/5/2496/8.pdf
• "La Víctima ante la Corte interamericana de Derechos Humanos a 25 años de su funcionamiento"; Revista IIDH, instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos 43.
• "Due Process and the Right to Life in the Context of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations: Arguing the LaGrand Case", EJIL 2001.
• "Commanders on Trial: The Blaškić. Case and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility under International Law", Netherlands International Law Review / Volume 47 / Issue 03 / December 2000, pp 293–322.
• “Individual Human Rights v. State Sovereignty: The Case of Peru’s Withdrawal from the Contentious Jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights” Leiden Journal of International Law (2000), 13: 985-996 Cambridge University Press.
• M. Feria-Tinta and G. Verdirame, ‘The Entry into Force of the Human Rights Act, 1998’, 4 International Law Association Forum (2000) 213-217.
• "The Right to Seek Asylum and the Authority of International Refugee Law: The Case of the United Kingdom", African Yearbook of International Law, Volume 8, 2000.